03 March 2005

TD Banknorth Garden.

Ugh.

For those of you who hadn't heard, the building formerly known as the FleetCenter is now the TD Banknorth Garden. As bad as the FleetCenter name was, with its connotations of colonic health, at least had a certain euphonic nature.

Now, you either have a mouthful or a pointless grab at nostalgia by folks who'll just call it "the Garden." Were this the first name we went with after losing the original Garden, then fine. There's continuity there. The FleetCenter interregnum makes the reversion to a Garden-inclusive name seem a little pointless. Inasmuch as there are people who never stopped calling the arena where the Bruins and Celtics play the Garden, there are others (like myself) who'll probably keep calling the new place the FleetCenter until we get more odd looks than not.

Don't mistake this for love of the FleetCenter name. But there was one Boston Garden. It was torn down, and the building that replaced it is not it. Regardless of who paid what to call it whatever. From my perspective, you could keep calling one of those one day names from the past month and it'd suit me fine. Heck, I think the Jimmy Fund Center is a much better name, given that it highlights a very worthwhile cause rather than someone who'll charge me $1.50 if I'm using their ATM with a non-native card.

The new building is generic, and the changing corporate names just reinforce the point. When I do finally stop calling it the FleetCenter, I'll probably just refer to it as Banknorth. That's the part of the name the bank would want me to remember, isn't it?

3 comments:

Matt said...

Two mildly interesting observations:

1.) The "Naming history" page at fleetcenter.com shows the original name as the "Shawmut Center" from 1993 to April, 1995. This is significant, in that the fucking building didn't even open until September 1995. How much does one pay to name a construction site for two solid years?

2.) Why does the logo for Delaware North Companies look just like the logo for De Lorean Motor Company? If you get the Garden up to 88 miles an hour, can you travel back and see the old one?

Scott Monty said...

Just out of curiosity, how would you have responded to the Boston Scientific Center or Boston Scientific Arena?

My dream was that some business that didn't care about the publicity (fat chance for $6 million a year) would graciously name it the Boston Garden and settle things once and for all.

Mark said...

I'd have been fine with Boston Scientific - but only if they incorporated sciency stuff into the building. They could have partnered with the Museum of Science - an opportunity missed!

Regarding someone buying rights and just naming it Boston Garden, I point you towards Denver, where the new stadium was promised up and down to stay linked to the old place, Mile High Stadium. What did we get?

Invesco Field at Mile High.

Which is, really, dumber than TD Banknorth Garden by an order of magnitude or two. So perhaps I shouldn't complain.

For want of anything better to post, here's a breakdown of if I've been to the most populous 100 cities in the US, and if so for how...