[MassHistPres] Names of Streets

[Dennis De Witt]

A few years ago Brookline passed a by-law establishing a "Naming  
Committee."  Here is a link to its guidelines

http://www.brooklinema.gov/index.php?option=com_docman&Itemid=739

I don't know that it has been presented with any new road to be taken  
over by the town but there was a new park -- named "Skyline park" on  
top of a former landfill -- with some suggestion that the name was a  
placeholder until something more obviously inspiring presented itself.

The committee was established in part to prevent people from pushing  
ill-conceived renaming schemes -- of the "who was he?" variety --  
though town meeting without any proper vetting, as has happened on  
occasion.  Its remit applies to any public spaces as well as streets  
-- such as a landscaped space in a traffic circle recently named (for  
the first time) for a local boxing champion of the 1950s who had taken  
the title from Sugar Ray Robinson.

Recently the abutters of "Incinerator Drive" thought the tone of their  
neighborhood would be improved if that road was renamed "Corduroy  
Road" -- based on an apparently unsubstantiated argument that a  
neighboring swampy area must have had one.  The Committee negotiated  
"Sawmill Road" instead, because there was some record of one nearby.

Dennis De Witt



On Aug 25, 2009, at 3:18 PM, Dcolebslade at aol.com wrote:

> We are interested in learning if there are policies in towns around  
> Massachusetts as to naming new streets which are public ways and  
> accepted by the town.  Do towns (say through the Planning Board)  
> have a list of acceptable names or do the applicants have to submit  
> a name for approval? Or can the applicant name streets as they  
> like?   The purpose of these questions is to find out if it would be  
> possible for the relevant town body to suggest or require that names  
> representing more relevant aspects of the history of the town be  
> chosen.
>
> Betty Slade
> Westport
>
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