Notorious B.I.G. Childhood Home — St. James Place, Brooklyn

Christopher Wallace — the Notorious B.I.G., Biggie Smalls — grew up at 226 St. James Place in the Clinton Hill neighbourhood of Brooklyn, in a ground-floor apartment where his mother Voletta raised him as a single parent. The brownstone on a tree-lined street was the origin point for the most celebrated MC of the 1990s. Biggie dropped out of school at 17 and dealt drugs in the neighbourhood before a demo tape found its way to Sean 'Puffy' Combs at Uptown Records. His debut, Ready to Die (1994), was a landmark of East Coast hip-hop, and its follow-up Life After Death was released just two weeks after his murder.

Biggie was shot dead in Los Angeles on March 9, 1997, at the age of 24, in an unsolved drive-by shooting six months after the murder of Tupac Shakur. The killings — framed as the East Coast–West Coast rap war — remain two of the most significant unsolved crimes in American pop culture history. His mother Voletta has maintained and advocated for her son's legacy, establishing the Christopher Wallace Memorial Foundation.

The St. James Place brownstone has been designated a New York City landmark with a historical marker. It is a private residence but the exterior is freely viewable. The surrounding Clinton Hill neighbourhood — now heavily gentrified — retains some of the brownstone character of Biggie's childhood. A mural of Biggie near Fulton Street in nearby Bedford-Stuyvesant is a popular pilgrimage point.