(The Hill) -- New York is designating an entrance in its famed Central Park in honor of the five teenagers wrongfully convicted of a brutal 1989 beating and rape.
The “Gate of the Exonerated” design was reportedly approved by the city’s Public Design Commission on Monday and is set to go up at the northern entrance of the 843-acre Manhattan park.
The gate is so named in reference to the Central Park Five, who spent time in prison for allegedly assaulting a young woman jogging in the park before they were exonerated by a confession from convicted murderer Matias Reyes and subsequent DNA evidence testing.
The young woman, then-28-year-old Trisha Meili, was in a coma for 12 days after the attack, which surged into the national spotlight in 1989, interpreted as emblematic of New York's issues dealing with crime.
Former President Donald Trump famously took out full-page ads in local papers to call for the death penalty for the five.
“The Gate of the Exonerated symbolizes the resiliency of the Exonerated Five and all those who have been wrongfully convicted and serves as a lasting reminder of the grave miscarriage of justice that took place more than three decades ago,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) said in a statement to The Associated Press on Monday.
The initiative was helmed by the Central Park Conservancy.
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