Historical Notes: land of Kennedy

• Share

By the dozens, plazas, bridges, hospitals, schools, libraries, stadiums, parks, government buildings, causeways, throughways, freeways, expressways, highways and byways around the world were christened or rechristened in the name of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

The Kayunga Boys' Club of Kayun-ga, Uganda, became the Kennedy Boys' Club. A West Virginia newspaper proposed changing the name of the state to Kennediana, or maybe just plain Kennedy. Some 700 families living in an Alliance for Progress housing project in Caracas, Venezuela, voted to name the project after the Yanqui President. Nevada's Democratic Senator Alan Bi ble proposed that next year's scheduled minting of 50 million silver dollars bear the J.F.K. profile.

Endless Brücken. Much of the memorializing occurred in places where Kennedy had lived or visited. A member of the House of Representatives' parks subcommittee proposed changing the name of the Cape Cod National Seashore Park to the John F. Kennedy National Seashore Park; the Massachusetts legislature received a proposal to emboss "Land of Kennedy" on the state's license plates, in the style of Illinois' "Land of Lincoln." In West Germany, where Kennedy toured triumphantly last June, the Bavarian mint began striking gold and silver medallions bearing Kennedy's likeness and the legend, "We all have lost him"; endlessly, Brücken (bridges) and Plätze (squares) were converted into Kennedy-Brücken and Kennedy-Plätze The John F. Kennedy Memorial Library at Harvard was incorporated, with Bobby as president and Teddy as vice president. Nearly everybody in Washington agreed that Jackie's pet project, the proposed new national cultural center, should be named after Jack.

All the naming and renaming was a natural reaction; witness a list of Garfield High Schools and McKinley Junior Highs as long as the Lincoln Tunnel. But in the rush to memorialize Ken nedy, many worthy governments and citizens' groups seemed eager to wipe out one historical name with another. In Beirut, Lebanon, Georges Clemenceau Street became John F. Kennedy Street; in Montigny-les-Metz, 175 miles east of Paris, the Rue Jeanne d'Arc was rechristened Rue J. F. Kennedy. A New Hampshire state legislator proposed changing the name of 5,535-ft. Mount Clay (after Henry) to Mount Kennedy.

The support of New York Mayor Robert F. Wagner for a plan to rename Idlewild Airport brought out the little-known fact that the official name of the U.S.'s major airport of entry is New York International Airport-Anderson Field, in honor of one Major General Alexander Anderson, a gallant soldier in both World Wars who filled the time between as a Queens Borough heating and ventilating contractor with powerful connections to New York politicians.*