[BITList] A city with streets named after people instead of what they did - who will remember them?

[HUGH]

John,

They must have helluva long street signs in Kolkata - much longer than the 
ones they had in Calcutta.

I abhor the practice of changing street names, especially arbitrarily, as in 
Calcutta. Often it's done through total ignorance.  In this town the parish 
church, built about 1718, became too small, having only 1,800 seats, so in 
about 1755 they built a Chapel of Ease away up the hill from it, seating 
2,000. The long lane going to it was named Chapel Lane, and that was its 
name until a few years back, when it was suddenly renamed Huntly Terrace. 
This was particularly irritating to me, for Huntley Terrace (an "e" in the 
middle) had been nothing more than a nondescript building on the Lane with 
no historical associations whatever.  In our area it is hard to find a 
council functionary who lives here, hence their igorance of the place.

Most streets around here were named after persons, either as a mark of 
respect to some local or national bigwig, or with the surname of the person 
who first feued land on the street and built on it. A odd exception to the 
latter is William Street in Greenock, called after William Alexander who 
built the first house on it in 1752.

Hugh.