What’s in a name?
Money, as in Alltel Stadium, but not the Gator Bowl.
The City sold the naming rights to the stadium, dumping its traditional name in favor of a corporate client.
Win-win? Sure, the City gets money and Alltel gets name recognition.
Now, more names will become available with the new arena and baseball park coming on line through Better Jacksonville Plan funding. That’s still in the future; neither building will be complete for at least two years, so the sales effort hasn’t formally begun.
The other Plan buildings?
For the new library, you can expect the mayor’s office to offer the name of the late city administrator, Lex Hester.
The courthouse may go unnamed, according to current thinking. Even though some other cities have named theirs after a prominent judge or lawyer, the mayor’s inclination is to leave the name the same: the Duval County Courthouse.
But if it is, whose name? And why Hester for the library? And where does that leave the late Haydon Burns, whose service as mayor and governor is now memorialized on the present downtown library?
Jacksonville’s downtown streets are full of buildings named for prominent citizens — all males, by the way — of the past.
There are a few instances here of living citizens, which can be somewhat chancy — when the big fountain on the Southbank was built in the early ‘60s, it was originally Dallas Thomas Fountain after a city council member. When he was indicted, it became Friendship Fountain.
There are at least four buildings named for living people, but all are outside the City’s direct jurisdiction.
While the City must honor only the dead, the authorities and colleges can do what they please: thus, the community college has side-by-side buildings on State Street named after Don Martin (a former chair of the board of trustees) and Don Zell (a past president of the FCCJ Foundation), the port has an Ed Austin Terminal (ex-mayor and port board member) and the transportation authority has a Charles Sawyer station (board member.)
Almost every bridge is named for someone, though it’s doubtful that many these days could identify politicians of the past like Broward, Alsop, Acosta, Buckman, or even Fuller Warren.
Some names disappear. The Daniel Building, named for pioneer R.P. Daniel, is now part of the Adam’s Mark Hotel. The Daniel name still exists, but it’s out at the University of North Florida, where an administration building is named for R.P.’s son J.J., one of the fathers of the movement which consolidated the city and county into one government, a former chairman of the state’s Board of Regents and a former publisher of The Florida Times-Union.
Why Hester?
“The library was his baby,” said Sharon Ashton, the mayor’s spokesperson. “He pushed hard for it.”
While it wouldn’t be appropriate to sell the library or courthouse names — Barnes and Noble Library? Barnes, Barnes and Cohen Courthouse? — the ballpark and arena are different deals. The names certainly will change, as long as someone antes up the money.
“That’s part of the package,” says Ashton. “Maybe Coca-Cola Arena?”
Maybe, but some controversy may be coming along with that. We now have the Veterans Memorial Coliseum and Wolfson Park. Veterans organizations already are grumbling; at least one prominent citizen has told the mayor that the Wolfson name should be retained.
In a letter to Mayor John Delaney, outgoing Sports and Entertainment Board member Tommy Boney urged the retention of the name on the baseball park, citing the civic work of the late Sam Wolfson and his family. Wolfson was instrumental in getting Triple-A baseball here in 1962 and having the park built.
A compromise looms. Perhaps: Sam Wolfson Field at Gate Stadium?
More thoughts on names and places:
• Some targets have escaped and, at least for the present, we still have the Museum of Science and History, the Kids Kampus, Friendship Fountain and the Jacksonville Museum of Modern Art.
• It’s likely that few know the origin of pioneer names. Hogan Street? A pioneer family. Fuller Warren Bridge? A governor. Claude Yates Building (or YMCA?) A former head of Southern Bell who chaired the consolidation commission.
For that matter, who was Duval? Hardly known and, even today, improperly written: he was the state’s first territorial governor, William Pope DuVal.
• The Merrill House is a newcomer. It’s near the stadium at the Old St. Andrews and is named after a pioneer family which once owned the shipyards. It really doesn’t memorialize anyone, though — the historical society wanted an old home and that was available when an old residential neighborhood was taken over for new parking lots for the stadium. Yes, there are a few Merrills around, including one who was born in the house.
• What happens to Burns’ name when the new library opens? No one knows, and it’s likely that no one presently on the scene will have to deal with that potential political problem because the new library is a long way off.
—Fred Seely is editorial director of the Daily Record and
can be reached at