Walsh: Keep Faneuil Hall's name lest we forget why we cared about the name in the first place

Mayor Walsh said today he opposes an effort to change Faneuil Hall's name just because Peter Faneuil owned slaves and was active in both the direct slave trade and the Triangular Trade that helped finance the purchase of yet more slaves.

"If we change the name of Faneuil Hall, 30 years from now, we'd forget what happened there," Walsh said at an afternoon press conference at City Hall.

Faneuil financed construction of the marketplace building that was given his name after he died in 1743 - six months after the hall opened for business.

Reporters did not follow up with a question about how we remember what happened in World War II if there are no buildings named for it.

Faneuil painting from the National Portrait Gallery.