Adams Administration Quietly Renames the Tombs for Disgraced Criminal Bernard Kerik

There was a period of several years after September 11 when Rudolph Giuliani and his longtime associate Bernard Kerik were regarded by people who didn't know better as semi-divine beings, American heroes, the best the country has to offer.

It was in this period of time that Mayor Giuliani took the unusual step of naming the Manhattan Detention Complex, the Lower Manhattan central lockup known informally as the Tombs, after a still-living person: Kerik. Giuliani's police commissioner at the time, Kerik had previously served two years as his correction commissioner, after first getting to know the mayor as his bodyguard and driver and moving up through the ranks under his patronage.

Naming the jail facility after Kerik became somewhat awkward a few years later in 2006, when he was charged with the first of a series of state and federal crimes ranging from receiving undisclosed and improper gifts to lying to White House officials.

Then-mayor Michael Bloomberg recognized the awkward optics, and Kerik's name came off the building. "After Bernie Kerik pleaded guilty, it was not appropriate to have that facility named after him," Bloomberg said. "I informed the [Correction] commissioner of my decision and he expeditiously changed the naming of the sign."

Kerik died in May of this year at the age of 69, and the Department of Correction appears to be invested in rehabilitating his name. Nearly 20 years after Kerik's name was stripped from the Tombs, in July the DOC quietly reinstalled signage designating the building at 125 White Street the "Bernard Kerik Courts."