A street co-naming ceremony for Larry Selman will be held at the corner of Bedford and Grove Sts. on Tues., Oct. 6, at 6 p.m.
There will be a reception held after the ceremony at Greenwich School of Music, 46 Barrow St. For questions or more information, e-mail info@welcomechange.org .
Selman, who was developmentally disabled, died on Jan. 20, 2013, at age 70.
As Albert Amateau wrote in Selman’s obituary in The Villager, he “was considered by many to be the glue that brought the Bedford, Barrow and Commerce Sts. community together.”
Though Selman lived on the edge of poverty himself, he raised more than $300,000 for various charities over the years, as immortalized in the film “The Collector of Bedford Street.”
The Oscar-nominated 2002 documentary was made by Alice Elliott, a Village neighbor. As a result of the film, Selman became known far beyond the neighborhood where he had lived since 1968.
Since 1970, Selman had been soliciting contributions, a dollar or so at a time, for causes that included cancer care, disabled firefighters, families of 9/11 victims, The Caring Community, the former St. Vincent’s Hospital and a Jewish Association for Services to the Aged project to provide pets for the elderly.
Selman shared his small Bedford St. apartment with his dog, Penny, and a cat, Happy, the latter which died shortly after Hurricane Sandy.
At Selman’s shiva (mourning reception), firefighters from the firehouse at Sixth Ave. and Houston St. came by to pay their respects. “Larry the Raffle Guy” was a frequent visitor to the stationhouse to sell raffles benefitting charity.
The film “The Collector of Bedford Street” gave Larry Selman the opportunity to travel. Elliott took him with her to Los Angeles to the Academy Awards in 2003. A documentary on the World Trade Center towers won that year.
