Sunday afternoon I walked through Ira's Fountain, which I still think of as the Forecourt Fountain because that's what it was called in 1969. It's named after Ira Keller, onetime head of Willamette Industries and chairman of the Portland Development Commission during the urban renewal craze of the late 1960s. Mr. Keller reportedly hated the fountain. After he died, the city named it after him.
That brought to mind the Atherton Heights subdivision outside of Lake Oswego, which the developer named not after himself but after the development's strongest opponent, who lived next door. And that brought to mind the Bill Roberts Transit Mall, named after one of Tri-Met's founders and first chairmen, who came to dislike the mall because of what it did to his property on Fifth Avenue.
I like the idea of naming things in revenge, or with the touch of irony. Let's keep going with this encouraging trend. How about some day having the George W. Bush School of Elocution, the Vera Katz Public Parking Garage, or the Don McIntyre High School?