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T figures out what to call Yawkey station now that there's no more Yawkey Way
By adamg on Thu, 03/28/2019 - 8:11pm
The MBTA announced today it's renaming Yawkey station on the Worcester as Lansdowne, starting April 8.
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And the history on mr.
And the history on mr. Landsdown is????
We're cool!
Per Wikipedia:
Although:
OMG, not vituperative!
"bitter and abusive"
Sounds familiar
Sounds like Larry Lucchino in fact.
I'm glad we finally got to name something after a famous Irish person in this town.
I don't think this is the Irish you are thinking of..
Just guessing.
?
From the article "Irish-born British Whig"
I mean, it's obviously a joke comment to begin with...
Ah no I got your joke.
But William Petty was not Irish, that was my point.
Wasn't he in the Upper Crust?
Bass player?
If this is a signal that they
If this is a signal that they won't wait on Rosenthal's hypothetical-until-proven-otherwise Phase 2 of Fenway Center to connect these platforms to Brookline Ave., making Lansdowne across the street from this station instead of around two corners, that's pretty great. If not, well, I guess a sloppily chosen place name is better than an unmade place name.
So there's no Redemption
I am slightly conflicted with contradictions. I hope this doesn't mean I'm being hypocritical on this topic matter.
It appears most of us are aware of the Red Sox and the City of Boston I believe decision regarding changing the street Yawkey Way to another Street because of Mr. Yawkey past discriminatory actions against African-Americans and I'm sure other non-whites was a good decision. But do we strip his name from every Institution.
However with Mr Yawkey passed away doesn't that mean other family members or other people are now in control of his estate and making decisions that may not be discriminatory racist or any of the above.
Does this mean Mr Yawkey estate should be punished for past behavior of I'm a man who's no longer liviving but the influence is still having positive influences and changing lives.
This dilemma come into play when I ask myself should the name Yawkey Clubhouse, Boys & Girls Club of Boston in Roxbury Massachusetts be changed. But I also say to myself it's Mr. Yawkey has passed away he's not making this decision anymore. And maybe people who are in control of his estate are redeeming the estate by having positive influences and changes in a community's life.
I conflicted. But I know Redemption comes in many forms.
i don’t really see not having
i don’t really see not having a street named in your honor as punishment.
Well...
Not an unreasonable replacement name. But would renaming the station to simply "FENWAY PARK" or "KENMORE" better connect it to a more well-known landmark? Then again, I feel like the regular commuters who use it care less about the name of the station and more about how reliably a train actually shows up at it.
The T doesn't want to reuse station names
If this commuter rail stop were directly connected to either the existing Kenmore or Fenway stations, those names would make sense here. But since it isn't, that would just be confusing.
The Fenway station is
The Fenway station is confusing enough already.
Why? It is named for the
Why? It is named for the Fenway neighborhood. The stupid ballpark is named for the neighborhood and not the other way around.
The Riverside Branch - A Rt 128 to Fenway Connection
The ballpark was troubled by the mass exodus to the suburbs and then eventually Masspike drivers swarming the park. When the Riverside branch came along, the idea was for drivers to park at Rt 128 (Riverside) and take the trolley to the Fenway Green Line Station.
The MTA added the Fenway station when converting the D branch
from diesel or steam commuter rail to a Green Line branch. This was the only new station they added.
It's also
only a few blocks from Fenway Park. Sure, Kenmore is closer, but you're not going to be too bad off if you get off there when heading to the park.
Less crowded, too
After a game, I'd rather wait a few more minutes for a train in the open air, and have a greater likelihood of getting a seat.
Next Stop Lechmere
Tom Yawkey was a saint compared to Richard Lechmere who was a slave owner and referred to the rebels in Boston as wicked people. Baseball teams in Boston get a bad rap over the signing of the first black ball player. One of the earliest signing was an outstanding ball player named Sam Jethroe in 1950 who received the rookie of the year honors when he played for the Boston Braves..
Sam Jethroe
Jethroe was signed by the Dodgers, then traded to the Braves after the 1949 season.
He was the 1950 Rookie Of The Year at age 33.
Jethroe's biography on sabr.org:
https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/5f1c7cf9
Department Store
You mean the stop isn't named after the department store?
This says it's not exactly named after Richard Lechemere.
http://archive.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/11/12/familiar_name_c...
The article you refer to
is where i read about Richard Lechmere the slave holder that the station was named after.
For us old-timers...
Avalon would've been a great homage.
Oldtimer?
Apparently I'm way older than you Friar. Avalon was the new name for the old Boston Tea Party/ Boston-Boston/15 Landsdowne, etc. They must have had 10 different names at that address.
I suggest re-naming it "Cask" Station
lol
just as long as they don't pick mama kin, i'm on board.
axis and bill's bar used to be so much fun.
Not That Old
What about Metro or Citi?
Older than that
The Boston Tea Party
http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/ot...
Did Avalon close?
I haven't been down that street in ages.
Now House of Blues?
Was Metro, Spit, half a dozen other names
I got it
Rename it Mama Kin's
RENAME EVERYTHING NOW
EVERYTHING IS OFFENSIVE
YES LET'S DO THAT
JUST TO SCREW YOU UP! YOU AREN'T TOUGH ENOUGH TO HANDLE CHANGE!
Maybe not everything
But refusing to hire black people for your ballclub is, in fact, pretty offensive. Sorry if that's confusing to you.
People don’t think about names
A name is just a sound someone utters to designate something. Few people consider the meaning behind it. There may be a few internet posters that could tell you where the name Boston came from but 94% could not. Change Yawkey station to whatever you like, Mumia Abu Jamal Station, for example, then change it back to Yawkey 60 years from now, most people wouldn’t care. Maybe they would post about it and be like “Really? Really???” but that’s about it.
The lesson here is to never make charitable cards contributions to any organization which employs Bachelors of Arts degree holders employed as Assistant Directors of Charitable Giving that make $95k or Directors of Social Media making $52k.
interesting
that sounds like a great argument for changing Yawkey station to Landsdowne.
since most people don’t care either way, shouldn’t we honor the wishes of the people that do care?
It’s not about honor, it’s who/whom
Power is the most important thing. Secondary to that is personal status and how you are perceived when you align yourself with someone. Also important is vengeance or score settling, I.e. which group of advocates (for/against name change) suck more. Dead last is anything having to do with what some dead guy did to other dead (or old and powerless) people 50 years ago.
Since we’re posting on an Internet forum, the first calculation I would make is whether Adam took a position on the name change. If Adam was for the change, I would be too. If he were against, same. I respect him and he could wipe any of us out with a keystroke.
so, correct me if i’m wrong
so, correct me if i’m wrong but this is what i’ve understood so far: you’ve decided — unilaterally — that most people don’t care about the names of things, and the ones that do are seeking to consolidate power?
is it possible that there are other explanations for not wanting reprehensible names enshrined in public? im not intending to be combative, i just don’t get it.
Yes berkleealum
That’s kinda my position but I don’t really know where I’m going with it (besides kiddie sounding nihilism) or what it even means so I will surrender this round of internet debate to you unless Adam weighs in further.
Agreed, these days Avalon is more about
Unaffordable apartments...
Welcome to Boston
We’ve got money to rename the stations, but not enough to fix the trains.
Good point
Because they both cost exactly the same.
I'm fine with renaming Yawkey
I'm fine with renaming Yawkey, but Lansdowne is a stupid choice.
Personally I would have gone with Fenway or Kenmore (so what if there's another station named that a few hundred feet down the road?).
But if they really didn't want to duplicate those names, at least go with Jersey St instead of Lansdowne. Jersey St at least goes right to it, and is more than 1 block long!
What do you think?
Should we rename Park Street for just being one block long too? Lansdowne is way more significant than the length of the street. All the crowds, vendors, bars etc. Plus, there's the commonly announced, "look out on Lansdowne street, this one's gone!" The baseball announcements on live and even sometimes nationally broadcast television and radio means that this is a very well known street name.
Kenmore is also named for a short street
The name Kenmore Square came from the name of the MTA station, and that came from the very minor cross street that it was near, Kenmore Street.
If the station were being
If the station were being renamed for some reason, no, I would not suggest Park St. Though this is apples-to-oranges, because Park St station is actually on Park St, not a block away from it, and Park st is a more major street than Lansdowne.
Stations should be named for major attractions and neighborhoods, with streets as a secondary choice. And when they are named for streets, it should be major ones. Not minor one-block side streets that happen to have a few bars on them.
Being referenced in sports broadcasting, and thus being "well-known" does not make the street name useful for navigation. Do you really think all those sports fans that have heard of Lansdowne St know anything about where it goes and what it connects to? Of course not!
Suggestion for Universal Free from Controversy Names
I have a modest suggestion for a universal naming [well numbering system] which is free from controversy and allows unlimited extension
We begin with one of the earliest incarnations of the Greek Letter [cognate for Latin P] and important mathematical symbol -- Pi
3.1 -- for the first thing to be named -- going all the way back to Spring Lane [ostensibly the earliest name in Boston]
to be followed by
etc
of course eventually street signs would need to get physically larger to accommodate the increasingly longer street name
However there is a simple solution -- after all this is the age of Bluetooth, WiFi, 5G, and GPS. Very simple shorthand on the sign itself --- the Sign would only need to say
where the zzzzz was the ordinal number of the street name -- e.g.
a Bluetooth link or WiFi link would then allow a curious person to obtain all of the details such as the actual name [err number], GPS coordinates, history, etc.
A further advantage all intersections would be Pi^2 such as Pi 388 with Pi 1111 and hence unique
-- that corner being just outside of the Tower next to the Winthrop Building
yummy
Gnocchi Station,
Gnocchi Way!
For the Italian sausage vendors.
Station Costa-Plenty
Reasons for naming aside... the cost is actually very high for them to do that. They will need to change signage at the station itself, route maps all throughout the commuter rail system where this line's signs appear, printed schedules, cost to update the web site (that's contracted out BTW), and the unseen costs to transit app developers to make adjustments... followed by us having an update pushed our way. The pre-recorded station announcements in the coaches are pre-programmed into every trainset as well so the whole fleet will have to be updated.
This will take months to realize, and even then if history repeats itself as it often does, they will miss a sign or two and someone will catch a photo of it and post it here.
It is also important to understand that MBTA monies have strings attached and can only be used for certain things. Monies for expansion, repairs, new equipment, etc, etc all comes from different pockets and can only be used for the things that the attached strings so dictate.
So monies for repairs or new equipment has nothing to do with money used to extend a rail line or change a station name. So many people fail to understand this. Money is not equal to be used for anything they want.
As to choice of names... It's a lot better than it was in the past. Downtown Crossing was called "Washington" at one time and before that "Summer" and "Winter" for the streets where the stairs exited. There were a bunch of those. They also had a couple of duplications that caused confusion, so there will NEVER be two stations of the same name ever again. So any suggestion that it be called "Kenmore" is off the table.
The period of upcoming mass confusion will be the test of the people.
Station renamings
The last two that I can remember:
New England Medical Center -> Tufts Medical Center, because the hospital name changed
Hynes/ICA -> Hynes, because the ICA moved out of the neighborhood
in the late 80s:
Washington -> Downtown Crossing
Essex -> Chinatown
Auditorium -> Hynes/ICA
the T also for a while tried to change the name of Kendall station to "Cambridge Center / MIT", but nobody liked that and they reverted it back to Kendall after a few years.
at some point "Rustcraft" became "Dedham Corporate Center", but I don't remember when.
Duplicate station names
A few still exist:
St. Paul Street on both the "B" and "C" branches of the Green Line
Longwood on both the "D" and "E" branches
Harvard on the Red Line, Harvard Ave. on the "B" branch
Both the "B" and "C" branches used to have a Summit Avenue stop, but the "B" stop has closed.
It's wise for the T not to create any more of these duplications.