Reagan Roadblock: Proposal to Rename D.C.'s 16th St. Runs Into Objections

[DeepModem Mom]

Washington Post:
A Roadblock for Reagan
Proposal to Rename 16th St. Runs Into Objections

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 5, 2005; Page B01


A Republican congressman from South Texas has proposed renaming 16th Street NW as Ronald Reagan Boulevard.

Rep. Henry Bonilla, co-chairman of the 2000 and 2004 Republican national conventions, quietly introduced the 106-word resolution before Congress adjourned for summer recess July 28.

As word has spread in the nation's capital, neighborhood Web logs in the overwhelmingly Democratic city have crackled with disbelief, and elected D.C. leaders yesterday joined in protest. The Republican chairman of a key House committee also criticized the idea....

***

Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) objected, saying that renaming the historic north-south route that leads to the White House would mar the elegant street plan laid out by French engineer Pierre L'Enfant in 1791 -- and cost the city $1 million to alter maps and signs.

Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), chairman of the House Government Reform Committee with jurisdiction over Bonilla's legislation, called it "ridiculous"....Davis noted that Congress has renamed Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and dedicated the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center on Pennsylvania Avenue NW. "If Congressman Bonilla wants to name anything else, he has to look at his own district in San Antonio," Davis said....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/04/AR2005080401514.html

[ochazuke]

1. Let the street suit the man

Find a pot-hole infested washboardy dead-end road that goes past a toxic waste dump and terminates at a graveyard full of white supremacists.

Rename THAT "Reagan Road"


While you're at it, Rethug Congress, demand that Poland rename the Auschwitz death camp "The Ronald Wilson Reagan Center for Applied Eugenics".

[EST]

8. Wonderful!

Elegant imagery!

[Judi Lynn]

11. First rate ideas, there!

Let "Reagan Road" be guarded night and day by some of the death squads he financed with American tax money in Central America.

[Mr. Peanut]

12. A lame attempt...

to forever link Ronald Reagan's name to the White House, since the real significance of 16th Street is that it has given the White House its historic address, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue... says D.C.'s nonvoting Democratic House Member, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton.

[Doc_Technical]

2. Why only re-name one street?

Let's just change the name from Washington D.C. to

Reagan D.C. and be done with it.

The United States of Reagan?

The Planet Reagan?

[SoCalDem]

3. The Reagan States of America

:)

[ochazuke]

5. It's a vast right-wing conspiracy

to deify Reagan as the founder of modern Conservatism. Eventually, they think he'll be held in the same esteem as Washington and Lincoln.

Have you seen the guy who wants to put him on Mt. Rushmore? Didn't anyone tell him there's no more rock there? They almost couldn't find enough for T. Roosevelt because the stone between Jefferson and Lincoln was not solid.

There's no need to worry about it though: either the course of history will go against Reagan and future generations won't even know it's a man's name -- that street or airport or whatever.

Or, Reaganism dominates -- in which case there won't be any earth left to name after the idiot.

[demzilla]

10. The Reagan Uni-fucking-verse

and let's all move to an alternate dimension to escape this shit. It's late and I'm TIRED.

[ochazuke]

13. Sorry. Reagan MULTIVERSE

Reagan All Possible Worlds

You can't even talk about a possible universe without putting the name Reagan before it. So, we'll have to number them or something.

Oh, and dimensions, too. Tell professor Greene he'll have to re-write his book on string theory.

[ugarte]

4. Henry Bonilla is the walking embodiment of a coconut

Only brown on the outside.

[madeline_con]

7. that's funny

:eyes:

[carnie_sf]

6. Henry Bonilla

didn't Jon make a complete ass out of him on the daily show last year?

[The_Casual_Observer]

9. Ronald Reagan memorial shithouse?

Put them in every national park.

[ochazuke]

14. To honor Reagan's commitment to the environment

I think it would be more appropriate to just defaecate on the park and leave it there to stink. Imagine a big pile next to old faithful. What a PR coup!

Put a little sign in the ground so people will know who to thank.

[Tuttle]

15. A while back...

maybe on Bartcop I read the suggestion that we carry Sharpie markers and use them to change "Ronald Reagan Memorial *wildcard*" to "Joey Ramone Memorial *wildcard*".

Which sounds good to me - though I've never been a big Ramones fan: even less of a Reagan fan.



Tut-tut

[underpants]

16. Anything that we can do to honor Reagan's memory

oh that is so bad but yet so subtle

:evilgrin::bounce:

[GoddessOfGuinness]

17. That's fine

as long as they rename Pennsylvania Avenue "Franklin Delano Roosevelt Boulevard".