{"id":195700,"date":"2026-04-13T17:50:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T17:50:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/195700\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T17:50:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T17:50:35","slug":"meet-the-nyc-teen-behind-brooklyns-new-official-pin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/195700\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the NYC teen behind Brooklyn’s new official pin"},"content":{"rendered":"

She\u2019s on point.<\/p>\n

A Brighton Beach high-schooler\u2019s subway-inspired artwork could soon grace the lapels of Brooklynites everywhere after her design was plucked to represent the borough.<\/p>\n

Art-loving 17-year-old Mellina Melezhik won the first-ever \u201cBrooklyn Pin Design Competition,\u201d a contest that invited Kings County residents to capture the borough\u2019s spirit with an itty-bitty brooch.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was looking to challenge myself, but I didn\u2019t think I would win!\u201d a stunned Melezhik told The Post, adding that the idea of thousands of people wearing her design didn\u2019t \u201cseem real.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mellina Melezhik was crowned the winner of the first-ever Brooklyn Pin Design Competition. Katherine Donlevy<\/p>\n

The born-and-raised Brooklynite pulled from her own experiences riding the Q train to school and to museum outings with her parents to dream up the winning design \u2014 a spray-painted R160 subway car.<\/p>\n

She recalled being \u201cmesmerized\u201d every time the train pulled past a massive graffiti-covered warehouse wall between the Brighton Beach and Sheepshead Bay stops.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe metro and murals are so cultural to Brooklyn,\u201d Melezhik, a student at Brooklyn Studio Secondary School, said.<\/p>\n

Melezhik pulled from her own memories riding the train for the design. Katherine Donlevy<\/p>\n

\u201cThe inspiration for this design was generally that Brooklyn itself is very well known for its metro systems. It\u2019s one of the best metro systems in the US,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe graffiti part \u2014 I feel like it represents the community and the culture within Brooklyn,\u201d Melezhik said. \u201cIt\u2019s both an inspiration inside of Brooklyn, but also it\u2019s something that is well known and inspires others outside of Brooklyn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her submission was one of hundreds, which included multiple Brooklyn Bridges, water towers, pizzas and other BK-centered iconography \u2014 including some by non-Brooklynites who tried to sneak into the competition organized by the borough president\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

But Borough President Antonio Reynoso<\/a> said the graffiti-covered car was a clear standout.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great piece that combines art and creativity in the graffiti with one of our defining modes of transportation for New York City, which is the MTA subway car,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s just very smart. Very Brooklyn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Melezhik\u2019s handiwork will be formally unveiled at Reynoso\u2019s \u201cState of the Borough\u201d address Thursday as the first-ever constituent-designed pin.<\/p>\n

The teen took on the competition to challenge herself, and was shocked to find out she had won. Katherine Donlevy<\/p>\n

The tradition was born during BP Marty Markowitz\u2019s tenure from 2002 to 2013, when he was known for handing out thousands of gold pins styled after the Brooklyn Dodgers\u2019 classic script to constituents, including ones he\u2019d take right off his own blazer.<\/p>\n

During his time as borough president from 2014-21, former Mayor Eric Adams continued the trend,<\/a> but it wasn\u2019t until last year that Reynoso decided to revamp the design, to one by his office\u2019s Arts Ambassador, Colm Dillane.<\/p>\n

Melezhik\u2019s design will serve as the next iteration and will be the first that isn\u2019t only the typeface of \u201cBrooklyn.\u201d<\/p>\n

The teenager had nearly refused to submit a design for the competition, but was encouraged by a good friend biology teacher, Ms. Del Ponte, she said.<\/p>\n

Melezhik took on the contest head-on, thinking of it as a \u201cchallenge,\u201d even if she didn\u2019t end up winning. While she loves drawing, the young artist prefers to work on world-building digital illustrations rather than tangible designs.<\/p>\n

Her train pin was chosen by Reynoso\u2019s team without the beep\u2019s office knowing whose submission it was, but the revelation that it came from the teen daughter of two Ukrainian immigrants from Kazakhstan made it a perfect Brooklyn tale, he said. <\/p>\n

Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso says Melezhik\u2019s design perfectly encapsulates the borough. Courtesy of the Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso<\/p>\n

\u201cIt couldn\u2019t be a better Brooklyn story!\u201d Reynoso told The Post.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s reflective of who we are in Brooklyn. Our creative energy is running deep in this borough. We didn\u2019t choose the design because of the person, but it just happened to be the perfect person who made the design,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTransportation is so central to who we are as a borough and to have the train car is real Brooklyn and nothing more Brooklyn than graffiti on a train car,\u201d Reynoso said.<\/p>\n

The pins themselves will be coveted, Reynoso warned \u2014 the only way to get one\u2019s hands on one is to volunteer in the community or to shake hands with the BP himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe majority of the pins get to people by seeing it on my lapel, and I take it off every time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She\u2019s on point. A Brighton Beach high-schooler\u2019s subway-inspired artwork could soon grace the lapels of Brooklynites everywhere after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195701,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1369,98,100,99,23587,68,11182,57,9,24,197,63,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-195700","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn","8":"tag-brighton-beach","9":"tag-brooklyn","10":"tag-brooklyn-headlines","11":"tag-brooklyn-news","12":"tag-contests","13":"tag-exclusive","14":"tag-high-schools","15":"tag-metro","16":"tag-new-york","17":"tag-new-york-city","18":"tag-new-york-city-life","19":"tag-nyc","20":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}