Sunset Park activist honored

Basil Bob Stonbely, the former community mayor of Sunset Park,and a pioneering businessman and active volunteer in southwestBrooklyn, was honored last week with a street renaming that willkeep his memory alive for decades to come.

The intersection of Third Avenue and 56th Street was namedBasil ‘Bob’ Stonbely Way in a ceremony on Tuesday, April 5 thatwas attended by Councilmember Sara González and representativesfrom Lutheran Medical Center, the Knights of Malta, CommunityMayors and the Southwest Brooklyn Development Center, as well ashis brother Gabe, daughters Cynthia and Suzanne, and granddaughterMadeleine Jolie.

Stonbely was born in 1922 in Cobble Hill and graduated from theManual Training Academy in 1940, going on to work in aeronauticsduring World War II before eventually starting his own business,Certificated Carpets – the oldest continuously run carpet cleaningcompany in the country – in 1946. He died on December 7, 2007, atthe age of 85.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.