A block in Brooklyn now carries the name of a rapper who never let a single genre hold him. On Saturday, July 25, 2026, Putnam Avenue in the Bed-Stuy neighbourhood was co-named ODB Jones Way, honouring Ol' Dirty Bastard — born Russell Tyrone Jones — the Wu-Tang Clan founding member who died from an overdose in 2004 at the age of 35.

The ceremony ran from noon to 2 PM at Claver Place, organised in collaboration with New York City Council Member Chi Ossé. Family, friends and local officials gathered to unveil the sign, which sits at the corner of a block where ODB's grandmother still lives, according to his eldest brother, Ramsay Jones, who spoke to photographer Howie Weiss at the event (Pitchfork).

The location carries a visual echo of the man it honours. The same block is home to a mural depicting the cover of ODB's 1995 solo debut, Return To The 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version — the album whose artwork showed his face on a welfare card, a detail that has only grown more striking with time.

ODB was born and raised in Fort Greene, a few neighbourhoods over from Bed-Stuy. Both sit in the central Brooklyn corridor that produced much of the Wu-Tang Clan's membership and shaped the sound that would define East Coast hip-hop through the 1990s. The street co-naming places his name on the same streets where that culture was built.

The effort to honour ODB formally extends beyond the street sign. During a New York City Council stated meeting in November 2023, a council member proposed an annual "Ol' Dirty Bastard Day," also referred to as "ODB Day," for the city (NYC Council Legistar). The street co-naming, a separate but related initiative, moved through the council's standard co-naming process — a procedure by which a stretch of road receives an honorary second name while keeping its official designation.

Bushwick Daily first reported the planned unveiling on July 21, 2026, noting that ODB's family would be present for the ceremony (Bushwick Daily). Pitchfork confirmed the ceremony had taken place the following day, July 26.

For a neighbourhood that has seen its streets renamed for activists, artists and community figures, ODB Jones Way adds a marker for a performer whose public life was as chaotic as it was singular. Russell Jones was 35 when he died, and the block where his name now hangs is one his family never left.