Dear Politicians: Stop Naming Stuff After Your Friends
Ever been to the Governor Michael S. Dukakis Transportation Center? You know it: It’s down the street from the Joseph Moakley Courthouse, and sits above and beside the Tip O’Neill Tunnel. Oh, and until yesterday it was named South Station.
Naming public buildings and structures after politicians is a longstanding — and galling — tradition, proving that the political class can somehow be totally self-regarding while lacking any self-awareness.
But there’s one key difference between Dukakis, Moakley, and O’Neill. Mike Dukakis is still alive. Why exactly are we memorializing the living?
Dukakis at least had the good grace to be embarrassed by the honor, telling reporters, “I was opposed to this. I’m not a fan of naming buildings for politicians.’’
Boston City Council president Bill Linehan, however, has no problem trying to get the South Boston branch library named after Billy Bulger. The living Billy Bulger. Linehan loves his still-breathing pals so much, he and fellow councilor Stephen Murphy are also pushing for a monument to living former Mayor Ray Flynn.
This used to be an honor reserved for the dead, and even then, people had a problem with it. The O’Neill tunnel was almost the Liberty Tunnel because Mitt Romney didn’t want to give the late Democrat any kudos. And the Zakim bridge is actually the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge, because Charlestown freaked out when the initial name was announced in 2000, demanding the span be called the Bunker Hill Bridge. The excessively long current name was the official compromise, though The Boston Globe quoted two townies who sounded less than pleased the bridged carried a Jewish name.
You know who was a revered and beloved figure in this town for more than 20 years? Cardinal Bernard Law. He and Zakim worked for years to improve relations between the city’s Catholics and Jewish residents. Law was a big proponent of naming the bridge after Zakim, who led Boston’s Anti-Defamation League chapter for nearly two decades.
What if we had named the span the Zakim-Law Bridge? He was alive and beloved when the span was christened, which seems to be the new (low) bar for memorializing folks in this town. The extent of his role in the clergy abuse scandal wasn’t yet fully known. Can you picture the political mud fight between Law supporters and everyone else over whether and how to remove his name from the bridge?
Outside of naming buildings and bridges, there are often rules that prohibit the ego buff and wax given to breathing Massachusetts pols. We among the living are barred from appearing on currency. Hell, U.S. currency didn’t feature dead presidents until 1909, when Lincoln made it onto the penny.
Even the Vatican makes you wait before you can become a saint. You can’t just be dead, either. It takes five years before they’ll even consider venerating you, which is merely step one in the canonization process.
Tom Sawyer got to see his own funeral. But that was a work of fiction, and the idea should remain firmly in the world of make-believe. Save the self-glory for when you’re dead.
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