Time to rename Yawkey Way

John Quincy Adams were not slaveholders. And the town of Quincy was named after John Quincy (not Adams). Not sure about other inaccuracies that may be on the list.

This is a criticism of the list. I agree with you that other streets, buildings, towns, etc. are named after slaveholders. By the way slavery was outlawed in Massachusetts in 1780.

This is a list of streets' eponyms only - not slaveowners.

By TJ Mack
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 4:17pm

Abraham Lincoln, slaveholder? Ralph Waldo Emerson, slaveholder?

Is there really anyone out there who graduated elementary school who thinks that this list is even remotely accurate?

jamarhl crawford

By anon
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 4:22pm

Is as racist as the people he bitches about.

Robert Gould Shaw?

By chaosjake
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 4:24pm

The mind boggles.

Charles Sumner???

By chaosjake
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 4:30pm

and the cane? Edward Everett? Ralph Waldo Emerson? Abraham friggin' Lincoln? This list confuses the bejeesus out of me.

It confuses you because you are

By bulgingbuick
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 6:51pm

"the Man".

Sumner Tunnel not named after Senator Charles Sumner

By Ron Newman
Fri, 02/14/2014 - 11:55am

That's an easy mistake to make, but it's wrong.

(Leaving aside the absurdity of calling the Senator a slaveholder.)

a ridiculous list

By deselby
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 4:56pm

Robert Gould Shaw? Sumner? Maimonides?

This reminds me of the

By bulgingbuick
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 6:58pm

side show carnival barkers that wanted to slice up Boston and create "Mandela"

Woodrow Wilson, slaveholder?

By Ron Newman
Fri, 02/14/2014 - 11:53am

He was born in 1856. Can a 9-year-old be called a "slavemaster" in any meaningful sense?

(I'm not contesting the established fact that Wilson was a racist, but that's not the same thing as being a slavemaster.)

Lets rename Malcolm X Blvd

By Johnny DelVecchio
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 1:36pm

Lets rename Malcolm X Blvd too then

That is going to get

By bulgingbuick
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 2:24pm

you a multiple r rrrrrrrrrrrrracist. But the hypocrisy you note is as deep as today's snow.

don't really see how Malcolm X was a racist

By deselby
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 4:58pm

"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice." - Malcolm and Barry Goldwater

He was pretty openly for the creation of Bantustan which was to be a black only version of South Africa. Malcolm was very blunt and open about his outright hatred of white people. The guy was against integration in favor of secessionist black nationalism. He looked up to Martin Luther King, Jr. but was the polar opposite when it came to desired outcomes.

His attitude changed a bit following a pilgrimage to Mecca where he saw all ethnicities praying together, but he never dropped the racist rhetoric entirely, and never had the chance to have his stance evolve further before the NOI leadership grew wary of his increasing internal criticism of the organization and had him murdered.

Pumpsie Green Way?

By MR VEGAS
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 1:40pm

Pumpsie Green Way?

They

By bulgingbuick
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 2:25pm

do sell booze on that street.

More PC

By anon
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 1:53pm

Bull Crap

Rename is back to Jersey

By Old Fart
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 2:12pm

Rename is back to Jersey Street and restore the alphabetical grid from Back bay to Fenway.

Arlington
Berkley
Clarendon
Dartmouth
Exeter
Fairfield
Gloucester
Hereford
(Mass Ave/West Chester Park)
Ipswich
Jersey
Kilmarnock
Peterborough
Queensberry

Jersey Street

By anon
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 2:54pm

is still there, south of Boylston.

Also, where's L,M,N, and O?

Lansdowne is there which they

By anon
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 3:22pm

Lansdowne is there which they forgot.

M/N/O might have been planned where the ballpark was built.

The alphabet run ends at Kilmarnock.

By TJ Mack
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 4:30pm

Anyone who insists otherwise can get back on the Acela and head back home...

M,N,O... and more

By anon
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 5:54pm

Interesting... from Wikipedia:

West Fenway features streets named after Scottish cities and towns present in Robert Burns' literary works; Peterborough, Kilmarnock, Queensberry... As originally planned in 1894, the street naming system was to continue the system originating in the Back Bay of naming streets in alphabetical order. Where the Back Bay proper ends at Hereford Street, the Fenway was to continue Ipswich, Jersey, Kenyon (Kilmarnock), Lansdowne, Mornington, Nottingham, Onslow, Peterborough, Queensberry, Roseberry, Salisbury, Thurlow, Uxbridge, Vivian, Westmeath (Wellesley), X omitted, York, and Zetland.[citation needed]

There's a map here... the layout looks a lot more willy-nilly than the linear Back Bay grid.

Woah that is wild looking and

By greenlinetobrooklyn
Fri, 02/14/2014 - 2:48pm

Woah that is wild looking and makes zero sense... why keep the streets alphabetical if they aren't in any order?

Wouldn't be surprised when

By kvn
Fri, 02/14/2014 - 9:23am

Wouldn't be surprised when and if Lansdowne street disappears when they deck over the Mass Pike extension and the railroad tracks and connect to Kenmore square, making an entertainment / hotel extravaganza Camden Yards derivative. The posturing has already begun. Maybe the monster seats will grow, and they will sawzall a few windows into the Green Monster, tastefully though. Dont want to loose any advertising.

Not the last two

By tachometer
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 5:55pm

Peterborough & Queensberry run perpendicular to the rest of the grid streets so I would not consider it part of the alphabetical grid as it runs in line with Marlborough, Commonwealth, etc.

Bryan Joiner is a trolling attention whore

By deselby
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 2:24pm

What has Bryan Joiner ever done for anyone? Did he fund a Boys' and Girls' Club in Roxbury? Is there a Joiner Foundation funding improvements in people's lives?

The Yawkey family redeemed itself through the Foundation.

I am tired of these "digital media" trolls and and attention whores. Put up cold cash or shut up.

So provided someone in your

By Paul Skogstrom
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 11:58pm

So provided someone in your family throws money in the right direction when things get hot, your legacy is preserved. I guess you can only be a racist if you are poor. Thank you for clarifying that.

So, Sen. Byrd was still a

By Patricia
Fri, 02/14/2014 - 3:46pm

So, Sen. Byrd was still a racist to the day he died? That can't be, he was well respected within the dem party.

Or is redeeming oneself just for some people?

Naw!

By kvn
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 2:36pm

Naw!

Rename the JFK Library and JFK Federal Building too

By O-FISH-L
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 4:07pm

Why stop at renaming Yawkey Way? It was the Justice Department in the President John F. Kennedy administration, led by his brother and Attorney General Bobby Kennedy, that authorized the despicable wiretapping of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., not to mention JFK's reluctance to embrace the Civil Rights movement so as not to offend his racist, fellow Democrats in the South who would be pivotal to his political success.

You do realize...

By fish
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 4:35pm

You do realize that the JFK Library isn't just a random library named after him, right?

JFK's Fellow Democrats in the South

By Paul Skogstrom
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 11:41pm

where only Democrats because Lincoln (a Republican) abolished slavery, and as a result, created the "Solid (Democrtic) South." It was the Civil Rights Movement that drove southern whites into the Republican Party. It is irrefutable history that any party that embraces racial equality suffers a backlash across a large swath of our country. Kennedy was still in his first term. I would love to have seen what he was willing to do in his second.

Nixon then

By bulgingbuick
Fri, 02/14/2014 - 7:57am

Reagan proved that by political strategy.

King County, WA

By ckd
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 4:07pm

To the fourth argument, that the honorific could be shifted to Jean Yawkey: This is reasonable but fraught with problems; "We are renaming this street for the wife of our former racist owner, instead of him" seems like a tricky enough act to pull off that it wouldn't fly.

I call BS. King County, WA managed to change their namesake from slaveholder William Rufus King (Franklin Pierce's VP) to Martin Luther King Jr without it being a "tricky enough act".

waste of time

By bosguy22
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 4:39pm

Even talking about this. That article was written like a 4th grade book report. He lost me when he talked about Larry Lucchino "buying" the team. He's a minority partner in a large ownership group.

Here's a Suggestion

By SwirlyGrrl
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 9:44pm

86 Years Way.

"The Curse" was so lengthy, in no small measure, due to Yawkey racism.

Alternate Suggestion

By rsybuchanan
Fri, 02/14/2014 - 2:15pm

Some people will embrace any new name immediately, while others reject it. They may even call it a scab and refuse to say the new name aloud. Sort of like the replacement players in '94. I can think of no more fitting honor for one of that group than replacing the Yawkey name with something bound to be controversial.

So let's rename it after Brian Daubach. He may have been a scab, but he was our scab, God damn it.

The Time Has Come

By Paul Skogstrom
Thu, 02/13/2014 - 11:13pm

Many of us have iconic memories of going to the game with our dads and granddads. If we sat and had frank conversations of race with them, and they were honest, we would probably be shocked. And these are the reasons that we don't.

I agree with this article. Just as we have given Fenway the structural changes needed to bring it into the modern era, we should also elevate the symbolic aspects to reflect a more nuanced perspective of the world. We don't have to denegrate the yawkeys, but it may be time to let them fade into history like all of the prior owners.

I vote for Curt Gowdy

By kvn
Fri, 02/14/2014 - 9:32am

I vote for Curt Gowdy Memorial Narragansett Way. On another compelling Fenway Park matter ,

Prices soar on Derek Jeter exit

http://bostonherald.com/business/media_marketing/2...

Swirls, help me out here , I know you are a corporate wizard , I need to see Jetz , to bookend my Mickey Mantle experience . I missed out on Mariano, Monster seat would be sweet...............

Time to rename Yawkey Way

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