Patti Smith Awarded Key to New York City

Music icon Patti Smith was given the key to New York by Mayor Bill de Blasio to recognize her cultural impact on the big apple. Smith gave a speech about how much the honor meant to her and reminisced on her life in the city, after which she played her 1978 track “Ghost Dance.” Mayor de Blasio said of the song, “the first time I heard it, it gripped me” and “to this hour moves me.”

“I wish I could give New York City the key to me because that’s how I feel about our city,” Smith said in the press conference. “With all its challenges and difficulties, it remains—and I’m quite a traveler—the most diverse city in the world.”

Mayor de Blasio said of Smith, “Patti Smith had an authenticity and has an authenticity that you just didn’t find, in my view, that many other places. An ability to cut through all the swirl around us and speak some more profound truths.”

After she was given the key, Smith and her guitarist Lenny Kaye were given cupcakes in honor of their 75th birthdays, Kaye’s being today and Smith’s on Thursday. “To receive this at 75, it makes me look even more forward to the next 25 years,” said Smith.

Watch the press conference below:

“I wish I could give New York City the key to me.”

– Music legend Patti Smith after receiving the Key to the City from @NYCMayor. https://t.co/G78ZPaxz5k pic.twitter.com/TcnyoS03sJ

— NYC Mayor’s Office (@NYCMayorsOffice) December 27, 2021

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