Taking Names

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen
• Videos

By

Bogie's block

Scores of Humphrey Bogart fans braved the New York rain on Saturday as the city unveiled a plaque renaming the short stretch in front of 245 W. 103rd St. -- the Upper West Side brownstone where the actor grew up -- as Humphrey Bogart Place.

Long ago, the brownstone was turned into public housing -- but the block, like Paris, will always be his.

"Bogie would have never believed it," said actress Lauren Bacall, who was married to the Oscar-winning actor from 1945 until his death in 1957.

Born in 1899 to well-to-do parents, a surgeon and an illustrator, Mr. Bogart lived at the home until 1923. He went on to make dozens of films, including the classics "The Maltese Falcon," "Casablanca" and "The African Queen." According to Associated Press, the campaign to recognize the actor's connection to the neighborhood was waged by Gary Dennis -- a movie buff and video-store owner who grew up on the same block but didn't know Mr. Bogart.

"Of all the blocks, of all the streets, in all the neighborhoods in all the boroughs of this city, he had to grow up on mine," Mr. Dennis said at Saturday's ceremony, riffing on a Bogart line from 1942's "Casablanca."

No jail time for George

Boy George won't be going to jail. However, the former Culture Club singer got a scolding from a judge yesterday for not complying with the terms of his sentence on a drug charge, AP reports.

"I'm not going to give you another chance," Manhattan Criminal Judge Anthony Ferrara warned Boy George, who didn't do the community service required by his plea deal for his conditional discharge.

Boy George, whose real name is George O'Dowd, pleaded guilty in March to third-degree false reporting of an incident. The charge followed his false report of a burglary at his Lower Manhattan apartment, where police said they found cocaine. Under his plea deal, Boy George was to enter a drug treatment program in England and do five days of community service in Manhattan. He also was supposed to pay a $1,000 fine and a $160 surcharge and avoid arrest for any reason during the next six months.