(The following article by Inga Saffron was posted on the Philadelphia Inquirer website on January 26.)
PHILADELPHIA — Attention, Amtrak passengers: The main Philadelphia rail stop will continue to be known as 30th Street Station.
The Pew Charitable Trusts, the philanthropy that launched a behind-the-scenes effort to rename the station in honor of Benjamin Franklin for this year’s birthday bash, yesterday said it was abandoning the campaign.
Pew’s two-paragraph statement gave no reason for its change of mind, and a spokesperson at the trust declined to elaborate. But the foundation was no doubt heeding passionate public objections that have peppered the letters pages of Philadelphia newspapers and local airwaves since The Inquirer revealed the plan in December.
“Oh, good. I’m glad to hear it,” said Don Nigro, vice president of the Delaware Valley Association of Rail Passengers, when told of Pew’s decision. “Thirtieth Street Station has such a history. People know what you’re talking about,” he added. “If you want to name something after Ben Franklin, why not do the airport?”
Jerry Britten, a member of the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical Society, simply typed “Hallelujah!!!” in an e-mail when asked for his reaction.
The Pennsy, as the company was nicknamed, formally opened the grand, neoclassical 30th Street Station in 1931 and maintained the building until its rail network was incorporated into Amtrak in 1971. Much of the opposition to the name change came from Philadelphians who felt that the station’s vestigial connection to the Pennsylvania Railroad, and to the city’s great railroad past, should be preserved.
Once among the city’s most powerful institutions, the Pennsylvania Railroad named the station after an adjacent street to distinguish it from its other Philadelphia stations, which included North Philadelphia and the former Broad Street Station. Though “30th Street Station” is a utilitarian geographical name, it resonates in its hometown.
And despite a general fondness for Franklin, the sound of “Franklin Station” grated. Some feared that the station would inevitably be nicknamed “Ben Station.” That name would almost surely confuse people headed for the “Penn Stations” in New York and Newark, N.J.
Pew had sought the name change as a high-profile way to kick off this year’s celebration of Franklin’s 300th birthday, which began Jan. 17. Pew is lead sponsor of the congressionally chartered Tercentenary Commission, which is organizing the celebration.
In the trust’s initial proposal to Amtrak, Pew president Rebecca W. Rimel explained that “in looking for… ways to commemorate the first Founding Father to turn 300, my colleagues and I hit upon the idea of renaming a Philadelphia building in Franklin’s honor.”
Pew concluded that 30th Street Station was the perfect candidate. It offered to help Amtrak, which is nearly bankrupt, pay for the name change. Pew even hired a well-known graphic-design firm to create a new logo and brand identity for the station.
Pew’s aggressive lobbying for the name change was particularly offensive to some Philadelphians. Until word leaked out in December, all the discussions took place in private. Mayor Street endorsed the idea in a letter to Amtrak that was dated Dec. 13 but not released for a full month.
“We felt this was an issue that should be publicly discussed before any decision was made,” said John Gallery, head of the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia.