I am completely on board with Mark Leibovich’s proposal to change the name of Logan Airport to Bill Russell Airport. Leibovich make’s his argument today at The Atlantic. Here is a taste:
Naming the airport for Russell would send a powerful message about the region it serves: Boston has come a long way toward racial comity since the benighted 1960s, but its journey is ongoing, and—despite Massachusetts’s liberal bent—has taken longer than it should have.
Airports are works in progress, like cities and people. They represent humanity going places and, ideally, communities striving to catch up. Of course, renaming Boston’s one major airport after 80 years would be complicated, setting off the inevitable hail of “But what about so-and-so or so-and-so?” The city is blessed with a long roster of hometown worthies, many of whom predated the invention of flight. (Paul Revere did his best work on horseback.)
But the case for Russell is too strong. In 2016, Boston magazine published a survey of the “100 Best Bostonians of All Time,” which ranked John and Abigail Adams No. 1 and the writer and poet (and Atlantic founder) Ralph Waldo Emerson No. 2. The highest-ranking athlete on the list was Russell, at No. 11—one behind William Rosenberg, the guy who founded Dunkin’ Donuts. Kind of on the nose, huh?
Nowhere in Boston’s glossy hierarchy does the name of General Edward Lawrence Logan appear. Perhaps this was taken as a slight by his descendants. Logan, a decorated veteran of the Spanish-American War, died in 1939, four years before the airport was named for him.
I mean no disrespect to General Logan. He had a good run. They can rename Terminal C the Logan Terminal or something. Or name a special Dunkin’ after him; there are about a dozen of them at the airport. But Ted Williams has his tunnel, and Red Auerbach has his bench. Let’s give Russell a monument commensurate with his significance to the city, something that is both a celebration of his accomplishments and a goad to the city to meet his towering example. Bill Russell International Airport makes a bold statement, like the man himself always did.
Read the entire piece here.
If you want to make an argument for keeping the name “Logan Airport” you can learn more about Edward Lawrence Logan here.
I confess that I never knew very much about the NBA, but when I was in Madison my friend and PhD advisor Keith Yandell used to regularly punctuate the obvious with a phrase like “…and if that argument isn’t valid then Bill Russell is not the greatest basketball player that ever lived.” Like many other things, I’ll take Keith’s word on it–and I certainly like the sound of the proposal and the reasons behind it.