ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 9, 1995 TAG: 9512100005
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
TAKE A "STAR," add some "crystal," a little railroad lingo and the name of one of Roanoke's most treasured leaders. Stir it all up with a bit of humor, and you've got the dicey task facing the Roanoke Planning Commission.
When last we visited the subject of possible names for Roanoke's $7 million pedestrian bridge, residents were pitching proposals by the shovelful. And elected officials seemed to be warming up to the idea.
Now, bowing to public demand, the Roanoke Planning Commission's suitably titled Ordinance and Names subcommittee is taking up the question that has teased Western Virginians for weeks:
What are we going to call that shiny downtown walkway?
The question arose on the commission's agenda Wednesday with a letter from City Manager Bob Herbert.
Mayor David Bowers' office, it seems, was hit with a six-week blizzard of residents' suggestions after The Roanoke Times raised the question back in early September.
Through mid-October, calls poured in from the Roanoke Valley. And Floyd. And Staunton. And Clifton Forge. And Suffolk. And elsewhere in the commonwealth.
There was even one from Elkhart, Ind. - thanks to Roanoke native Sara Prillaman. (She suggested "Star City Walkway.")
Meanwhile, council members could hardly walk down the street without getting stopped by brainstorming bridge-namers.
"I think there's a lot of interest in seeing a proper name for that walkway," Councilwoman Elizabeth Bowles observed with a touch of understatement.
Herbert's letter asked the commission, which traditionally makes recommendations on titles for public facilities, to come up with three to five potential names and submit them to council. Council will make the final call, if any, on a name.
Bowers, meanwhile, tossed in the scores of ideas that his secretary, Joyce Sink, compiled during phone calls from residents.
The suggestions can be grouped, at least generally. Lots of folks want to play off the Mill Mountain Star, as Prillaman suggested, or other themes such as the railroad, glass, the Hotel Roanoke or the sky.
Among the more notable: Daniel R. Mabery of Floyd liked "The Glasshopper," on the grounds that "a hopper is a chute through which something moves from one point to another and this hopper is glass." LaVonne R. Smith of Bassett preferred "Star Link" because the bridge links Roanoke, the hotel and Virginia Tech, and, besides, "by keeping the star symbol in the name, many pieces of jewelry can be designed for marketing purposes."
A number of the ideas are reverential: naming the walkway after famous but deceased Roanokers such as philanthropist Marion Via; former Mayor Roy L. Webber; former Norfolk Southern Chairman Robert B. Claytor; former City Manager Arthur S. Owens; and Julian S. Wise, founder of the first ambulance squad in the nation.
Suttie Economy of Northwest Roanoke told Sink the bridge should be named for former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who once got off a train at the crossing downtown at Jefferson Street.
Or, the city should build a plaza along the tracks and name it after FDR, Economy told Sink. Do that, and he'd support naming the walkway after Mayor David Bowers.
Others suggested living legends, such as former Mayor Noel Taylor.
And then, of course, there were rascally cynics who chimed in with humor and sarcasm.
Their ideas ranged from "The Second Blunder" (the first, the caller said, was tearing down the Hunter Viaduct to make way for the First Union Tower) to "Frump-Frump Bridge," after the circus elephant whose death here some years back caused so much local anguish.
The mean feat of sorting all of this out has been handed over to Planning Commissioner John Bradshaw, chairman of the Ordinance and Names subcommittee.
He'll be working with Commissioners Gilbert Butler and Pete Jones to winnow down the list, or come up with something of their own.
There are no written rules in naming public facilities, but there are a few guidelines the panel usually has adhered to over the years.
No.1 is that landmarks aren't named for living people - only the dead, Bradshaw said. Even then, "it has to be somebody who has had a lasting impact on the valley," he said.
Another is that a name shouldn't confuse people. That is, a "River Park" should be along a river, or an "Airport Road" should be near an airport.
Bradshaw said he wasn't in much of a rush to offer council a short list.
"People jump out with names that shouldn't be jumped out," he said. ```Pedestrian Bridge' is a fitting name until we find something that fits real well."
Stay tuned.
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