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Kobe, Gianna honored with naming of public square in Italy

MIGUEL MEDINA / AFP / Getty

One year after Kobe and Gianna Bryant's deaths, a city in Italy unveiled the renaming of a public plaza in their honor.

Bryant spent part of his childhood in the Northern Italian city Reggio Emilia, where his father, Joe "Jellybean" Bryant, played professionally.

"The city of Reggio Emilia and its citizens loved, first Joe, and then Kobe Bryant, the child who, once he returned to America, always remembered Reggio with love," Emanuele Maccaferri, vice president of the Sport Foundation of Reggio Emilia, told ESPN's Dave McMenamin. "On this sad day, we want to remember that happy child who left wonderful memories in so many people of Reggio Emilia."

Tuesday marks the first anniversary of the helicopter crash that killed the Bryants, along with seven others, while en route to a youth basketball game.

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