(The Associated Press circulated the following article on January 13.)
PHILADELPHIA — Mayor John F. Street said he sent Amtrak a letter in favor of renaming 30th Street Station in honor of Benjamin Franklin as part of 300th birthday celebrations for Franklin.
“There is nothing special about calling this place ‘30th Street Station,”’ Street told reporters Thursday. But here we have a huge national hero. I was for the idea immediately.”
The president of the Pew Charitable Trusts, Rebecca W. Rimel, asked Amtrak to rename the station for one of the city’s best-known citizens. Amtrak is considering it, spokesman Cliff Black said.
Meryl Levitz, head of the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp., said in a newspaper commentary that “giving our train station a name instead of a number would be another worthy legacy.”
The station has been known as 30th Street Station since the Pennsylvania Railroad opened it in the 1930s. John Gallery, head of the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia, said the city has enough things named after Franklin, including the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the Franklin Institute science museum and the University of Pennsylvania’s Franklin Field.