HOME: http://www.blackmarketgold.com/taxpayersbridge.html SOURCE: http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/2091256/detail.html AGENTS BATTLE OVER NAME ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Bay State Bridges, Tunnels Honor Politicians Critics Say Liberty Tunnel Should Get New Name POSTED: 1:30 p.m. EST April 4, 2003 UPDATED: 2:05 p.m. EST April 4, 2003 BOSTON -- What's behind a name? When it comes to Massachusetts bridges, tunnels and highways, the answer is usually the politically wired. There's the Tobin Bridge, named after former Gov. Maurice Tobin, the Sumner Tunnel, named for the son of former Gov. Increase Sumner, and the Leverett A. Saltonstall office building, named for the former senator and governor. It's hardly a surprise, then, that a bid to name the Big Dig's new underground stretch of Interstate 93 the "Liberty Tunnel" is hitting opposition from critics who say the highway should commemorate Democratic U.S. House Speaker Thomas "Tip" O'Neill. Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, who first suggested the name, said that he's baffled by the criticism. Romney's bill would name another, smaller portion of the Big Dig, a tunnel connecting Interstate 90 to Logan Airport, after O'Neill, who once offered this bit of sage observation to politicians: " All politics is local." "The name Liberty Tunnel is great. It respects the individuals who fought and in many cases died to protect the liberty of our land, and I think it's fitting for Tip O'Neill to have his name on the I-90 connector tunnel," said Romney. "I've always had a bit of a head-scratching moment when we think about politicians having things names after them." "The name Liberty Tunnel is great. It respects the individuals who fought and in many cases died to protect the liberty of our land, and I think it's fitting for Tip O'Neill to have his name on the I-90 connector tunnel," said Romney. "I've always had a bit of a head-scratching moment when we think about politicians having things names after them." But O'Neill loyalists see the plan as a slight. They say the centerpiece of the $14.6 billion Big Dig should be named after O'Neill, revered among Massachusetts Democrats and widely credited with securing the federal funds needed to undertake the massive highway project. "Without Tip O'Neill, there's no (Big Dig)," said state Sen. Robert Havern, D-Arlington. "He was one of those special politicians. He was very uncomplicated. He had one wife, one family, one country. He never had constituents -- he had friends." Havern is sponsoring an amendment to Romney's bill to reverse the tunnel names, but it's unclear how much support he has. Democratic leaders in both chambers, House Speaker Thomas Finneran and Senate President Robert Travaglini, have backed Romney's proposal. ~~~ *** ~~~ At least one Republican lawmaker has only half-jokingly suggested naming the new underground highway "Taxpayers Tunnel." "If the intent is to recognize the person or persons who are responsible for the tunnel, then the taxpayers deserve more credit than Tip O'Neill," said state Sen. Robert Hedlund, R-Weymouth. "I get a bit leery when politicians rush to name things after other politicians." ~~~ *** ~~~ The tiff recalls another recent Big Dig battle. When former Gov. Paul Cellucci wanted to name the crown jewel of the project, a striking new bridge over the Charles River, after local civil rights activist Leonard Zakim, residents of the nearby neighborhood of Charlestown protested, saying the bridge should acknowledge the area's history, which included the Battle of Bunker Hill. The solution? The awkwardly named "Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge." Cellucci's predecessor, Gov. William Weld, sought to avoid stepping on political toes when he suggested naming another key portion of the Big Dig, the new third harbor tunnel, after famed Red Sox slugger Ted Williams. The name stuck. The latest brouhaha is typical of Boston, where all politics is personal and history is written large on the city's infrastructure. For years, drivers heading from the western suburbs to Logan International Airport have taken Storrow Drive up onto the John F. Fitzgerald Expressway and into the Callahan Tunnel. Storrow Drive is named after James Jackson Storrow, a reform-minded Bostonian who also happened to run against John F. "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald in the 1910 mayoral race, one of the closest in the city's history. Fitzgerald won and went onto become a patriarch of the Kennedy/Fitzgerald clan. His daughter, Rose, was the mother of President John Kennedy and U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy. The Callahan Tunnel is named for Lt. William F. Callahan Jr., who was killed in World War II and whose father was the first chairman of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority. Logan is named for Lt. Gen. Edward Lawrence Logan, who served in the Massachusetts House and Senate and as chairman of the Metropolitan District Commission. Sometimes the city's residents come up with their own monikers. A bridge that carries traffic and the Red Line subway train over the Charles River is officially named after poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. However, many Bostonians adopted a more colorful moniker: "The Salt-and-Pepper Bridge," after the bridge's towering stone supports that resemble salt and pepper shakers. And the John F. Fitzgerald Expressway became just the "Central Artery." Although the artery will be torn down when the Big Dig is finished, the Kennedy legacy will remain. City planners hope to name new open space above the underground highway the Rose Kennedy Greenway. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx SOURCE: http://www.globe.com/dailyglobe2/096/metro/The_name_game_heats_up+.shtml AGENTS BATTLE OVER NAME ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The name game heats up Tiff over new Artery tunnel moniker is just the latest of many By Yvonne Abraham, Globe Staff, 4/6/2003 It may be the most un-Massachusetts statement Governor Mitt Romney has uttered since taking office. Asked about his controversial proposal to dub the main stretch of the Central Artery the ''Liberty Tunnel,'' instead of naming it in honor of the late House Speaker Thomas P. ''Tip'' O'Neill Jr., he said he always has ''a head-scratching'' moment when he sees public works emblazoned with politicians' names. ''The truth is, the taxpayers pay for these projects, not the politicians,'' said the Michigan native. That populist pronouncement had political veterans gasping last week. Naming landmarks for politicians has been a staple of Massachusetts life since settlers began etching cowpaths through Colonial pastures. The suggestion that a public figure like O'Neill - widely considered responsible for winning the project's federal funding - does not deserve to be honored because the money was not his own has incensed some. That Romney attached O'Neill's name to the nearby I-90 connector did not mollify the governor's critics. What's in a name? Serious payback, that's what: Payback for funds won, for sacrifices made, for years of service, for political support. The region's landmarks have been named through bitter public battles or behind-the-scenes political maneuvers. They have been named as expressions of grief or of cold calculation. And long after the disputes and memories fade, the names remain. That's why everybody takes them so seriously. ''It's important because it gives the person a certain sense of both history and permanence - that long after you're dead and gone, there'll be something left behind,'' said historian Thomas O'Connor. That permanence was given to Romney's own father, former Michigan governor George W. Romney, in 1997, when a government building in Lansing, Mich., was dedicated to him. His son traveled to Lansing for the ceremony. Boston landmarks include the Tobin Bridge, named for one-term governor Maurice J. Tobin; the Callahan Tunnel, named for William F. Callahan Jr., a 24-year-old Army lieutenant who died in World War II and was the son of the Turnpike Authority chief who built the tunnel; the Edward W. Brooke Courthouse, named for the former state attorney general and first black US senator elected since Reconstruction; the Evelyn F. Moakley Bridge, named for the wife of US Representative J. Joseph Moakley; and the federal courthouse and South Boston park named for the late congressman himself. There is Storrow Drive, Morrissey Boulevard, and Greenough Boulevard, all named for Metropolitan District commissioners. And though O'Neill might not have his name on the Central Artery, a federal building on Causeway Street already bears his name. With so many to immortalize, local observers see Romney's more generic suggestion as an enormous waste. ''The Liberty Tunnel? Please, you could be anywhere,'' said Michael Goldman, the Democratic political consultant. ''This is about earned honor.'' This is not the first time controversy has dogged a landmark's name. In late 2000, an ugly fracas erupted over the naming of the jewel in the Central Artery crown: the cable-stayed bridge over the Charles River. At first, Governor Paul Cellucci wanted to call it The Freedom Bridge. Cardinal Bernard F. Law persuaded him to name it instead after Leonard P. Zakim, the highly regarded leader of the Anti-Defamation League who had recently died. Charlestown residents, and their elected officials, were angered at that name, and insisted the bridge be given the more local title ''The Bunker Hill Bridge.'' Eventually, legislators hashed out a compromise, coming up with the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge. After initially threatening to veto the name, Cellucci agreed, and the composite name remains, though it's often called ''the Zakim'' or simply ''the Lenny.'' Boston's eternal appellations are always the product of such temporal considerations. ''You get these long-term naming decisions often made on the basis of a very short-term upsurge of opinion,'' said Alan Altshuler, a professor at the Kennedy School of Government and the Graduate School of Design at Harvard. ''You have the Zakim bridge, which I think was very nice. Zakim had just died and people were feeling very sentimental about it, and so this will be a fairly permanent memorial. [But] if he had died a year later it would be named after someone else, and if he had died two years earlier, it would be named after someone else.'' Democrats attributed political motives to then-Governor William F. Weld in 1996, when he named the new bridge over the Fort Point Channel for Moakley's wife: The Republican was trying to curry favor with urban Democrats because he was running for the US Senate against John F. Kerry, they said. The ribbon cut to open that bridge was beige, not red, because beige was Evelyn Moakley's favorite color. Sometimes, names almost sneak in, with little fuss. The Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, the 30-acre stretch of land to be freed up by the depressed Central Artery, was named via a little-noticed transportation bond bill. When the name was announced at the end of a Massachusetts Turnpike Authority Board meeting, board members and Big Dig officials were stunned. Naming the greenway after the Kennedy matriarch, the most famous daughter of the North End, was seen as a way to mollify residents whose lives had been disrupted by the project for years. And there was a further benefit to that name: No one dared go against it. ''I even kidded Senator [Edward M.] Kennedy about it,'' state Senator Robert A. Havern III, who proposed the law, told the Globe at the time. ''I said, `Nobody hates your mother.''' That wish to avoid controversy might also have been one of Weld's motivations for naming the new airport tunnel after Red Sox legend Ted Williams. ''I think it was Bill Weld's attempt to do something nonpolitical, but that would resonate well with people in Boston,'' Altshuler said. Some Democrats saw the move as a way to avoid giving credit to Democrats, however. ''Everyone assumed it would be named for either Tip or Moakley,'' Goldman said. ''What they did is clever. They called it the Ted, and it took on a nonpolitical aura.'' The fact that that airport tunnel was not named for O'Neill gave many reason to assume the heart of the Central Artery would bear his name instead. Havern has sponsored legislation to flip Romney's suggestions, and put O'Neill's name on the I-93 portion and the Liberty moniker on the Mass. Pike extension. But even if legislators do not reverse Romney's appellations, the matter might not rest there. ''There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that no matter what happens regarding the Liberty Tunnel and Tip O'Neill extension, the first act of the next Democratic governor is going to be to call [I-93] the Tip O'Neill Tunnel,'' Goldman said. ''This is something that cuts right to the core in politics.''