2373.
The street-naming juggernaut rolls on in Portland, taking in several north-side streets at once & welcome, N Jaime Escalante Av, N Tonya Harding Av & N Rowdy R. Piper Av???
More at the Portland Sentinel.
This must be stopped. Or something.
No unicorns though.
Technorati Tags: PDX, April Fool, Prankery, PDX Geography, PDX Street Blades, Street Blade Gallery
4 comments:
Hi from Twitter,
We live out in west Beaverton. There was a very big brouhaha about naming Tualatin-Sherwood Road for a local councilman. Eventually, they decided to honor him. The street is now Roy Rogers Road. However, it is not the Roy Rogers of Hollywood cowboy fame. Do you remember him? Cordially, Ellen Kimball - @Radio_Lady
Ellen: Yes, I do remember Roy Rogers the cowboy, indeed. For a very long time I was confused as to why he'd need commemmoration in Washington Co, Oregon, which was never the Wild West, and I thought it funny.
Then I found out about the public servant and it all made sense. He must have been quite a towering figure in local politics. Washington County doesn't go out of its way to change road names like that, or at least doesn't seem to
Thanks for the comment!
Funny stuff! I remember, by the way, that when people were agitating for Empire Way to be changed to MLK Way in the early 1980s, they had life-size stickers printed up, and pasted not a few on the existing signposts. I suppose that'd be even easier to do now that they're moving to a standard font.
That's pretty crazy, Ben.
Actually, this harkens back to 1991, when Igor Vamos turned a marvelous agitprank that covered the (then) SW Front Avenue (latterly, Naito Parkway) blades with signs that said MALCOLM X st.
Igor went on to become one of The Yes Men, whom I'm sure you've heard about.
During the time before 39th became César E Chávez, The Wife™ griped (rightfully, I think) that they should just put up chalk streetblades with a supply of chalk besides, so that everyone could satisfy thier whim at any time to name a street after their hero.
I imagine that that sort of thing probably irritated police and fire responders, but then Empire Way was a pretty unique street – they probably weren't too distracted by it actually.
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