The streets of Park Hill were a playground for iconic hip-hop group the Wu-Tang Clan, which was born here.

"If you go through the Wu-Tang Clan albums videos you’ll see the store. This is the corner of Targee and Vanderbilt; this is their home,” says former Wu-Tang Clan dancer Tajiri Swindell. 

The nine-member group came onto the scene in 1993, at a time when Park Hill was riddled with gun violence and drug abuse. 

Their lyrics reflected what they lived: their struggles to survive and escape crime. 

Tajiri Swindell recalls their hustle, "They sold their own albums out of the trunk of their cars.”

Several music videos were filmed at a local store.

Another local barber shop across the street was closed on the day rapper Method Man got married, so all of the members of the group could get their hair cut. 

The video for their acclaimed song "Protect Ya Neck" was shot outside of 160 Park Hill Avenue, a building where Method Man boasted of selling drugs and late night parties, as well as run-ins with police. 

"It’s where a lot of the hanging out with, a lot the rapping in the cyphers took place at 160,” says Swindell.

The Wu-Tang Clan gets their name from a Hong Kong martial arts film called Shaolin and Wu-Tang, and their music mixed east-Asian and African American culture. 

The group even rapped about its love of Chinese food, and their favorite take-out spot, the New Phoenix Chinese restaurant, is still open.

The intersection of Targee Street and Vanderbilt Avenue is set to be renamed the Wu-Tang Clan district, after the city council overwhelmingly voted to do so late last year. 

And while there are some detractors who say the group's troubled start should eliminate them from such a distinction, those who watched them grow up say no way. Longtime Park Hill resident Marjorie Garvin says, “They made history as a group of young black boys from the ghetto Park Hill was pretty bad drugs were going on heavy and they was able to get away from it."

It’s not clear exactly when the dedication will take place. But it will be sometime this spring. We reached out to several of the group’s members who all say if they can make it they will.