Willie Brown, Jr. Boulevard Back on the Table
We received a disturbing message in our Facebook inbox this morning pointing to a letter the city sent out to property owners up and down the Third Street corridor on Wednesday seeking their input on Mayor Newsom's odd proposal to change the name of Third Street to Willie Brown Jr. Boulevard. Ew!
Third Street, for you kids who never leave the safety of your respective fashion ghettoes, is essentially the southern extension of Kearny Street which runs through Mission Bay, Dogpatch, and Bayview-Hunters Point before merging with Bayshore Boulevard (which then leads to some terra incognita out there in the fog and cold somewhere — we think there's an Arby's there). The exciting and still relatively new T-Third light rail line serves most of this corridor.
Now before you folks who are opposed to this idea decide to rip off your bras, throw on your pink T-shirts, and go all pitchfork and bicycle chain in the streets over this, be aware that no hearing on this proposal has been scheduled as of yet. The department of Public Works is simply seeking public comment on the measure, which will then be presented to some committee, who will then hold a public hearing on the matter before passing it along to the full BOS for a yay or nay. If you want to comment on this, by all means do so here.
Putting aside the fact that we feel aggrandizing a living person with this kind of vanity memorial is tacky and gross, particularly when we have plenty of dead heroes who have yet to be similarly honored (hello, Harvey Milk, George Moscone, Sue Bierman, so on and so forth), we find it bewildering that the city should want to celebrate Willie Brown in this way. After all, this is a man who was repeatedly criticized during his administration for bowing down to developers and allowing gentrification to ensue unchecked. Do we really want to name Third Street, a thoroughfare that basically serves as a main street to one of the poorest of the city's neighborhoods, for someone with this kind of legacy? Seems kind of ironic, in a sick sort of way.
While the city has taken steps to assure the residents of Bayview-Hunters Point that the T-Third and other redevelopment projects slated for this area won't lead to long term residents being run out of town on a wave of gentrification, this proposal doesn't seem to go a long way to instilling much confidence in that idea. Just saying.