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Ladies and gentlemen, the greatest letter to the editor — sorry, Northeast Times! — in the history of letters to the editor:
A correction on Forbidden Drive
The article about the WPA-era guardhouse on Wissahickon Drive that appeared in the June 8 edition of the Local reminded me once again of an error of nomenclature that frequently appears in the Local, the Inquirer and the Daily News. I refer to the mysterious “Forbidden” Drive.
Newspapers do not have legal authority to alter the official names of park drives. Only the Fairmount Park commissioners can do that. Quite recently that body voted to change the name of West River Drive to Martin Luther King Drive. Some years before that it voted to re-name East River Drive as Kelly Drive and before that, to change the name of the lower end of Wissahickon Drive (the paved portion) to Lincoln Drive. To the best of my knowledge the upper end of Wissahickon Drive (the unpaved portion) has never been formally re-named, or should it be. The name Wissahickon is much revered throughout the entire region. Why would we want to change it to Forbidden? How might the Friends of the Wissahickon feel if the newspapers started calling the organization the Friends of the Forbidden?
This is not an accusation that the Local is trying to force a name change. More likely, it is simply inaccurate journalism. May I suggest that you contact the Fairmount Park Commission and ask for the date of the meeting of the commissioners at which there was a vote to change the name of a portion of Wissahickon Drive to Forbidden Drive. I have written to the commission four times requesting this information and have never been given the courtesy of an answer, or even an acknowledgement that my letters were received. Perhaps the Local will receive more courteous treatment.
If the commission does give you a date, I would stand corrected. If it doesn’t, then the use of the name Forbidden should be forbidden in future accounts of Philadelphia’s glorious trail through the Wissahickon Valley. It is a happy place and not foreboding in any way.
You hear that, journalists! You don’t have the authority to rename streets, popular opinion be damned! Take that!
A correction on Forbidden Drive [Chestnut Hill Local]
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That is the single most confusing piece of correspondence I have ever read. It’s like Letters from a Nut, except the writer doesn’t ask to bring his pet fire ants to the next Park Commission meeting.