Legal Commentary

It's not just the South that has morally questionable monuments.  The New York Times recently reported on a controversy over a Milltown, New Jersey street named after Henri Phillipe Petain, a French officer who was a World War I hero and in WWII, head of the Vichy government, which participated in the holocaust.  Although a  teenager proposing that the name be changed, ultimately the city kept the name, because the residents preferred it--Nazi schmatzi I guess.  The Times reports that a dozen other streets across the nation honor Petain.  Similarly, Corbin Place in Brooklyn honors the founder of the American Society for the Suppression of the Jews.  I support the effort to rename it Corbin Bernsen Place.

www.melissadata.com is a wonderful, mostly free repository of demographic information, including street names.  It reveals that there is a Hitler Street in Kimmell, Indiana, and a few Hitler Roads in Circleville, Ohio, named after an unrelated family.  One can stroll down Himmler Lane in Cumberland, Maryland, Eichmann Road in Glidden, Wisconsin, or Goering Avenue in Buffalo.  Presumably, none of these honor the Nazi leaders.  Yet, it is still awkward; for example, the gentle folks at Stormfront, whose motto is "White Pride World Wide", do seem to delight in streets with such names (and to admire Petain).  It reminds me of the the controversy in 1999 when a D.C. staffer used the word "niggardly" in a meeting, and it was misheard by some as the similar-sounding but unrelated racial epithet.   I assume, now, most people avoid the word "niggardly" even if it fits, and, for similar reasons, would prefer not to live on Hitler Street.