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Opinion

Absurd names have no place on streets 

Sousan Hammad
Opinion Columnist

Oh, the endless travails of cement. We drive our vehicles and ride our bicycles, and on some days, we even see people walking over the paved concrete -- astonishing for the people of Houston who find it strange and demanding to walk, whether it is on streets, avenues, boulevards, lanes or whatever is chosen to label these homogeneous roads. 

There are, however, types of roads rightly named for their function, shape or geographical attributes. The denotations of this concrete pavement create a better understanding as to why the old-school city councilmen labeled various types of roads using contextualized names. 

For example, avenues and boulevards are often broad and landscaped, whereas a lane is a narrow strip of roadway for single vehicles. Streets tend to be larger than lanes and usually include sidewalks. Yet what doesn't make any sense is why there has to be more than one name for smaller types of roads. To list a few: gardens, grove, way, trail, terrace, walk, view, drive and bay. 

There should be only one name, since there is no plausible difference in calling a small road a view or a terrace. It is what it is -- a small road. At least there is a visual difference in the larger road names.

Also, every road has a name that signifies its function or purpose, whether symbolically or etymologically. 

In the lush suburban world, most streets are "drives" and named after a tree, flower or anything that is a part of nature -- while the drives endlessly wind into the driveways of identical houses. In the great rural life of the past, it was common to name roads after trees: oak, pine, maple and cedar.

Then there are roads named after symbols of power and authority. There are two George Bush streets in Texas. In Brooklyn there is a Hitler Street, located just one block from the Brooklyn Holocaust Memorial Mall. Not to mention streets that are constantly being renamed, such as Bob Marley Boulevard in New York, which used to be Church Avenue. Perhaps a secular, marijuana-smoking lobbying group demanded that change.

There are also streets named as an obvious reference to the street's position. It could be arbitrary to say that the Intifada Street in the occupied Palestinian territories is named in reference to Palestinians' political position or a remembrance of the uprising that claimed thousands of lives. But streets are more commonly named in reference to geographical position, such as East and West streets.

When America was first colonized and the early pertinent roads and buildings emerged, streets were named for landmarks (Market, Church and so on). Today it seems to be a bit more complicated because of acculturation, or perhaps because of no logical reason whatsoever. This is why contests such as the Wild, Weird and Wacky Street Names Contest even exist. One entry to the contest was a road in Granbury named Chicken Gristle Road. I bet the Granbury folk cook some succulent chicken with grease and gristle -- and maybe even with ketchup on the side.

In the fashionable New York, roads, like people, contain celebrity status compared to the humdrum numbered avenues and boulevards. Among the celebrity roads are Peter Jennings Way and Joey Ramone Place. And there's almost always a Martin Luther King Boulevard in every major city throughout the country.

So, as the names to random roads become more pejorative, we can thank our city councilmen who allow name changes to existing roads, or history for giving us endless lists of abstruse words when choosing names for small roads, big roads, shaped roads or any roads. At least now you know why a boulevard is a boulevard and not a lane, something that could prove vital to understanding life's surreal complexities.

Hammad, a communication junior, 
can be reached via dccampus@mail.uh.edu