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Design a Better Boston Are you disappointed with the state of Boston's current architecture/development? Think you have a better idea? Post it here. |
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#1 |
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Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 458
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Rosa Parks Boulevard
It appears that the street that is used for much of the length of the SL4/SL5, 42, and 34 buses is named after the first slave owner to be president of this country, and I don't think slave owners deserve to be honored by having streets named after them.
Since this street carries several important bus routes, I think that naming it after a famous bus rider would be appropriate, and therefore I think we should change the name of this street to Rosa Parks Boulevard. |
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#2 |
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Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Boston, MA
Posts: 4,147
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Re: Rosa Parks Boulevard
"Washington" may mean something to you and me but to most people, it's the name of a street, like Lafayette.
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#3 |
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Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Union Sq, Somerville
Posts: 3,415
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Re: Rosa Parks Boulevard
And so it begins...
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#4 |
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Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: West Medford, MA
Posts: 3,220
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Re: Rosa Parks Boulevard
Technically John Hanson was the first slave owning president. Yet he came to power because the winning general eschewed the office of dictator, and Hanson is so forgettable because some other guys figured out how to make Continental democracy work. Maybe work on un-naming the John Hanson Highway first.
Me? I have a special place in my heart for victorious generals who eschew the office of dictator or Duke, and presidents who say no to being king and /or champion term limits. I'd name a street after a guy like that any day.
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"Trying to solve congestion by making roadways wider is like trying to solve obesity by buying bigger pants."--Charles Marohn Last edited by Arlington; 12-03-2017 at 02:49 PM. |
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#5 | |
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Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: Worcester
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Re: Rosa Parks Boulevard
Quote:
If we're really going to go through this stuff with a fine tooth comb, you tend to realize people aren't as perfect as you idolize them to be. George ain't perfect, but there's something to be said for the guy who led us to independence and verified that the US constitution was a functional foundation of government. |
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#6 |
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Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 458
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Re: Rosa Parks Boulevard
There's also an argument that could be made that we have a bunch of different streets that have the same name:
So this proposal does have benefits in moving towards more unique and less ambiguous street names. |
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#7 | |
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Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 458
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Re: Rosa Parks Boulevard
Quote:
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#8 |
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Join Date: Apr 2016
Posts: 573
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Re: Rosa Parks Boulevard
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#9 |
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Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 1,353
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Re: Rosa Parks Boulevard
Is this thread for real? I thought this was only used as a slippery slope argument by those in favor of honoring leaders of the confederacy.
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"You cannot take in a whole Boston street with a single glance of the eye and then lose your interest because you have thus taken the edge off future discovery; on the contrary, every step reveals some portion of a building which you could not see before, some change in your vista, and some suggestion of pleasant variety yet to come, which not only keeps your interest alive but heightens it and persuades you to go on." |
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#10 |
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Join Date: Jun 2010
Posts: 581
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Re: Rosa Parks Boulevard
Who can tell, these days? There are people who object to Washington and Jefferson being honored, on these exact grounds, despite their other virtues.
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The Goal of Mass Transit should be to get you from Bed to Boss to Bar and back again. |
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#11 |
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Join Date: Oct 2012
Posts: 294
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Re: Rosa Parks Boulevard
The world does need significantly less monuments to Washington and the rest of the founding fathers and we have a million Washington Streets.
Not really feeling Rosa Parks as a street name for on of our most important streets though? Not local and she didn't do anything here. |
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#12 |
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Join Date: Jun 2010
Posts: 581
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Re: Rosa Parks Boulevard
Wholeheartedly disagreed.
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The Goal of Mass Transit should be to get you from Bed to Boss to Bar and back again. |
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#13 |
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Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: West Medford, MA
Posts: 3,220
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Re: Rosa Parks Boulevard
OK, straight up: I want my founding fathers' monuments.
Before about 1840, history is pretty much slavery or serfdom all the way down. Boston was financing slaves-molasses-rum and providing the ships and insurance until it turns to whaling, the drug trade (China Trade == opium), and the exploitation of factory workers. I'll freely stipulate that everyone before 1840, if they were not slave or serf, that they were either oppressor or accomplice--Franklin and Adams knew that they had traded away the slave's hopes [in exchange for white folks'] independence. Had we remained British, slavery would have been abolished in 1833, so we got 30 extra years of slavery as the fruit of independence. It stinks and Franklin and Adams, both abolitionists at heart, knew what they'd done, even if they couldn't have said exactly how many extra years they were giving slavery. Slavery and slave profits pervaded everything, followed by 50 years of whale-killing, drug peddling, factory disasters and adulterated goods. It's all exploitation until you get to Teddy Roosevelt (when a tiny ray opens, that is still too narrow) So somewhere around 1910, its worth asking "how did s/he make her/his money?" Before that your choices are to remember the relatively-better people (nobody's perfect), or act like we're all victims or amnesiacs (when, the reality is, evolutionarily, we're all descendants of relative winners-- we're the offspring of the slaves & serfs who didn't starve. Serfdom and slavery's truest victims left no descendants, not us, maybe because our fore-dad killed the family in the next hut and took their food?) And it is probably safe to assume that in their private lives they were somewhere between exploitive employers (Disney) or adulterers (MLK Jr, Kennedys, Eisenhower, FDR...) or bad fathers (John Adams, by modern standards, anyway) And yet in every corrupt age, some will stand apart from their peers for their bravery, or democratic ideas, virtue, or advancement of technology. I'm going to ask that we name some streets for these people, particularly those who advanced democracy --however imperfectly and haltingly--at a time when it was thought to be somewhere between regicide and suicide.
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"Trying to solve congestion by making roadways wider is like trying to solve obesity by buying bigger pants."--Charles Marohn Last edited by Arlington; 12-07-2017 at 06:40 AM. |
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#14 |
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Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Union Sq, Somerville
Posts: 3,415
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Re: Rosa Parks Boulevard
^ +1 great post.
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#15 |
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Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 1,353
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Re: Rosa Parks Boulevard
__________________
"You cannot take in a whole Boston street with a single glance of the eye and then lose your interest because you have thus taken the edge off future discovery; on the contrary, every step reveals some portion of a building which you could not see before, some change in your vista, and some suggestion of pleasant variety yet to come, which not only keeps your interest alive but heightens it and persuades you to go on." |
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#16 |
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Join Date: Feb 2015
Posts: 221
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Re: Rosa Parks Boulevard
If you want to get rid of monuments to racism in Boston, it's best to start with the statues and buildings named for Mayor Curley and his cronies who created the toxic racial climate of the second half ot he 20th century
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#17 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 1,082
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Re: Rosa Parks Boulevard
If you want to get rid of monuments to racism, there will almost be no statues or memory of history left. Is that what we want?
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#18 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 1,353
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Re: Rosa Parks Boulevard
A statue of Washington is not a monument to racism.
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"You cannot take in a whole Boston street with a single glance of the eye and then lose your interest because you have thus taken the edge off future discovery; on the contrary, every step reveals some portion of a building which you could not see before, some change in your vista, and some suggestion of pleasant variety yet to come, which not only keeps your interest alive but heightens it and persuades you to go on." |
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#19 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Boston/Medford
Posts: 170
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Re: Rosa Parks Boulevard
lol at putting adultery or being a bad father on the same footing as slaveholding. Nobody's perfect and it's true that there would be no one left to uphold if we had to overturn every stone in their private lives, but come on. One can say "I still choose to revere the likes of Washington" without pretending he and King or Kennedy had the same impact on the lives of those in their direct charge. One can weigh their lives and find the balance positive without making that conflation.
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#20 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 1,082
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Re: Rosa Parks Boulevard
I agree, but some have been saying out there in media-land that it is. I don't want to get into too much of a political discussion on this fine architectural site. I just hope the historical context of the times that these people lived in and were formed in is acknowledged. Banishing historical figures because they deviate from today's standards seems a bit over the top.
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