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Detroit Names A Street After Aretha Franklin

FILE – In this Dec. 6, 2015 file photo, Aretha Franklin attends the 38th Annual Kennedy Center Honors in Washington. Franklin remembers the first time she met Muhammad Ali, before he was famous. She was preparing for a concert in Los Angeles, and she recalled a man yelling, “I’m the Greatest, I’m the Greatest!.” “I was saying, ‘Who is he? Who is this guy?” she recalled in an interview. Franklin said the pair had a “beautiful relationship,” and paid tribute to her late friend, who died Friday, June 3, 2016, at the age of 74. (Photo by Greg Allen/Invision/AP, File)

|Associated Press

Aretha Franklin's hometown of Detroit has named a street after her.

A section of Madison Street, between Brush and Witherell, was named Aretha Franklin Way for The Queen of Soul on Thursday. The area is at the heart of a performing arts district that includes the Detroit Opera House.

Franklin told a crowd gathered at the Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts that she knew she would "get weepy" by the honor.

The 75-year-old Franklin thanked the Detroit City Council for the honor, which she called magnificent. She went on to recall her youthful days skating at the Arcadia Ballroom and singing at the Flame Show Bar.

The street-naming launched four days of events for the inaugural Detroit Music Weekend, designed to showcase the city's artists.a

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