ICYMI: Nazi Collaborator's Name To Be Erased From Broadway Sidewalk

FINANCIAL DISTRICT, NY — A granite strip bearing the name of Nazi collaborator Phillipe Pétain will be removed from a New York City sidewalk – one of the first "symbols of hate" to be erased in a citywide purge.

De Blasio said Wednesday that the city would launch a 90 day review of "all symbols of hate" on city property in the wake of violent rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia last weekend as neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups protested the planned removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee from a park.

The hate groups' protests grew violent and counter-protester Heather Heyer was killed when James Alex Fields allegedly drove his car into a group of anti-racist demonstrators.

Since Charlottesville, cities around the country have acted quickly to remove other monuments to Confederate or hateful figures. Pétain, a Nazi collaborator in France during World War II, was sentenced to life in prison after the war for his work leading the Vichy government.

He also helped to handcraft an anti-Semitic law that barred all Jews in the country from many public sector jobs and other parts of society, according to historian Serge Klarsfeld.

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Pétain's name is on a Broadway sidewalk near Morris Street. He is part of the so-called "Canyon of Heroes," which features the names of the more than 200 people or groups who were honored with a ticker-tape parade by New York City. Pétain was greeted with cheering crowds when he visited New York City in October 1931 – before he worked alongside the Nazis.

The project to add the names of honorees to the streets began in 2003 and was largely completed by 2004.

In an app created by the Downtown Alliance mapping out each name along Broadway, it notes that "New Yorkers saluted Pétain for his heroism during World War I, long before he earned a death sentence (later commuted to life imprisonment) for collaboration with the Nazis in World War II."

It was not immediately clear when Pétain's name would be removed.

Lead image via Ciara McCarthy / Patch.