When Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, he was at the time a Senator from the great state of New York. Yet, since we associate the Kennedy’s with Washington, DC, and Massachusetts, no one really remembers RFK’s ties to New York. Now, Gov. Eliot Spitzer wants to correct that oversight.
In today’s State of the State address, Spitzer will announce his plans to rename New York City’s Triborough Bridge in honor Robert F. Kennedy. The new name for New York’s iconic bridge will the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Bridge. That’s a mouthful.
The New York Times’ Sewell Chan has the response from the Kennedy family at Cityroom:
“I think we’re very excited about it, and very pleased,” Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the former lieutenant governor of Maryland and the eldest of Senator Kennedy’s 11 children, said in a phone interview this morning. “I do know this has been a dream for quite awhile. We’re very, very happy that Governor Spitzer has decided to take it on.”
Mrs. Townsend, who was 17 when her father died, recalled traveling over the Triborough Bridge with him from La Guardia Airport as a child. “I remember going over it so many times with my father, when he was a senator, coming into Manhattan, going out,” she said. “It’s really touching. It would be really fabulous to recall that he was the senator from New York, if ever so briefly, and that there would be a way to remember him in that city. It would be wonderful tribute to all that my father did.”
Interestingly, this isn’t the first time that someone has tried to rename the bridge in honor of RFK. According to The Sun, in 1975, Gov. Hugh Carey wanted to name the bridge after RFK but was blocked by none other than bridge builder Robert Moses himself. Gov. George Pataki also thought about the idea.
In response to this announcement, well, I’ve never seen such vitriol from the Cityroom commenters. While a lot of people were critical of the idea, basically, it came down to two complaints: New York tradition and RFK’s tenuous relationship to the state. The Triborough, they argue, is a self-explanatory name and evokes images of New York’s spirit during the Depression. Plus, RFK ran for Senate in New York so he could better position himself to run for president. (Hmmm. Doesn’t that sound familiar?)
My initial thoughts here turned to Robert Moses. The Triborough Bridge is a symbol of Good Robert Moses. This was Moses when he got stuff done that people wanted him to get done. This was well before the seemingly racist Moses who had no regard for New York City neighborhoods or its people.
If anything, the bridge should be named for Robert Moses himself. Of course, we can’t name the bridge Good Robert Moses Memorial Bridge, and associating Moses’ name with anything in this city is still problematic even today, nearly 30 years after Moses’ death.
My next thought is to live the bridge as it is. The Triborough Bridge is a simple name for a rather majestic set of roadways and bridges that pass through and connect three boroughs and a few islands. But it’s a New York icon. If this name change goes through, in ten or twenty years, New Yorkers will still call it the Triborough Bridge. Don’t believe? Just ask someone to point out the Joe DiMaggio Highway, so named in 1999.
In the end, this name will serve as a fitting tribute for a man who was a real leader in civil rights in America and a man whose career and live were cut tragically short. But I do have to wonder if the bridge is the best of things to name after RFK. The Triborough already has a name, and New Yorkers are not quick to forget it.
11 comments
I guess the point where “Good Moses” stopped and “Bad Moses” began depends on your perspective. It allowed Moses to build the FDR Drive, Grand Central Parkway, BQE, Major Deegan and Bruckner Expressways, and “upgrade” the Harlem River Drive, as “approach roads” to the bridge. Many of these were popular when they were built, but I think most people would agree that they now blight the neighborhoods they travel through and contribute to the congestion in the city.
Also, the Triborough was the first East River crossing that didn’t have a transit component.
Nobody will ever call the bridge connecting three of New York City’s five boroughs anything but the Triborough Bridge. Renaming it is a complete waste of time and money as I presume some outlay of funds would be involved.
The worst thing Moses ever did, and there were many, was ensure that the Dodgers moved to LA. It would be amazing to have a ball park in downtown Brooklyn (even with the problems it would cause) and certainly would beat the hell out of the thing they call Shea out in Corona.
How about the Hillary Rodham Clinton bridge?
Too soon?
Robert Moses didn’t morph from bad to good all at once. The bridge itself was one of his good projects, but the “bad” Moses had already started to come out in some of his earlier work on Long Island.
It’s also worth noting that Triborough was started by other people. Moses assumed control and got it done, after the project had stalled. We all know that Moses was anti-transit, and that this was a grievous mistake. But I’m pretty sure that Triborough was never intended to have a transit component—even before Moses took it over. On its own, Triborough didn’t blight any neighborhoods, though the approach roads built later on certainly did.
I don’t see a particular problem with naming Triborough for RFK, though the original name will obviously endure for a long time. Don’t forget, JFK Airport was originally Idlewild. The FDR Drive was originally the East Side Drive. People do eventually learn new names.
Moses used the triborough as his personal cash vault to fund other city projects. Slum clearing and park building of the 70s were largely funded from tolls on the Triborogh. And there’s no doubt that being head of the triborogh bridge authority wrought him a nice pay check. All that said, with out him traffic in NYC wouldn’t move with the efficency it does, nor would commutes be as easy as they are.
Oh, and need we recall the greatest feature of Randall’s Island (the center of the Triborough)? Do remember that wonderful annual concert called Warp Tour… When Randall’s Island turns into a mud bath. Brilliant use of a once pristine island now bogged down with smog from all directions….
Rename it? I like the ‘descriptive name.’ After all, “RFK” bridge would imply a single bridge, but he triborough is made up of three bridges.
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The name “Triborough” evokes the city itself and three of the five boros, but RFK, who would call it that way?
Well, I agree with Mr. Shepherd, it’s a matter of time to call it the new way, but anyway I prefer Triborough.
I’d like for the MTA to rename the Delancey St F platform to say “Bella Lugosi” – I loved arriving at Bella Lugosi back in 2001 and 2002.
Does the Governor have the power to rename the bridge?
[…] Times, argues that the City shouldn’t rename the Triborough Bridge after Robert F. Kennedy. I agree. Interestingly, Haberman proposes naming the bridge after Andrew Haswell Green, a 19th-century […]
[…] January, before everything blew up, Eliot Spitzer started an effort to rename the Triborough Bridge for RFK. Yesterday, near the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of Kennedy, the New York State […]