Alley Renaming Moves Forward

On Tuesday, the alley naming that GM mentioned last week took another step towards reality. Councilmember Jack Evans introduced the Cashell Alley Designation Act of 2014 during the Council’s legislative session.

As you may recall, the story behind this is the type of story to give you some hope for the future. GM’s twelve year old neighbor, Raya Kenney, took it on herself to name the alley that runs behind her (and GM’s) house. She dove into the historical records kept at the Peabody Room and came up with the name of the original owner and developer of the land: Hazel Cashell.

Displaying a keen knowledge of how things actually get done, Ms. Kenney gathered signatures from her neighbors and reached out to Evans’ office. She also reached out to the Office of Planning, which has publicly supported the naming of nameless alleys. And moreover supports using the name of the original owner such as in this case.

Evans’ bill received co-sponsorship from councilmembers Bonds, Catania, Graham, Wells, and Grosso. Not that there would be any doubt about its passage, but with six councilmembers already supporting it, it’s going to pass. If the embedding works, you can watch Evans introduce the measure above. If it doesn’t, watch the clip here (starts at 33:00).