At the public memorial last month for Chuck Brown, Mayor Vince Gray told a packed Walter E. Washington Convention Center that as a lasting tribute to the Godfather of Go-Go, he would designate one of D.C.’s public spaces as “Chuck Brown Park.”
Today, Gray asked the D.C. Council to rename the western half of Ward 5’s Langdon Park as Chuck Brown Park. The park would encompass the land between 18th and 20th streets NE just south of Rhode Island Avenue.
It’s a fitting spot, with the neighborhood around Langdon Park having long been a hub of the go-go community, especially on nearby Bladensburg Road.
“Chuck Brown, Go-Go music and the District of Columbia are inextricably linked to each other, and it’s appropriate that the ‘Godfather of Go-Go’ should be honored by the city that embraced him and his music,” Gray said in a press release announcing the renaming request. “A park where Chuck’s music can be played and where people can enjoy themselves—as they always did while listening to Chuck Brown perform.”
At Brown’s memorial service, Gray was followed by then-Council Chairman Kwame Brown, who upped the stakes by announcing his desire to create a “Go-Go Hall of Fame.” That declaration came in the middle of a somewhat erratic speech about his love for the genre.
