Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge, from Boston to Charlestown

Journal archives

ORLEANS

THE MINUTE after distinguished people die there is always a rush to rename things in their honor. Boston did it a decade ago when it named the majestic new bridge crossing the Charles River the Leonard P. Zakim Bridge. The Travel Channel has ranked the Zakim Bridge ninth in its list of the World’s Top Ten Bridges.

The roadway that crosses over the span is called the John F. Fitzgerald Expressway (Route 93), named for the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s maternal grandfather, nicknamed “Honey Fitz.”

Zakim was a Boston civic leader and civil-rights activist. Originally, Massachusetts Republican Gov. A. Paul Cellucci wanted to call it the Freedom Bridge. However, in 2000 local clergy and religious leaders, including Cardinal Bernard Francis Law, requested the Zakim name shortly after Mr. Zakim’s death from myeloma. Governor Cellucci agreed to the naming, but leaders from the insular community of Charlestown objected to the name because they felt that since the design reflected the nearby Bunker Hill Monument, it should be named the Bunker Hill Freedom Bridge. Today the unwieldy full name of the bridge is the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge.

Today not one Massachusetts resident in a thousand has the slightest idea who Zakim was. The unseemly haste in naming what is now a symbol of our state’s capital city for him seems ill-advised in the extreme.

Cape Canaveral became Cape Kennedy and then reverted to Cape Canaveral. After Ted Kennedy’s brother, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated, in 1963, his widow, Jacqueline, suggested to President Lyndon Johnson that renaming the Cape Canaveral facility would be an appropriate memorial. However, Johnson recommended the renaming not just of the facility, but of the entire cape, which had had the name Canaveral for four centuries. Accordingly, Cape Canaveral was renamed Cape Kennedy.

This was not popular in Florida, and a decade later the state passed a law restoring the cape to the name it had held for 400 years. The Kennedy family issued a letter stating that its members “understood the decision.” Jacqueline also stated if that she had known that the Canaveral name had existed for 400 years, she never would have supported changing the name of the cape. The Space Center itself retains the Kennedy name.

Senator Kennedy must also be honored, but let’s do it after the hysteria has settled and in a way in which the ages will approve.

One idea would be to undo the state’s mistake of a decade ago and rename the Zakim Bridge in his name. Make it the Edward M. Kennedy Bridge. After all, his grandfather has his name on its route already.

And while we’re at it, let’s officially name any successful health-care bill that hews to President Obama’s principles Kennedy Care.

Walter Brooks, an occasional contributor, is publisher and editor of Cape Cod Today, an online newspaper.