Renaming Things in New York? All About It.
The presumptive next mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, has expressed his desire to redesignate streets and buildings named after slave owners. Most likely to people who, at the very least, never owned other human beings. It’s an admirable, necessary, and belated endeavor and we should all be behind such a sentiment. But why stop there?
There are a great many things – monuments, structures, roads, localities – that deserve a titular rethink in this city; tributes and remembrances whose relevance has long since expired (ahem, Jackson Square Park, ahem, named after Andrew Jackson, ahem).
While trying to steer clear of any political controversy whatsoever – a.k.a. the first step toward steering directly into political controversy – here are a few, personal, homespun ideas for NYC renames. If you disagree with any of these renamings, attach a letter saying so to the leg of a sparrow and send it my way. I live in Brooklyn.
WALL STREET
Courtesy: Unsplash
Yes, I’m starting out with one that will never actually be renamed in this reality. Or the next. Or any Marvel-like extra realities. Ambition on my part then? Idiocy? I’m leaning towards the ladder.
Unlike other problematic landmarks, Wall Street isn’t named after a problematic person. There isn’t some, like, seventeenth century colonial buttface named Eustice Wall at whom we can aim our retroactive ire. Shame. Because he would’ve certainly been a slave owner, a ruthless furmonger, and a terrible father to his son Farnham, who had, gasp, artistic tendencies.
No, in actuality the famous Wall Street is named after, drumroll please, a wall. And not even a cool wall like at the rock climbing gym. Just a plain old wall. One the Dutch put up to… what was it again? Oh, right: KEEP OUT OTHERS.
“Others” included, of course, Native Americans, foremost. After all, what’s more “other” than the peoples who had been living in a place for thousands of years already. But others also included the rival English, those ever-pesky Swedes, anyone else who wasn’t on the payroll of the Dutch West India Company, and giant man-eating beavers (citation pending). Basically the inanimate wall was both racist and xenophobic. If that’s not eligible for some cancel culturing, I don’t know what is.
Renaming THE QUEENS-MIDTOWN TUNNEL to THE RAMONES MIDTOWN TUNNEL
Hey! Ho! Let’s rename!
Courtesy: Unsplash
They’re from Queens, they came into the city, they conquered. And more than once the Ramones probably took the Tunnel to do so. The iconic punk band is so New York they should be buried in soft pretzel salt. If there was any justice in the world, Joey, Dee Dee, Johnny, and Tommy would each have a tunnel or bridge named after them. We got enough in this city, let’s spare a few. And it would solidify the band’s rightful status as The Beatles of The Big Apple.
By the way, I can’t stand how not enough things in New York are named after the artists of this metropolis. Yes, there have been a great number of streets sub-named after notable cultural figures, and that should continue happening. But what about the big things? As big as the contributions of creative luminaries like The Velvet Underground, James Baldwin, Run DMC, Andy Warhol, Billie Holiday, Patty Smyth, Fats Waller, The Beastie Boys, Jacob Lawrence, Nas, W.C. Handy and a thousand others. Their influence is certainly as substantial as any civic leader or politician, even ones surnamed Kennedy or Lincoln. It’s only the politicians that want you to think otherwise.
And while I’m on this theme, here are a few other artist-inspired renaming suggestions: the Queensboro Bridge to the Simon & Garfunkel Bridge (they sang about it, they’re legends, done deal), the Long Island Expressway to the Chuck D Expressway, and the Barclays Center to Jean-Michel Basquiat Arena. Go get it done, world!
Renaming THE GEORGE WASHINGTON BRIDGE and/or WASHINGTON HEIGHTS and/or WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK to ANYTHING THAT ISN’T WASHINGTON FOR ONCE
I get it. He was the foremost founding father. He was the country’s first president. He’s been so ensconced in icon status for so long we forget that he shares 90% of his DNA with bananas, like the rest of us homo sapiens. But listen, GW obsessors: it wasn’t like he was the only human who fought the British.
Courtesy: Unsplash
Imagine that scene. Washington, going for independence solo. Staying alone at Valley Forge, with one blanket. Sneaking up on and killing hundreds of redcoats Rambo-style until he accepted General Cornwallis’s surrender by his lone-ass self. Then going on to figure out every iota of government and all its branches, from scratch, without the help of even one other person. Wow. That guy should have every bridge named after him.
Didn’t happen that way, however. There was, unbelievably, more than one person involved in America’s independence. Washington has had enough plaudits and remembrances to last a thousand years or more. Especially for someone who, you know, owned people.
So, let’s take at least a few of his namesake landmarks/memorials/entire-sections-of-land and rename them. To something else, anything else. Doesn’t even have to be a person. It can be like ‘Joyfulness’ or ‘Cinnamon’ or ‘The Jordan 3 in the Black Cement.’ Anything that’s awesome. It’s easy to find awesome things. They’re everywhere.
And if we’re going to name things after things, let those things be awesome things, not not awesome things. Right?
