Park and Lock

Anyone who's ever come into the city from New Jersey and driven through the Midtown Tunnel Lincoln Tunnel knows exactly where this is located.

UPDATE: I was thinking about how I mistakenly calling the Lincoln Tunnel the Midtown Tunnel (it's actually called the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, I looked it up) and I got to thinking, for a city as large and historic and important as New York we really don't have very good names for our bridges and tunnels. Just consider this. Of all the many passageways into and out of the city, the best names we could come up with, to name just a few, are the Lincoln Tunnel and George Washington Bridge and the Holland Tunnel? That's pretty weak in my estimation.

Did you know that the Holland Tunnel is named after Clifford Milburn Holland (1883-1924), Chief Engineer on the project, who died before it was even completed. Who's even heard of him? Furthermore, there are plenty of things already named after Lincoln and Washington. They have the penny and the $1 bill to call their own, so I've decided to rename all of the bridges and tunnels. It seems like there are some huge opportunities here.

First things first, I hate how you have to be dead to have something significant named after you. Why do they always have this dumb rule? Don't you think it makes a lot more sense to still be alive to enjoy the honor while you're still here? After all, The Simpsons had their own stamp and they're not technically dead. Thus, my only criteria is that you have to be alive to have a bridge or tunnel named after you. You don't even have to be a New Yorker since obviously Lincoln wasn't from New York. OK, so here are my totally unscientific off-the-top-of-my-head recommendations for how we should rename all of the bridges and tunnels:

The Queensboro Bridge/59th Street Bridge will now be known as The Whit Stillman Bridge. It sounds right and has a nice ring to it. It might just prompt him to make another movie since he hasn't directed anything since 1998. He's only made three movies: Metropolitan, Barcelona and The Last Days of Disco. In case you're keeping score at home, I rejected both The Woody Allen Bridge and The Vincent Gallo Bridge though I did like Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Buffalo 66.

The Williamsburg Bridge is hereby renamed The Drew Barrymore Bridge. She's done lots of pretty good acting stuff and even though no one saw her directorial debut Whip It, I am sure the hipsters in Brooklyn won't mind the name change one bit.

The Queens-Midtown Tunnel will be henceforth called The Paris Hilton Tunnel. I jut like saying that and she'll work her ass off to promote it. It's an extremely well-used tunnel that really doesn't get enough credit.

The Lincoln Tunnel will now be called The Ashley Youmans Tunnel. Calling it the Ashley Dupre tunnel didn't really sound dignified enough and that's not even her real name so we're going with Youmans. She's originally from New Jersey so it seems semi-appropriate and after having sex with former Governor Spitzer all she got was an weekly advice column in the New York Post. Surely she deserves more than that.

The Holland Tunnel doesn't even go to Holland and no one knows or cares about the Chief Engineer back in the 1920s so this one is begging to be renamed. From now on this one is going to be known as the Anne Hathaway/Bruce Springsteen Tunnel. They're both from New Jersey and some people think Springsteen is the Boss. I don't share their sentiment, but I'm trying to keep the voters happy. I just like Anne Hathaway and since I'm renaming things I can call it whatever I want.

I'm still working on the George Washington Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan Bridge, Triboro Bridge and all the rest of them. Get your votes in now.