Oprah Winfrey receives Chicago street dedication

A city block in front of Oprah Winfrey's Chicago television studio has been renamed in her honour.

The TV presenter attended the dedication ceremony for the christening of 'Oprah Winfrey Way' alongside fans and friends just outside her Harpo production facility on Wednesday.

Citing Winfrey's influence on the city, mayor Richard Daley said that she has been a "a great ambassador for [Chicago]" and that her insistence on taping her series there "has been a gift".

In her own remarks to the crowd, the star claimed that receiving the street dedication was "better than an Oscar or an Emmy".

She added: "It is really just a full circle, miracle story… that a little coloured girl born in Kosciusko, Mississippi, on a red dirt road ends up with my name on a street in the greatest city in the world, Chicago."

Winfrey's history in Chicago dates back nearly 30 years. She first began working on the local morning programme AM Chicago in 1984 and her success in reviving the struggling series led to it being transitioned into the nationally syndicated Oprah Winfrey Show three years later.

The Oprah Winfrey Show is to wrap up its quarter-century national run in two weeks with a series of star-studded tributes to the show's history and host.

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