Cleveland's baseball team changes its name

[jtbell]

Cleveland Indians changing name to Cleveland Guardians (cnn.com)

Why the "Guardians"?

The choice of Guardians draws inspiration from Cleveland's architectural history. The Guardians of Traffic are the large art deco statues that adorn the Hope Memorial Bridge that connects the city's west side with the east side.

You all saw them here a few years ago, on one of my road trips:

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/rust-belt-road-trip.914311/#post-5767530

Scroll down to the fourth picture. Behind the statue, you can see Progressive Field, the home of the baseball team.

I grew up (not in Cleveland itself, but in Cleveland's "media orbit") knowing the bridge as simply the "Lorain-Carnegie Bridge", connecting Carnegie Avenue on the East Side with Lorain Avenue on the West Side. I had forgotten that it was later renamed the "Hope Memorial Bridge." One of the stonemasons who helped build the statues was Harry Hope, the father of comedian Bob Hope.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hope_Memorial_Bridge

 

[jtbell]

This passage from the Wikipedia article about the Hope Memorial Bridge rang a bell in the back of my head:

The bridge was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on October 8, 1976, after a controversy in which Cuyahoga County engineer Albert S. Porter threatened to remove the historic pylons to widen the span, stating, "Those columns are monstrosities and should be torn down and forgotten. There is nothing particularly historic about anyone of them..."

Porter was previously involved in another controversy over the proposed I-290 expressway through the Shaker Lakes park area between the wealthy East Side suburbs of Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights. IIRC he derisively called the lakes "dinky duck ponds." The expressway was never built.

 

[Mondayman]

Great. Next up, non-Native folks will complain about the Chicago Blackhawks and force them to change their name too.