Bed-Stuy celebrates 35 years of 'Do the Right Thing' with block party

BEDFORD-STUYVESANT, Brooklyn (PIX11) -- It’s a different type of pride on a block in Bedford Stuyvesant: pride in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing movie and the block party celebrating the film for more than 35 years.

More than 1,000 Bed-Stuy residents and fans of “Do the Right Thing“ packed Stuyvesant Avenue, also known as Do the Right Thing Way, to celebrate the award-winning movie written, produced and directed by Spike Lee. And for the first time since COVID, Lee, the host of this block party, spoke to the crowd.

“The entire movie was shot on this block,” Lee told the crowd. “That’s where the pizzeria was. That’s where the Korean deli was."

One of the actors in the movie, which opened in 1989, also spoke.

“It doesn’t seem that long ago. There were no cell phones. There were no pictures,” John Turturro said.

The film focused on a Bed-Stuy block’s simmering racial tensions on a hot summer day. Spike Lee put Bed-Stuy on the map for some residents who’ve lived there for decades.

“I love Spike Lee. He’s the epitome of Brooklyn. I thank him for doing this every year,” Mona Hubbard, a lifelong resident of Bed Stuy, told PIX11 News.

“I have seen the movie 1,001 times,” Tyrius Smith, another lifelong Bed-Stuy resident, told PIX11 News.

Artist Jocelyn Marie Good has been painting scenes from the movie for more than a decade and selling her art at this block party.

“I grew up watching Spike Lee films. There wasn’t a lot of representation before him. He was showing the nuances of black culture, and as an artist, I wanted to humanize our experience,” Good told PIX11 News.

Max Olivier, another Bed Stuy resident with his two young sons, said he found this block party “amazing, and Spike Lee is still doing the right thing."