West 69th Street Group Opposes Street Renaming West 69th Street facing east from Broadway. A proposal to give it the honorary name Matthew Sapolin Way has been opposed by the street's block association. Although he had been blind since age 5 and reliant on a guide dog, Matthew P. Sapolin was the city's first commissioner of the Mayor's Office for People With Disabilities, pressing to make the city's buildings, taxis and sidewalks more accommodating to people who use wheelchairs or cannot see. He was an accomplished wrestler and musician as well. So when he died of cancer in late November at age 41, it seemed only natural that his colleagues and family would look for a way to honor him. This being a city with a numbered street grid, one idea they settled on was putting up signs that name West 69th Street in Manhattan, where he and his family lived, in his memory. But that request has set off what one block leader calls "a kerfuffle." The West 69th Street Block Association has opposed renaming any portion of the street after Mr. Sapolin, and, for now, the matter has been withdrawn from the calendar of Community Board 7, whose territory is the famously contentious Upper West Side. Community boards must weigh in before any streets can be renamed, though the ultimate decision rests with the City Council. Block association members said they had nothing against Mr. Sapolin, but most members did not know him; he apparently was not active in block affairs. Moreover, the two blocks the association embraces - between Central Park and Broadway - have been home to many celebrities who the association believes might also be deserving of street names: the ballet dancers Maria Tallchief and Edward Villella, the actresses Gwen Verdon and Celeste Holm, and the writer Robert A. Caro. Diana R. Wienbroer, a retired community college professor who publishes the block's newsletter, said she believed that Paul Simon lived or had lived on the Central Park West corner as well. The association prefers to have the street - a tree-lined stretch of brownstones, stout apartment houses and a 19th-century Episcopal church - simply remain West 69th Street. "Nobody is saying that he doesn't deserve an honor," Ms. Wienbroer said. But naming the block after one important person would mean omitting all the other important people. Naming streets after local residents or activists has become common, with the original name or number of the street remaining and a second sign with the new honoree standing just below. But such honors have periodically provoked bitter quarrels. In 2007, Community Board 3 in Brooklyn recommended that four blocks of Gates Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant be named after Sonny Carson, a radical activist who often described himself as antiwhite and whose critics said he was also anti-Semitic. The City Council, in a racially divided vote, ultimately rejected the measure. In 2009, despite police union opposition, the Council voted to rename several blocks of Liverpool Street in Jamaica, Queens, Sean Bell Way after the man killed in a barrage of police bullets outside a nightclub on what would have been his wedding day. In recent weeks, there has been a dispute over naming West 121st Street after the comedian George Carlin, who critics said was openly disdainful of his Roman Catholic parish, which is on the same block. The Upper West Side has had its share of street namings. West 84th Street is also known as Edgar Allen Poe Street, after the poet who lived there, and West 86th Street is Isaac Bashevis Singer Boulevard, after the home of the Yiddish writer. There are blocks named for the housing activists Doris Rosenblum and James Garst and one after Sidney Morison, a school principal and a pioneer in dual-language instruction. Where the request to name the street after Mr. Sapolin originated is in dispute. The Mayor's Office for People With Disabilities said it came from his family, but Gale A. Brewer, the local councilwoman, and Penny Ryan, district manager of Community Board 7, said it originated with the acting head of the disabilities office, Jason Mischel. Evelyn Erskine, a spokeswoman for the Bloomberg administration, said only that "the city is looking at a number of ways to honor Matt Sapolin's memory." Ms. Wienbroer learned about the naming effort through signs posted on the street's lampposts informing residents that there would be a Community Board vote on Tuesday over naming 69th Street for Mr. Sapolin. "We didn't recognize the name," Ms. Wienbroer said. The association made its feelings known to the community board, and the naming proposal was withdrawn. In the aftermath, Councilwoman Brewer has asked association officials to meet with Mr. Mischel over what can be done to honor Mr. Sapolin. The street naming is still on the table, but other approaches may be considered, like attaching a plaque on his building that lays out aspects of his biography. Some members of Community Board 7 prefer a plaque. One member, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified, said the police might get confused if directed to an accident at Matthew Sapolin Way. And schoolchildren, he said, may not learn anything about Mr. Sapolin from a street sign, while a plaque may lay out his achievements.