Street names
I read a discussion recently about several streets with names which happen to be identical to those of some famous people, and it reminded me of a little family-related issue.
Many years ago, during the building of the city of Tel-Aviv, one of the streets was named after a family member of mine, several generations back. Doesn’t really matter in the great scheme of things, but the family members at the time were pretty happy about it.
Years went by, and at some point the street signs were ruined. When the city came to repair the signs, they discovered they’re not sure as to the exact name of the street, just about the last name of the person it was named after. So someone tried to dig up some information, and get the name. And they made a mistake, deciding that the street was after some other mildly-famous artist, or architect, with a similar name.
The new name got put on the sign, the family of that person was notified that the sign of the street named after him got repaired (I think there was a larger renovation work, and the street was officially re-opened, so it was an event), and that was that. Naturally nobody bothered to notify my family.
A long time later some family member was in the area, and decided to take the opportunity to take a look at the street. And discovered that the name is wrong. After some discussions the family members who cared about this filed a complaint with the city, asking that it would be corrected.
The city claimed that they’re not sure about who it should be named after. They agreed that the claim has merit, and that it’s possible they made a mistake, but were not willing to go as far as to actually set it back. Besides, they will then need to notify the people who cared about that other person that they’re losing the street named after him, and they didn’t want to do that. They city didn’t want the headache of getting in an argument between two families, and decided that the simplest course will be retaining the status quo.
And so the street retains the new name to this very day…
Disclaimer: This is based on the stories and arguments that I heard during several family meetings years ago. Considering the time passed, and that I didn’t find the topic all that exciting to begin with, my memory of the exact details is a bit hazy, and they may differ a bit. What’s unmodified is that the street was named after a family member, there were some repairs, the street got renamed after someone else with a similar name, and when it was discovered the city refused to change it back.
July 7th, 2005 at 1:40 EET | Categories: Personal |
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