Who Is This Building?!?

Without boring you with a bunch of financial mumbo jumbo, there is a very real possibility that Wachovia Bank may be purchased. It seems they went in on the whole sub-prime mortgage thing at pretty much the exact wrong time and, well, its time to pay the piper. Their CEO has already bit the dust, so to speak, and there may be more upheaval on the way.

So, anyway, they're primed to be bought out, sold, and acquired by, well... that where it gets a bit hazy, but for our purposes here at TOOOAST!!!, suffice it to say the Wachovia name may be no more in the very near future ("Where?" "In the future, Conan!"). So, why the hell is that important?

Well, here in Philly, the Wachovia Center is the name of the stadium where the Flyers and Sixers play. Which isn't particularly significant. However, before it was the Wachovia Center it was the First Union Center. And before that it was the Core States Center. To help illustrate some of the confusion over the constant re-naming of the building, the for-now Wachovia Center is still referred to by some as the "F U Center" after one of its earlier iterations.

If the bank gets sold and the name gets changed yet again this damned place will get yet another name. This is one of the downfalls of naming a building after a corporation. Corporations fail/disappear/are sold/bought (where as we stopped doing that with people, like, a while ago) and unlike the stadium named for a person, the corporate stadium name is no longer relevant.

Long after the death of their namesake, Connie Mack Stadium, Crosley Field, and Shibe Park all maintained their names as monuments to both the park's originator and a time gone by. Many people still remember these places. In contrast, nobody will remember the time of the Core States Center. This is partly because it was less than a decade in length and partly because the teams who played there gave us no good reason to remember.

But its also because, well, who gives a shit? As soon as Core States Bank was no more, the name changed to a new bank, First Union. And as soon as First Union ceased to exist, the name changed yet again. And now we are poised to go through this process all over again.

Well, great, what's your point, you may ask. And to be honest with you, I'm not sure I have one. I guess I miss the time when some things were sacred, or at least the time when the thought of selling certain things simply hadn't occurred to anyone yet. But more to the point (if indeed one exists) isn't four names in a decade and a half a bit ridiculous? Isn't there some sort of drop-dead time when, say, if the name changes six times in twenty years, it automatically reverts to Philadelphia Stadium?

So, whatever, right? Well here's one more piece of stupidity to throw at you. When Core States Bank bought the naming rights, they signed a 21 year contract (please don't ask why). That means regardless of any impending name change from the sale of Wachovia, the name is going to change AGAIN in 2017, nine years from now. We're looking at one building with five different names in two decades. So, I guess the point is please, someone, make it stop.

***

In other completely unrelated news, Alex Ovechkin apparently is about to have his own clothing line. Pretty weird, huh?