Oklahoma City Boulevard?
The buildings are just a fantasy - but the road is set to become a reality within a few years. What will it be named?
I’ve not heard any public discussion about what the name should be for the boulevard that will replace the current alignment of Interstate 40 south of downtown. Mayor Mick Cornett is asking the Planning Commission tomorrow to consider naming it “Oklahoma City Boulevard.” What do you think?
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Comments
Ryan, you’ve been sampling too much Negra Modelo tonight in regard to the speedway comment.
I do wonder though… are there any famous Oklahoma City legends we can name the road after? I’m talking legends…
obviously Will Rogers has been done enough. And the Flaming Lips are quite happy with their alley.
Or do we name if after a historic place – maybe the city’s original name, Oklahoma Station? Or after a key event – maybe the Land Run? (though that event comes with a bitter sting for our Native American community)….
I realize it’s not an easy task. Maybe the mayor is right. But since there hasn’t been a public discussion, I just wonder if one should take place instead of letting one man decide the identify of what some say will be the grand entryway to downtown (or a ride through desolation as cited by others)
I think a nice idea would be a name going back to Oklahoma’s original heritage. How about Sequoyah Blvd. or maybe Quanah Parker or Maria Tallchief. They are more connected to Oklahoma in general than OKC but so is Will Rogers.
Learn something new every day. Had never heard that OKC’s original name was Oklahoma Station. I like it. Also like Kyle’s “correct” pronunciation of “Rodeo Drive” LOL
And if the Boulevard is where I think it is, “Land Run” may also be appropriate since the Land Run Monument is there. Maybe even configure it so some of the monuments figures could be crossing or running down the middle or alongside the Boulevard?
I like Ellison, but I’m not sure the full name should be used, because downtown has too many streets with full human names and it is not catchy.
Oklahoma City Boulevard. Yeah I think that’s a winner.
Well I definitely think it should be referred to as “Ellison Boulevard” even if the full name is on there technically.
Yeah. I do believe it’s time that we play up some of OKC’s incredible black history. Too few of our citizens even know Ralph Ellison was from Deep Deuce.
If we name it Ellison Boulevard, which I love the sound of, then we need to institute one of those “Oklahoma City Reads” campaigns so that we’re all reading “Invisible Man.” I suspect that if few people know Ralph Ellison hailed from Oklahoma City, even fewer people have read his masterpiece.
A lot of good ideas here. I don’t care of Oklahoma City Boulevard. It’s too boring. I’ve always like the name of the NYC street Avenue of the Americas. Why not something like Boulevard of the Great Plains?
So if the Mayor has his way, businesses along the new boulevard will be saddled with, ie:
Oklahoma City Arena
xxxx Oklahoma City Boulevard
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma County, State of Oklahoma XXXXXX
Is this really the best? Come on….
Norick Boulevard or Norick Parkway, after Ron Norick. Without this man and his vision, where would OKC be today?
Ralph Ellison Boulevard gets my vote. And a campaign to get everyone to read the book ahead of the opening of the boulevard would be a great way to boost literacy and give major props to one of OKC’s under-sung heroes.
Well, Ellison Boulevard or Ellison Avenue just sounds very classy. Boulevard of the Great Plains doesn’t exactly exude high class.
Oklahoma City Boulevard–wow. Reminds me of Topeka Boulevard or something a small town would do. Also keep in mind right now we have the OKC Arena. Oklahoma River, another very creative name. We are Oklahoma City in Oklahoma County in Oklahoma. One of Bricktown’s most popular streets is Oklahoma Avenue. That same Oklahoma Avenue is getting really hot in Deep Deuce.
Come on… what are the other names of downtown districts? The Arts District. Mid-town. Bricktown. Core to Shore. Central Business District.
The only really good, creative, magnetic names we have are Deep Deuce (an awesome name for a neighborhood) and Automobile Alley. Tulsa has the Blue Dome District, Riverview, Brookside, Cherry Street, Brady Arts District, and more. Dallas has the West End, Deep Ellum (also a cool name, and cool district), and more. Fort Worth has Sundance Square (an awesome name).
Ellison Blvd sounds very appropriate. Red Bud Park sounds great too. Please not Oklahoma City Boulevard. Good grief, surely we can do better than that.
Do Not Like Oklahoma City Boulevard.
I like the idea of using a name from our history like Sequoyah or Ralph Ellison, and Terry is certainly right about Mr. Norick.
I also like the idea of using a state symbol like Red Bud. We could plant Red Buds along the route and spring would be extra special.
I don’t like the plain Oklahoma City Boulevard. How about Native America Boulevard or Drive. Maybe something historic like Land Run Boulevard?
i always thought it was cool that oklahoma city was the only place in the nation where the capital was located in the city, county, and state of the same name, so i don’t object to it here.
on the other hand, rebud is good. so is scissortail. or we could go with my favorite, our official reptile, the horny toad.
oops! i forgot, the official reptile is actually the mountain boomer. i don’t care, though. when i was a kid in the village, we used to find rose rocks and horny toads all the time. sadly, those days are gone.
“horny toad boulevard.” now that would get people to talking about us!
I think it should just be The Boulevard. That’s what people will call it regardless of what it’s formal name is.
Who cares about the name. Let’s focus the attention on making sure it doesn’t become a barrier to the pedestrian environment we are trying so desperately to create.
I like Ralph Ellison and Sequoyah. I agree that most people will call it the Boulevard, but we’ve got an opportunity to honor someone and I think it should be someone from our past history.
I agree with others – Ellison and Sequoyah are both great name ideas. Another great Oklahoma Citian that gets little attention was civil rights pioneer and Black Dispatch editor Roscoe Dunjee, but I’m not sure how well Dunjee Blvd flows off the tongue.
We might want to think about the future and just go ahead and name it Durant Street so we don’t have to just change the name of another street in the future. Durantula will be the face of OKC to the world for as long as he plays here.
I like calling it Horny Toad Road. We could have a big billboard of Bill Clinton beside it.
Or we could name it something that has absolutely nothing to do with OKC. Charlie Sheen Drive would work. Because Hot Shots was awesome.
I really like Red Bud Parkway or Capitol Boulevard.
We need to get out of the generic naming craze; Oklahoma River was enough.
How about” damn near impossible to cross, anti urban, street level highway, road” This road is too big and shows what happens when you let traffic engineers run your urban planning.
I’m surprised that with all of these comments, nobody has pointed out that there is already a street named after Ralph Ellison (Ellison avenue runs in front of Classen School of Advanced Studies in Gatewood), and there is a street named after Ron Norick (the portion of Robinson that runs past the Cox Center).
Also, as an aside — and no, I’m not suggesting the proposed boulevard be named after him — I am consistently surprised and disappointed by how under-appreciated Kirk Humphreys is, based on comments I often read online. I personally believe his name should come up more often in discussions like these.
Chad, I’m not advocating either way on this. But I would point out that the Ron Norick Blvd name applies to just one block of Robinson that has no real addresses on it (it’s between the Myriad Gardens and the Cox Convention Center) and has no public awareness of its existence as anything but Robinson Avenue. It’s safe to say Flaming Lips Alley has more public awareness than the obscure one block section of Ron Norick Blvd.
As for Humphreys … there are several people who feel that he is shortchanged credit for accomplishments during his tenure (Skirvin, MAPS for Kids, construction of the arena that made it possible to get the NBA) and gets criticized for alleged self-dealings that don’t exist (ownership of the Bricktown parking garage he sold before running for mayor, etc.).
There are some who say that some mayors are better than others when it comes to self promotion.
I wasn’t expressing any opinion on whether or not Norick or Ellison’s current streets were adequate tributes; only that they did in fact have streets already named after them. Many previous posters in the thread seemed unaware of this.
Captcha: outheree (out there?) sources
Actually, we have a Dunjee Boulevard, such as it is: it runs northwest, sort of, from about 12900 NE 39th Street.
Skyline Boulevard – This would allow people to call it “The Skyline” and could provide a great name (I think) for the park later.
I thiNk we as a city can come up with something more creative than that. I mean, Larry Nichols has yet to have a street named After him. Or better yet, the steve Lackmeyer speedway?