The Wrong Airport

I'm not sure I really share his broader concerns, but Hendrick Hertzberg really is right about JFK Airport:

I’m less happy about John F. Kennedy Airport, partly because its old name, Idlewild, was so beautiful and romantic. J.F.K. obviously deserves a New York memorial of some sort—a statue in some prominent place, such as Grand Army Plaza, the square at the southeast corner of Central Park, would do nicely—and he certainly deserves an airport. But the right airport would have been Boston’s Logan, currently named for a Boston statehouse pol who died in 1939 and on whom the statute of limitations has surely run out.

Right. Kennedy's a Boston guy from a Massachusetts family, his airport should be there. On the other hand, I sort of like it when well-known things end up named after obscure politicians -- it leads to better trivia. Who was the Shea of Shea Stadium? That sort of thing.

Photo of Boston Logan Airport by Flickr user Beige Inside used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

C'mon, that's an easy one. William Shea was the man who brought National League baseball back to New York after the departure of the Giants and Dodgers!

Let's go Mets!

Posted by Trigger | June 13, 2008 8:47 AM

I liked it when the Boston Garden was, y'know, the Boston Garden. I can never keep track of what bank it's named after this week.

Posted by DrBB | June 13, 2008 8:49 AM

I agree. Old names are just so lame and out of fashion. I think Bush D.C. would work for a generation or two. What to do though when the memories are carved in stone? I suppose a good stone sculpter could turn Lincoln into Reagan at Mt. Rushmore. C'mom everybody, join in, think of ways to update all the ways we've momeorialized significant people throughout our history. I'll get to work on all those pesky "Roosevelt" entries in school textbooks. They're so yesterday............

Posted by steve duncan | June 13, 2008 8:49 AM

My personal favorite is the Millard E. Tydings memorial bridge. It was very important to put his middle initial in there so it wouldn't be confused with all the other Millard Tydings bridges.

Posted by Njorl | June 13, 2008 8:50 AM

Tossed in an "sic" keeping with the spirit of the blog. Can you spot it?!?!

Posted by steve duncan | June 13, 2008 8:52 AM

I so agree. The airport is also near the Gateway National Preserve and so the name Idlewild is even more appropriate.

However, please, let's not talk about changing the name of Grand Army Plaza. Can't we name something new after JFK, instead? Come to think of it, why not re-name Newark Airport "JFK-Newark"? (Newark is, after all, rather a prosaic name, besides it would still have Newark attached to it as part of its moniker.)

Posted by harold | June 13, 2008 8:59 AM

I hate it when things named for one person are renamed for another person. Some honor!

Posted by joejoejoe | June 13, 2008 9:02 AM

There's a hold up in the Bronx,
Brooklyn's broken out in fights.
There's a traffic jam in Harlem
That's backed up to Jackson Heights.
There's a scout troup short a child,
Khrushchev's due at Idlewild
Car 54, Where Are You?

There's a hold up in the Bronx,
Brooklyn's broken out in fights.
There's a traffic jam in Harlem
That's backed up to Jackson Heights.
There's a scout troup short a child,
Khrushchev's due at Idlewild
Car 54, Where Are You?

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | June 13, 2008 9:05 AM

I'm a moderate now and I would like to suggest a compromise answer to the question "Should we invade Iran?"

As it happens, the present government of Iraq is getting uppity, talking about "sovereignty", making deals with Iran, and refusing to accept our plans for a permanent occupation. What we need to do, obviously, is invade Iraq again, and liberate the Iraqis for real this time.

That will be easier than starting a new war in a new country, because all of our troops are already there. The new liberation government we set up can hang Maliki and Sadr and a bunch of the rest of them, we'll be welcomed as liberators, and Iraq will become peaceful.

Posted by John Emerson | June 13, 2008 9:10 AM

My favorite is the Outerbridge Crossing, which is actually named after a guy named Outerbridge, who was some kind of muckety-muck in the Port Authority back in the day.

Seriously, if you wanted to name a bridge after RFK, why not the Manhattan? That's a generic enough name that nobody would care.

Posted by Devin McCullen | June 13, 2008 9:24 AM

Njorl,

I was also going to mention the Millard Tidings bridge, which I drove on many times while driving down to D.C. or Baltimore from Philly.

Great view from it, too.....

Posted by JRVJ | June 13, 2008 9:31 AM

I sort of like it when well-known things end up named after obscure politicians -- it leads to better trivia.

My best friend (in OH) once purchased some furniture from a descendent of Harry van Arsdale, Jr -- for a Queens person like myself, that's an interesting thing to have in a friend.

Posted by DAS | June 13, 2008 9:37 AM

It's far too late in the day to change JFK airport's name. But it is sad that JFK got his name attached to such a supremely crappy airport.

Posted by Glenn | June 13, 2008 9:38 AM

Devin McCullen,

You may be the only person besides my wife and her friends that I've "heard" (or read in this case) use the word "muckety-muck" ... unless you are a friend of my wife that I've not met yet.

Posted by DAS | June 13, 2008 9:42 AM

you know what i really dislike, is that huge train station in NJ they named after Frank Lautenberg.

Shouldn't a guy at least be out of office before you name something after him? who knows what will come? Imagine the Mark Foley train station.

Posted by pj | June 13, 2008 9:44 AM

"William Shea was the man who brought National League baseball back to New York after the departure of the Giants and Dodgers!"

More than that, he was the guy who forced baseball to expand from its long-term complement of 16 teams.

Newark, by the way, is now Newark-Liberty International Airport, or some such, apparently because it has a view of the Statue of Liberty's ass.

JFK Airport does suck.

Posted by David in NY | June 13, 2008 9:48 AM

The Wikipedia page on the Verrazano-Narrows bridge is interesting. Apparently there was a move to name that bridge after one of the Kennedys instead of the airport. This was blocked by Italian-American organizations, which lobbied for the bridge to be named after an Italian (Staten Island, which the bridge connects, is mostly Italian-American). Since no one has heard of Verrazano, most people assume that the straight the bridge crosses is named the Verrazano-Narrows.

This came up because the Triboro Bridge was recently renamed for RFK. This might stick since the previous name was so bad.

The Kennedies were actually raised in New York, Joseph Kennedy moving back to Massachussets only because he thought it would be easier to get his sons into politics from that state. So naming something in New York after JFK was appropriate, however it really should have been one of the bridges.

Posted by Ed | June 13, 2008 10:04 AM

Che Stadium was named after the famed Cuban Guerrilla leader, Che Stadium.

Posted by Pesto | June 13, 2008 10:07 AM

I was driving on a road locally I'd never traveled. I passed an official city sign, the green ones with the reflective lettering, posted just off the berm. It read "Shoemaker Ditch". Sure enough there was a depression in the terrain, filled with a couple inches of water. And it had a name. A ditch with an official, city sanctioned name. A first for me. There are nameless ditches aside almost every road. I feel bad for them now.

Posted by steve duncan | June 13, 2008 10:17 AM

Who was Ebbets, of Ebbets Field? Who was Polo, of the Polo Grounds?

Posted by MattF | June 13, 2008 10:17 AM

Lautenberg was out of office when they named the building after him. When he ran for office later they weren't going to take his name off the building.

What the country really needs is something in Washington DC named after Reagan. I don't think there is enough recognition of the man. I was thinking the Reagan memorial AIDS clinic in recognition of his great relationship with AIDS patients.

Posted by jon | June 13, 2008 10:18 AM

Please, please, please! Who the hell was Major Deegan?

Posted by jrosen | June 13, 2008 10:20 AM

"Idlewild" always sounded to me like the sort of name you'd give to a municipal airstrip.

JFK Airport sucks as an airport, but the concept is great-- it's NYC's departure point to the rest of the world, since LaGuardia is (almost?) all domestic. You want a major international hub like that to have a name like "JFK," rather than "Idlewild" or "Bob Smith International."

Posted by Tyro | June 13, 2008 10:20 AM

My favorite is Yankee Stadium, which is the same as quikie but you're by yourself.

Posted by phg | June 13, 2008 10:27 AM

Let's be thankful for something, at least airports don't sell naming rights to corporations like sports arenas do. Not yet, at least.

Posted by Peter | June 13, 2008 10:27 AM

"Newark, by the way, is now Newark-Liberty International Airport, or some such, apparently because it has a view of the Statue of Liberty's ass."

Wrong! It was named Newark-Liberty (stupid, BTW) shortly after 9/11. If you recall, UA 93 departed from Newark, before crashing in Pennsylvania. You actually don't get much of a view of the Statue of Liberty from Newark as the city & airport are inland from NY Harbor. I believe the statue's ass faces toward Manhattan.

Posted by CParis | June 13, 2008 10:28 AM

Please, please, please! Who the hell was Major Deegan? - jrosen

To borrow a joke from a fellow red-head I knew in my grad school days -- "I dunno who Major Deegan was, but he must have been tall and sufferred allergies ... because the highway they named after him is long and congested".

Posted by DAS | June 13, 2008 10:42 AM

But the right airport would have been Boston’s Logan, currently named for a Boston statehouse pol who died in 1939 and on whom the statute of limitations has surely run out.

By that same logic, the airport named after Ronald Reagan shouldn't be the one in Washington DC (Richard Cohen--in one of his few moments of genuine humor--wrote that given Reagan's open hostility towards the nation's capitol, naming something in Washington DC after Ronald Reagan is like naming something in Atlanta after Sherman)

Posted by "Fair and Balanced" Dave | June 13, 2008 10:50 AM

DAS
There's lots of van Arsdales, and their descendants (incl. me) , in the US. So getting excited over that is, well, a bit much.

Posted by wiredog | June 13, 2008 10:51 AM

This came up because the Triboro Bridge was recently renamed for RFK. This might stick since the previous name was so bad.

Except that it's an accurate name...the bridge connects 3 boroughs. As an NYT story accurately predicted, it will be called "RFK Bridge" about as much as 6th Ave. is "Avenue of the Americas" (at least by NYers).

Posted by Glenn | June 13, 2008 10:57 AM

William Francis Deegan, 1882-1932, was an architect and an actual Major in the Army Corps of Engineers, serving stateside in WWI under General George Goethals, who, incidentallt, has a bridge named after him. Deegan was also something of a politico, holding a variety of posts in NYC government. He may also have been the Deegan in Adler v. Deegan, an important Court of Appeals case on NYC home rule, but I haven't time to check on that now.

Posted by CJColucci | June 13, 2008 11:14 AM

Major Deegan should shake hands with General Booth. The general, I believe, founded the Salvation Army, and there's a boulevard in Virginia Beach that bears his name for some reason. When I first moved there, I thought that maybe there was a "General Booth Boulevard" to differentiate it from the "Specific Booth Boulevard."

Also, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel is officially now called the Lucius J. Kellam Bridge Tunnel.

And who is Kozsciusko, who's got a bridge somewhere in Brooklyn named after him? I thought at one point it was named after a local mustard.

Posted by Fred App | June 13, 2008 11:17 AM

Why spare the Grand Army Plaza? We already have a Grand Army of the Republic Highway, and it's the longest road in the United States.

Anybody know where it goes?

Posted by Gene O'Grady | June 13, 2008 11:24 AM

Oregon has an Oswald West State Park. I always assumed that in New Jersey or somewhere there was an Oswald East State Park which also commemorated Lee Harvey.

Posted by John Emerson | June 13, 2008 11:34 AM

Why spare the Grand Army Plaza? We already have a Grand Army of the Republic Highway, and it's the longest road in the United States. Anybody know where it goes?

Yes! Through my hometown. Duh! Do I get a cookie?

(Anyway, in the age of Wikipedia, trivia is officially obsolete.)

Posted by ERM | June 13, 2008 11:44 AM

Idlewild wins for being referenced in Goodfellas.

Naming aside, JFK was by far the least pleasant airport I've ever been to.

By that same logic, the airport named after Ronald Reagan shouldn't be the one in Washington DC (Richard Cohen--in one of his few moments of genuine humor--wrote that given Reagan's open hostility towards the nation's capitol, naming something in Washington DC after Ronald Reagan is like naming something in Atlanta after Sherman)

And he was so well-liked by air traffic controllers.

Posted by Royko | June 13, 2008 11:50 AM

Please, please, please! Who the hell was Major Deegan?

We have a thread-winner.

I believe every New Yorker has wondered that. No one ever knows that.

Thaddeus Kozsciusko, as any Polish American will tell you, was a Polish officer and patriot who fought for the Continental Army, and then tried to reverse the partition of Poland in the rebellion there in the 1790s.

Of course, very few know that he ended up enriched and ennobled by the Russians. So, not exactly the Polish George Washingon, or whatever, that he is usually known as.

Posted by Greg | June 13, 2008 12:18 PM

The main reason to let JFK Intl keep its name
is to forestall any possibility of Repugs re-naming
it after Reagan (or Bush).

Same reason FDR is on the dime.

Posted by DJ | June 13, 2008 12:21 PM

Shouldn't a guy at least be out of office before you name something after him?

Obviously this person has never set foot in West Virginia.

My favorite obscure politician naming thingy is (was) Brendan Byrne arena.

Posted by Kurt | June 13, 2008 12:46 PM

Brendan Byrne was the 2- term NJ governor during the time the arena was built.

Posted by CParis | June 13, 2008 12:57 PM

It's far too late in the day to change JFK airport's name. But it is sad that JFK got his name attached to such a supremely crappy airport.
Posted by Glenn

It's never too late. Idlewild is a great name and should return after the airport gets its long-overdue makeover and mass transit system.

There is hope to de-Kennedy a place. LBJ inflicted Cape Kennedy on the whole penninsula of Cape Canaveral because "it was the victim family's wishes, especially Jackies". The locals hated the name change, refused to use it. Eventually they got a law passed to restore the place to "Cape Canaveral. Locals and NASA employees? They don't even like saying "Kennedy Space Center" there or "Johnson Space Center" in Houston. It's Canaveral and Houston....

I think eventually the Triboro will return to be the Triboro, and RFK Stadium will change to a more popular name in DC.

And National Airport will be National again after the stupid vote to name it after Reagan is rescinded.

Fortunately, as with Carter, there will be no rush to honor the Clinton and Bush dynasties with renaming places. A name has to have value to somebody to have it even be considered - and Carter, Bush, and Clinton prestige is pretty low.

And even a famous personality who remains well-regarded may be damaged by overuse of a name or use of their name on the wrong things.

MLK's legacy might benefit from removal of his name from most inner city places where it has become synonymous with most people as flagging a dangerous, crime-riddled, decayed - scuzzy street, public housing project, failing school. Even the Martin Luther King detention centers and halfway houses.
MLK now means a near-automatic mental image of the quality of the place or building named after him, just as McDonalds food or a "McJob" has a near-instant mental association.

Of course, suggesting removing Saint Martin's name would instantly bring out the usual pack of hooting and hollering black race baiters protesting against any "hateful people" dropping the name of the Greatest Man to Ever Live off any of 15,000 streets and places in the USA. So we will live with the irony of the ubiquitous association of MLK with places no one wants to be at, or in, for a long time to come.

Posted by chris ford | June 13, 2008 1:16 PM

And the physical Shea Stadium and the name are going away....... Citifield, or whatever. :( :( :(

I have countless fond memories of sitting in the cheap seats at Shea watching the hapless Mets from 1964-??? and before that in the center field bleachers at the Polo Grounds.

OK, who was the Mets first pick in the 1962 expansion draft... and why? Answer

Posted by Randy G | June 13, 2008 1:45 PM

And the physical Shea Stadium and the name are going away....... Citifield, or whatever. :( :( :(

I have countless fond memories of sitting in the cheap seats at Shea watching the hapless Mets from 1964-??? and before that in the center field bleachers at the Polo Grounds.

OK, who was the Mets first pick in the 1962 expansion draft... and why? Answer

Posted by Randy G | June 13, 2008 1:48 PM

My favorite obscure politician naming thingy is (was) Brendan Byrne arena. - Kurt

And well known in NJ. I don't know how Byrne was viewed whilst governor but after the much (and unfairly) maligned Florio, and the "wonderful" governorships of Whitman, DiFrancesco and McGreevy, Byrne and Kean enjoy(ed) quite a bit of respect in NJ. They often appeared as "from the left/from the right" talking heads (e.g. in one of the states' main papers) ... although I dunno if you can call Fmr. Gov. Kean "from the right" (although his son is your standard issue GOoPer from what I know).

Posted by DAS | June 13, 2008 2:10 PM

You want a major international hub like that to have a name like "JFK," rather than "Idlewild" or "Bob Smith International."

Agreed. The first time I landed in the US, it was at JFK, and while the ambience was 'stale bureaucratic brown', there's something to be said for the association. Idlewild is more evocative, though.

But Logan's such a shitty airport that it doesn't deserve a good name.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | June 13, 2008 2:10 PM

Fred App, to rename the Kozsciusco Bridge after JFK would be an insult to both men. That thing is horrendous.

And what's with just throwing out "Grand Army Plaza" at the southeast corner of Central Park as if it's the real Grand Army Plaza?

Posted by jhupp | June 13, 2008 2:22 PM

Physical infrastructure aside, it's a hell of an honor to name such a key gateway to the world after JFK; Ellis Island with runways.

On a related note, let's rename Miami Int'l after Tom Tancredo, just to piss that xenophobe off.

Posted by cdc | June 13, 2008 2:53 PM

And well known in NJ. (Byrne)

Was he? My impression as someone who grew up in NJ was that he kept a very low profile after his governorship and wasn't really a public figure within the state, and was totally unknown outside the state, especially after the string of famous/notorious politicians which followed (Whitman, McGreevey, Corzine...). I'm happy to plead ignorance though.

Posted by Kurt | June 13, 2008 3:00 PM

Back in the old days (I date myself) i.e. 1961, when the cost of making a phone call was relatively expensive, we would call person to person to reach the person we were calling directly. If the person was not there, we would not be charged.
We would use person to person to leave messages for the person who answered the phone(this was many, many years before email or faxing. If we were flying into NYC and wanted to tell the person picking us up when and where we would be arrving, we would have the operator call the phone number of that person and ask for Miss Ida Wild. When our friend told the operator she was not there, we would say to tell the person at the other end that we would call again at 3:15 p.m. which was the time we were arriving. Frankly, I don't remember how we conveyed the airline.

Posted by Jim | June 13, 2008 3:19 PM

phg: My favorite is Yankee Stadium, which is the same as qui[c]kie but you're by yourself.

OMFG, ROTFLMAO, that was sublime.

Posted by cmholm | June 13, 2008 4:07 PM

For that matter, why the hell does John Foster Dulles have an airport named after him in any city?

Posted by Erik | June 13, 2008 6:58 PM

The official name was "New York International Airport" before it was renamed for JFK in December 1963 or January 1964. The locals always referred to it as Idlewild -- I believe because that was the name of the area before the city started building the airport. Somebody once told me that there was a golf course there before the airport.

Posted by Macaulay Connor | June 14, 2008 9:39 AM

The public facility that really SHOULD get named after RFK is the high school they're building on the site of the Ambassador Hotel where he got shot. Right now all he's got named after him in L.A. is the median strip there on Wilshire Blvd.

Posted by Adam Villani | June 15, 2008 7:14 AM

The "Polo" of the Polo Grounds is the game played on horses.

Posted by Isabel Lugo | June 18, 2008 10:01 PM