Wednesday, December 8, 2010

HOW'M I DOING? NOT FEELING GROOVY: "The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge," Nick Carraway tells Jay Gatsby, "is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world." From the ground, Woody Allen's Manhattan made it magical. Hank Scorpio blew it up.   Are they really changing the name of the 59th Street Bridge to the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge?

[Related: does anyone refer to the Triboro as the RFK Bridge?]

33 comments:

  1. No one that I know of calls the Triboro the RFK, even though all the signage has been changed.  I see no reason it'll be any different for the Queensboro.

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  2. I assume the Kennedy family does.

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  3. lisased11:12 PM

    We have a similar problem in DC. If you've grown up here, you still call it National Airport. Hearing it referred to as Reagan still throws me off.

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  4. Marsha11:16 PM

    In Chicago, you can pretty much figure out how old someone is (or how long they've lived here) by asking them what they call various buildings and roadways.

    Of course, we have a highway here called the Elgin-O'Hare Expressway that goes neither to Elgin nor to O'Hare, so I'm not sure we should have anything to say about road names at all.

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  5. Joseph Finn12:03 AM

    Quite; is there anyone who calls Northwest Highway "Reagan Highway"?  (Same goes for the East-West/I-88, which I hadn't even known until today is supposedly the <span>Ronald Reagan Memorial Tollway for a whole 6 years now.)  And then there's the name no one uses for Comiskey.  Or the Sears Tower.  Or front rooms.</span>

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  6. Lazygal5:18 AM

    I do call Idlewild "JFK", but I still refer to the Pan Am building, the Interboro, the Triboro and the West Side Highway.  Guess it all depends on how old you are when the change is made. 

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  7. Likewise, I kind of doubt many people will be calling BWI "Thurgood Marshall" any time soon, even those of us (hi!) who love the idea of honoring him.

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  8. The Christmas show is at Wanamaker's.

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  9. Benner10:11 AM

    Too soon.  The thing with naming bridges after RFK and Henry Hudson is there's time for a legend to set in, and people forget certain aspects of the honoree's personality and record that might better be left forgotten.  (The same people who praise RFK as a martyr and rail against Rahm Emanuel are . . . confused as to at least one of them.)  My impression, and without delving into whether that's proper or not, is there are a lot of people in the city who do not like Ed Koch one little bit.  

    On a completely contradictory note, it's sometimes fun to guess what stuff is going to be renamed after Barack Obama.  Maybe Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn.  Maybe nothing.

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  10. A whole lot of urban schools, for one thing.

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  11. Carrie10:30 AM

    Who calls Sixth Avenue "the Avenue of the Americas" or West River Drive MLK Drive?

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  12. Marsha10:32 AM

    The Interboro is known in my family as "Cemetery Parkway."

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  13. Marsha10:42 AM

    I cannot find the clip I want to link to here - the tag at the end of the Mad About You episode "The Glue People" where Paul tries to give directions using those street names that no one uses.

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  14. It's like when they renamed Hell's Kitchen. I don't know anyone who calls the neighborhood Clinton.

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  15. Likewise, I still think of the downtown department store in Houston as "Foley's."  (And I suspect Chicagoans still think of it as "Marshall Field's," regardless of what name is on the door.)

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  16. Philomena Throckmorton10:57 AM

    we are relatively recent transplants to NY and still don't call the Triboro the RFK.  Also, we live just off Malcolm X Blvd and down the street from Marcus Garvey Park, which were both renamed in the 80s,  but nobody in all Harlem calls them anything but Lenox Ave and Mt. Morris Park. 

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  17. Genevieve11:00 AM

    I've gone so far as to reflexively correct my husband ("It's <span>National!</span>") when he's mentioned the Reagan Building.

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  18. That's really funny.  I don't know which is more ironic:  Naming an airport after the Gipper, or naming the largest federal building aside from the Pentagon after him. 

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  19. Not to mention a lot of yachts purchased over the next two years.  ;)

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  20. Oh, you mean "the store where I refuse to shop after Macy's changed its name from Marshall Field's"?

    Dammit. 

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  21. Andrew11:56 AM

    I do love the fact that calling the neighborhood Clinton does make it reasonable to have the Chelsea-Clinton health center (and wonder what Chelsea Clinton thinks of it.)

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  22. Oh, I love that. "You take Sophie Tucker Drive..."

    I'm also firmly in the camp that it's the Triboro and the Interboro.  But JFK Airport was never Idlewild to me, always JFK.  And the Queensboro Bridge is actually the 59th Street Bridge to me, at least when I'm giving directions to cab drivers.

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  23. christy in nyc1:05 PM

    My mom usually says something like "America of the Sixes"

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  24. Benner1:45 PM

    I'm still naming my kids Barack Obamadeus Mozart Benner (if boy) and Michelle Ann Calendar Benner (if girl).

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  25. I'm going to suggest this subthread cease.<span> </span>

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  26. Genevieve2:06 PM

    Where are my Frango mints?!?

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  27. Genevieve2:07 PM

    My only issue with changing Idlewild to JFK (long before I became aware of it, so it's JFK to me) is that Idlewild is such a pretty name (as noted by Anne Shirley long ago).

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  28. Deleted voluntarily.

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  29. Macy's still offers the Frango line, though it's less broad than it was.

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  30. Not all the signage...a few signs in Queens that are still the same.

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  31. I still prefer Gimbel's

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  32. They should use USPS rules- you must be dead.

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  33. Lit Brothers, anyone?

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