For a look at how extremely important a name can be let's go to Buffalo, NY. Several residential streets were built in Buffalo as parkways, with a park down the middle and parallel streets on opposite sides. Image from Google Earth.
One such street was Humboldt Parkway. But the decision was made, around the beginning of the 1960s, to tear out the park and replace it with a highway to downtown. Image from Google Earth.
This has remained just about the most controversial piece of urban renewal anywhere. Finally there are plans to cover part of the highway, Route 33, in an effort to restore the original parkway.
But why is it still so controversial and why is it only just now that there are plans to spend a vast amount of money to restore it? The park was torn out nearly 65 years ago and there is virtually no one still around who remembers it, other than as a young child.
What about the power of a name? There is one thing that they didn't do, and that was to change the name of the street. If there is no longer a park there then why is it still called Humboldt Parkway? It is just a reminder of the park that is long gone, and that explains the apparent illogic of why it is still so controversial. Image from Google Street View.
If the name of the street would have been changed to Humboldt Boulevard the chances are that the park would be long since forgotten.
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