New Queens Borough Hall Statue Will Honor Billie Holiday

KEW GARDENS, QUEENS — The city will install a monument to jazz singer Billie Holiday by Queens Borough Hall as part of an initiative to honor trailblazing women and eliminate the gender disparity in city statues.

The Holiday statue is one of four new monuments announced Wednesday by First Lady Chirlane McCray and former Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen under their "She Built NYC" project. The women were chosen from a list of more than 300 suggestions by the public. The other monuments will honor Elizabeth Jennings Graham, Dr. Helen Rodriguez Trías and Katherine Walker. Just five of the 150 statues in New York depict women.

"We cannot tell the story of New York City without recognizing the invaluable contributions of the women who helped build and shape it," First Lady Chirlane McCray said in a statement. "Public monuments should tell the full history and inspire us to realize our potential – not question our worth. In honoring these four trailblazers today, New Yorkers will have the opportunity to see powerful women who made history receive the recognition they deserve."

Born Eleanora Fagan Gough in 1915, Holiday is among the world's most celebrated jazz singers. She was a key member of New York's "swing sing" jazz scene and one of the first black women to sign with a white orchestra. Her protest song "Strange Fruit" was named the song of the century by Time Magazine in 1999. Holiday won four posthumous Grammy Awards. She lived in Addisleigh Park and Flushing in Queens.

Artist selection for each new monument will begin by the end of this year, and the monuments will be built in 2021 and 2022.

The city will work with the Museum of the City of New York to choose potential future monuments honoring groups of women.