This new street sign leaves no possibility of error in the pronunciation of Louis Nine Boulevard: it’s Louis NEEN-yay, not “Louis 9”. The street was renamed from Wilkins Avenue soon after the 1983 death of Bronx assemblyman Nine, whose name is spelled without the accents in his NY Times obituary. Louis IX, meanwhile, was a Crusading 13th Century French monarch and the only one made a saint by the Catholic Church.
The era of total street renaming seems to have come to an end, as streets get “sub-names” these days on separate street signs, with the original name allowed to remain in place.
6/12/13