Someone tried to rename the 59th Street Bridge in New York City to the Ed Koch Queensborough Bridge. I say tried, because no one in my generation or any generation of New Yorkers before me will ever refer to it as the Ed Koch Queensborough Bridge. It’s a terrible name, and really difficult to say when you’re drunk and trying to get your cab driver to take you from Astoria to Manhattan.
Who are these people who keep renaming our landmarks? People with money, that’s who. People with money who like to see their names on things, plus the occasional civil rights activist. Look no further than San Francisco’s Candlestick
Park for the strict definition of naming clusterfuckery. The sports arena was called Candlestick Park for over 30 years. Then 3Com bought the rights to the park for seven years, and changed the name of this SPORTS INSTITUTION to the surprisingly subtle 3Com park…which no one ever used, and continued to call it Candlestick Park. THEN when the rights expired in 2002, it was renamed San Francisco Stadium at Candlestick Park. Then, because it had been 5 whole minutes since the name of the stadium was changed, the naming rights were purchased by Monster Cable for four years, and Candlestick 3Com San Francisco Stadium at Candlestick Park was renamed Monster Park.
Because everyone wants to take their kids to Monster Park for the day, and that is not at all terrifying to the ears of an 8-year old kid who loves baseball.
Finally, the people of San Francisco came to their senses and voted (in an official election!) to permanently rename the stadium Candlestick Park. In the meantime, attendance dropped radically because no one ever knew where the fuck they were going or how to get there.
The case of Cit…Citi…CitiField (I can barely bring myself to type out the name) is equally perplexing. Shea Stadium was demolished in 2009, and Cit…Citi…CitiField was built in the parking lot next to where the hallowed grounds of Shea Stadium once stood. IN THE PARKING LOT. Daryl Strawberry didn’t win over my little 9-year old heart in 1986 by hitting epic homeruns out of a parking lot. Even though they tore it apart brick by brick (simultaneously dismantling my baseball lovin’ heart), I will always take a 7 train to the area of Flushing, New York known as SHEA FUCKING STADIUM, and not CitiField (may it rot in hell, sign of the cross, spit on the ground).
The last time I was visiting friends in New York, the Triboro Bridge was in the process of being renamed the Robert F. Kennedy Triboro Bridge. Which…no. Listen – I like Robert Kennedy as much as the next person. But people in this country go apeshit for The Kennedys. They name dogs, children, even the crochet thing that sits on the lid of the toilet and hides the extra roll of toilet paper after The Kennedys. There barely exists a state that doesn’t have SOMETHING named after one of the Kennedys, so New York does not need to take my beloved Triboro Bridge and douse it in Robert F. Kennedy’s name.
Listen, I’m not great with directions. I sort of need my buildings and landmarks to just keep their original names. It’s like we’ve turned our city infrastructures over to Sean Combs.
About DanielleH
My hubby is from Chicago and he is beside himself with the Big Sell Out in that town. Examples include the “What You Talkin’Bout” Willis Tower (Sears Tower), US Cellular Field (Comiskey Park), and Macy’s (Marshall Fields). We live in Nebraska, home of the Men’s College World Series which for decades was held at Rosenblatt Stadium. The muckity mucks caved and (I’m sure made some pretty sweet money for their part) and this year we have a new home – TD Ameritrade Park. Really rolls off the tongue, eh? Corporate renaming really ruins it for most communities in my opinion. I mean we don’t usually have a lot of choice but it still sucks. Remember AIG’s continued support of their soccer team even when they were supposedly bankrupt? It’s total B.S.
Twitter Name: omahamama
Willis Tower! NO. I never, ever remember to call it that, and I never, ever will. It’s the Sears Tower, Chicago, which made your skyline famously identifiable.
For years we had plain and simple Virginia Beach Ampitheater. We just referred to it as The Ampitheater. Then for a while it was the Verizon Virginia Beach Ampitheater. Fine, whatever. Now it’s called… (ready for this?)…
Farm Bureau Live
That one really flows, doesn’t it?? Ditched the ampitheater part all together; it just ends. Live WHAT? Given the Farm Bureau part, it could be chickens or something.
Farm Bureau Live sounds like a place you go to watch livestock get unceremoniously murdered. WTF?
We have a concert venue in Northern VA that used to be Nissan Pavillion (it wasn’t renamed that; Nissan put up the money in the first place). The ownership changed hands, though, and the venue is now owned by Jiffy Lube. “I’m going to see Jimmy Buffet at Jiffy Lube Live,” doesn’t sit right with me.
The only renaming that seemed right to me was when First Union took over the arena in Philadelphia. Having the Flyers play in the F.U. Center kind of works.
Twitter Name: MamaKaren
“F.U. Center”
If it is going to make people chuckle until the end of time, I fully support the name change! :)
I had to look up the new name of the Wachovia Center (now Wells Fargo Center!) which was slated to be called the Spectrum II – since Philly done tore down the first Spectrum, but was also previously known as CoreStates Center and the First Union Center. And this is all within the past 12 years.
I think it’s more offensive that this stuff happens so rapidly now, right? Like, to change a name every three years is just sort of morally bankrupt.
Hahaha. You put my exact thoughts about Citi Field into words. May it rot in hell, sign of the cross, spit on the ground. You are awesome.
Twitter Name: sassycurmudgeon
SISTER. You don’t even know how hard it was for me to watch them tear Shea Stadium down. I cried. Like, REAL AMERICAN TEARS crying.
Also, CitiField sounds like something built by the alien race in “The Fifth Element.”
I went through this emotional trauma when they renamed Houston’s Transco Tower into Williams Energy Tower. No one calls it that, even ten years after the renaming. It’s still Transco Tower.
But then I realized that Transco was a company, too, and so was Wrigley (for Wrigley Field) and Chrysler (for the Chrysler building). So then I guess my devil’s advocate question is, why do we not mind that Chrysler built an iconic skyscraper and slapped their name on it, but Citi built a new arena and we’re all pissed? Is it because it’s not beautiful and reinventive? This is a serious question, because we clearly all have the same affective reaction to the name changes, and the more corporate the worse we feel, and yet many of these landmarks were originally named for corporate interests in the first place, right?
Although, Danielle, I am WITH YOU about the RFK Bridge. NO. It’s the TRIBORO. Which is already a bastardization of its correct name, the Tri-borough. Are we going to rename the Brooklyn Bridge next? Can you IMAGINE it?
Now, for instance, the Humanities and Social Sciences Library here in NYC (long simply referred to as “the main branch” or “the one with the lions”) is now the Steven A. Schwarzman Building because S.A.S. donated a cool hundred mill to its badly needed renovation. When I see the beautiful white gleaming marble, lovingly restored to glory, I am indeed a little grateful to Mr. Schwarzman and his deep pockets, but why BUILDING? Why not LIBRARY?
Okay, I’m going to stop talking now. I clearly have some Thoughts.