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The Renaming of the Atlantic and Pacific

Posted by plumpdumpling on July 15, 2009 – 9:47 am      
Filed under politicking

As I very professionally wrote at Examiner.com today, the Atlantic-Pacific subway station in Brooklyn is being renamed by British bank Barclays.

On one hand, who cares? It’s good money for the transit authority, and everyone will continue to call it Atlantic-Pacific, anyway. On the other hand, corporations have way too much power in the country already, and it’s sickening to know that anything and everything is for sale here, especially dignity.

How do you feel about it?

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8 Comments

  1. Smail says:
    July 15, 2009 at 10:20 am

    Absurd. Give it 50 years and it’ll be like Idiocracy.

    “Ok, so you want to take the Taco Bell line over to Macy’s Station. If you hit Sunoco Square, you’ve gone too far. Macy’s is one stop after 20th Century Fox Plaza.”

    The only way this sort of thing will stop is if people loudly voice their opposition. Several years back, MLB announced that they were going to place ads for SpiderMan 2 on top of bases. The outcry was so great, they quickly reversed their decision. Oh, and I’m calling it Shea:
    http://www.nomas-nyc.com/product_shea.html

    • plumpdumpling says:
      July 15, 2009 at 12:57 pm

      Idiocracy is really my idea of hell, and now you’ve totally got me scared.

      The problem is that I really, really love the subway and really, really want it well-funded. If the name change is going to help that, I hate to make a big deal of it. Of course, the MTA seems to be a terribly-run money hog, so I hate to reward them.

      A t-shirt is clearly the best way to deal with this. I love the Shea one.

      • Tracey says:
        July 17, 2009 at 12:21 am

        NYC should just raise your taxes for their funding so that they don’t have to rely on corporate dollars. I don’t like the idea of corporations having any control over my transportation.

  2. Adam says:
    July 15, 2009 at 11:15 am

    I’m looking for people who want to contribute to a fund to rename the subway stop in my neighborhood. I want to call it “Upper West Side” or “Central Park” – something that will increase the value of my apartment and lead to more gentrification of the area.

    The one thing that sort of makes this one ok, in my mind, is that the arena will be a major landmark in the area. Since the area is named after the bank, it doesn’t seem ridiculous that the subway station would share the name. I’m just not looking forward to when people start naming stops after themselves. Yeah, people like Donald Trump.

    • plumpdumpling says:
      July 15, 2009 at 1:10 pm

      I’d be way more likely to contribute to a fund to rename your stop Hoyt-Schermerhorn. I ride the G specifically to hear the conductors mispronounce it over and over.

      I actually had to go back and correct my article after reading your comment and checking Wikipedia. Now in addition to being a little pissed off that the station is being renamed, I’m now a little pissed off that the New Jersey basketball team gets an arena in Brooklyn. (I thought it was being built in Jersey.) I guess it’s a good use of wasted space, though, and a good way to make my family stop asking me if it’s safe to walk in Brooklyn at night.

  3. Kelly says:
    July 16, 2009 at 1:16 am

    These kinds of things make me feel conflicted too. Yes, the MTA needs the money, but names like “Citi Field”? They make me shudder.