The twilight of Moonlight won’t be coming anytime soon.
After becoming one of the most acclaimed films of the 21st century thus far and emerging victorious from the history-making Best Picture mix-up, Barry Jenkins’ lovely, tripartite lesson in empathy will now have a street named after it.
Called “Moonlight Way,” the street runs through Liberty City, the hometown of Tarell Alvin McCraney, co-writer of Moonlight and author of the original, semi-autobiographical play on which Jenkins’ film is based. The specific stretch of road to be designated “Moonlight Way” is the part of NW 22nd Avenue that runs from NW 61st Street to NW 66th Street.
“This movie—at least what I got from it—really depicts the life of how a lot of us were raised and what we had to go through and endure as children in the inner city,” Commissioner Audrey Edmonson, who is sponsoring the naming, told Miami New Times. “This goes out to children still living here in the inner city that are told they’ll never amount to anything. It shows that it doesn’t matter how you were raised or where you grew up; you can still turn out to be someone.”
Given Edmonson’s remark, one wonders whether the “way” in “Moonlight Way,” in addition to being a conventional ending to street names, was also chosen for the word’s synonymity with “manner” and “method.” To walk not just down “Moonlight Way” but in the “Moonlight Way” would, among other things, entail precisely what the commissioner described: knowing that your story is worth telling and that a better place is still within reach.