On Wednesday, June 24, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz joined the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in inducting the latest Brooklynites into the Garden’s Celebrity Path. This year’s honorees are: (posthumously) Moe Howard, Shemp Howard and Curly Howard, the Brooklyn-born brothers who became members of The Three Stooges®, and novelist, poet, screenwriter and film director Paul Auster of Park Slope. Former Brooklyn Borough President Howard Golden was also honored as a founder with the dedication of a special paver.

“We at C3 and all Three Stooges fans everywhere appreciate the honor bestowed on Moe, Shemp and Curly by their hometown with their enshrinement in the Brooklyn Celebrity Path,” said Earl Benjamin, president of C3 Entertainment, Inc., The Three Stooges brand owner.

“I've lived in Brooklyn for the better part of my adult life and it’s nice to know that this paver will be sitting in the Botanic Garden long after I’m gone,” said Auster.

Since 1985, more than 160 Brooklyn notables, including Walt Whitman, Jackie Gleason, Woody Allen, Barbra Streisand, Norman Mailer and Gil Hodges, have had their names embedded in an 18-inch by 24-inch concrete paver and decorated with a stylized leaf outline cast in bronze. Each paver also contains a bronze medallion of the Brooklyn Bridge, encircled by the phrase, “The Greatness of Brooklyn Is Its People.” For more information on the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Celebrity Path, including a list of past honorees, visit www.bbg.org/exp/stroll/celebritypath.html.

“Where else but Brooklyn—home to everyone from everywhere—would you find such a stellar cast of characters together in one place?” said BP Markowitz. “The world’s funniest comedians and actors, great thinkers and authors, artists and musicians—all of these legends were made in Brooklyn. The Celebrity Path exists to honor them but it also honors something much larger—the idea that Brooklyn is where legends are made and dreams come true.”

“I can think of no better place to honor the greatness of Brooklyn and its people than Brooklyn Botanic Garden,” said Scot Medbury, president of Brooklyn Botanic Garden. “Since 1985, visitors to the Garden have enjoyed discovering the artists, poets, performers and athletes that have contributed to the cultural heritage of our borough and who now mark Celebrity Path as it meanders around one corner of the Japanese Hill and Pond Garden.”

Moe, Curly and Shemp Howard

Brooklyn-born brothers Moe, Curly and Shemp Howard would find fame as members of the vaudeville and comedy act, The Three Stooges. The lineup changed over the years, with the original act comprised of Moe, Shemp and longtime friend Larry Fine, born in Philadelphia. Shemp would eventually be replaced by brother Curly, and in 1934, Moe, Larry and Curly signed on with Columbia Studios as The Three Stooges to make the comedy shorts that are still viewed on television today.

On his own, Shemp went on to star in countless comedies for Vitaphone in 1932, and he later played the role of Knobby Walsh in the Joe Palooka series. After Curly fell ill and had to leave  The Three Stooges, Shemp eventually rejoined the trio. Curly died in 1952, Shemp in 1955 and Moe in 1975. For more information about The Three Stooges and C3 Entertainment, Inc., the company actually started by The Three Stooges 50 years ago and today maintained by their heirs, please visit www.threestooges.com and www.c3entertainment.com.

Paul Auster

Paul Auster of Park Slope has been called “one of America’s most spectacularly inventive writers” (Times Literary Supplement). He is the author of Travels in the Scriptorium, The Brooklyn Follies, Oracle Night, The Book of Illusions, Timbuktu, Mr. Vertigo, Leviathan, The Music of Chance, Moon Palace, In the Country of Last Things, and the three novels known as The New York Trilogy: City of Glass, Ghosts and The Locked Room.