From tonight’s city council agenda:
8i. Councilor Paul P. Clancy, Jr. and Mayor Timothy P. Murray request that Central St. to Main St. be renamed MLK, Jr. Boulevard, and, that Front St. from Main St. to Washington Sq. be renamed JFK Boulevard.
Also:
9.17
PUBLIC SAFETY DEPARTMENTS
Police DepartmentA. Informational Communication Relative to the Number of Ambulance, Fire First Responder, and/or Police calls to 72-80 Cambridge Street for 2004, 2005, 2006 Related to Drug Overdoses, Weapons, and/or Physical Violence.
I’m told this is a Salvation Army building. Happy holidays.
Thanks to an anonymous reader for submitting these.
It’d be interesting to see some new town that decided it was really going to aim high in naming streets and name every road in the city after somebody worth looking up to as a role model. “Mahatma Gandhi Boulevard,” etc.
I like what San Francisco did around downtown, especially the North Beach area, where instead of completely renaming streets after notable writers, the streets got double-named, so they retain their traditional names while picking up new names from Jack Kerouac, Dashiell Hammett, etc. Apparently Lawrence Ferlinghetti was involved in the renaming campaign, but I dunno the details.
Personally, I don’t think JFK is a very good or interesting person to name a street after. Both LBJ and Nixon were more interesting personally and professionally. And I think they could point to some actual accomplishments that benefit Americans to this day.
JFK\’s at least noteworthy to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts inasmuch as any President is noteworthy, especially within his home state. You\’re certainly right that he belongs on the list of overrated Presidents, because he\’s mostly regarded as being great not for his accomplishments, but mainly due to his personal charisma and tragic death. I think he definitely deserves credit for staring down Krushchev in the Cuban Missile Crisis, although of course the details of how much credit and its importance are open to debate. I also think it\’s arguable that his influence is responsible for America\’s success in the space race, setting in motion the process to get a man on the moon. By itself, of course, a man on the moon was mostly a symbolic act, but it was a pretty influential one both in terms of the USA beating the Soviets on a peaceful global stage and also in pumping up the aerospace industry and the various technological advances that have come with it. He was also a significant part of Roman Catholics being accepted into mainstream American society, though it might be more accurate to say that his election was a sign that Catholics were accepted by the USA by 1960 rather than saying that JFK did a lot personally to integrate Catholics and Protestants.
Of course, he\’s also responsible for the Bay of Pigs fiasco and getting us involved with Vietnam, so there\’s that, too.
Overall, I think that maybe he had the potential to be a great President, but just wasn\’t in office long enough to do it. On the other hand, I don\’t think he would have had the clout to push through the Civil Rights legislation that LBJ did.
Just to expand on that and agree with you — yes, I think there were a lot more productive accomplishments under LBJ and Nixon than JFK, and they did a lot more good than people give them credit for. That’s certainly not to excuse them for Vietnam (LBJ) or Vietnam and Watergate (Nixon), but those albatrosses around their necks tend to make people forget about LBJ’s acheivements in Civil Rights, the Great Society, the Wilderness Act, etc., and Nixon’s achievements in normalizing relations with China, various environmental acts, etc.