Orbach sign at issue

NEW YORK, March 21 (UPI) -- Actor Jerry Orbach once was declared a "living landmark" by a New York preservation group but now that he's dead the respect is a little harder to come by.

Edward Kirkland, a member of a community board that holds the power over who gets a street sign honoring them, called cause to give Orbach such an honor "a little marginal," USA Today reported Wednesday.

Community Board 5 was the first to deny a request by Orbach's wife for a sign at the corner of Eighth Avenue and 53rd Street where the couple lived for 25 years. Kirkland's Community Board 4, which controls the other side of the intersection, was to consider the matter Wednesday night.

Peg Breen of the New York Landmarks Conservancy, which honored Orbach in 2000 as a New York living landmark, said she doesn't think the honorific signs are a problem.

"It's just a sign under the normal street sign. You know what street you're on. Far from confusing, it's a reminder that a famous New Yorker once lived here," she said.

Orbach was an acclaimed stage and TV actor who played the hard-bitten New York police detective Lennie Briscoe on "Law & Order." He died Dec. 29, 2004.