Pottersville, here we come.

Have we reached the limits of fiscal desperation yet; no wait, the next step will be plaster the uniforms of civil employees with corporate logo patches along the lines of NASCAR racers and crews. I can see it now - Ringling Brothers station at Government Center, Gott'a Go to Moes at Back Bay station and Bob's Furniture at Downtown Crossing.

Please, lets just adequately fund public transportation, and not try to sell every aspect of our public space to private companies. What next, how about selling our Revolutionary War History. We could have the Bank North Ride of Paul Revere. The famous first shots fired on the Verizon Green in Lexington!

How much will it cost to retool all of the signage, printed maps, etc., on a system-wide basis every time the naming rights change on a station? Sounds like a real boon for companies that do this sort of work for the MBTA.

I absolutely hate this idea.

"Take the subway to Cialis then board a bus for Viagra and get off at Tampon Station."

The impermanence of businesses makes this a slippery slope. Think of Downtown Crossing becoming Filene's. Or North Station becoming TD, or worse, Fleet.

Why limit it to stations? Why not sell naming rights for the locomotives, rail cars and trams? Any why complain about it at the same time one is complaining that they don't want to fund the T?

And we wonder why we have no sense of COMMUNITY anymore. Our historic buildings, sports stadiums, public transportation, schools, etc are increasingly valued (and treated) as no more than big-box corporate stores.

"emerson" i could live with because i can think of ralph waldo. his memory won't go away, and it's a reminder to current residents and visitors to take some pride in our home city. but td bank, or citizens bank, or a corporation that relocates to china? how often has the boston garden changed its name? will we know how to get around with everyone calling a station by a different name? must we always be revising maps and our brains? why not have corporations subscribe to a historic name? they can have a plaque at the site that can be replaced when they choose to leave us. that way they can advertise their cleaning and renovation practices and sell their little piece of real estate to a subsequent buyer at an improved price, while keeping the address the same. and everyone will be less confused but grateful for the upkeep and scornful of the slobs.

Today's Globe, this very day, reports on $31 million in state and local tax breaks granted to all sorts of corporations, on the pretense that this will make them "create jobs." This, on top of the hundreds of millions given away to Liberty Mutual, JPMorgan, and dozens of other corporations rolling in dough, all part of the same "job creation" hoax. Deval Patrick knows that it's a hoax; he has said that companies relying on tax breaks are companies going out of business. Menino knows it too. All the economists know it. All the businesses know it and have even said so: "We don't hire when we get tax breaks, we hire when there is demand for our products." Now we are scrambling to turn our public infrastructure into a billboard for corporations, for a measly $18 million a year (they hope). Our T shortfall this year is $160 million. Is this really going to make a difference? Not in the budget, but it is very good advertising for corporations, who are brainwashing our citizenry to buy from them and to believe we depend on them for our goods and services (as well as our "job creation") so we should subsidize them generously. What is happening to this country? There's no common sense any more. Or no sense of common. Only business, corporations, big bucks, buying our democracy out from under us, and turning the so-called "free market" into a corporate-welfare free-for-all.

DISGUSTING! Corporate America already has its hooks in us. The Citizens United decision by the Court has destroyed representational government, and now this. Shame, Boston!

Great. Central Square could be renamed WalMart Supercenter Stop. Just kidding.

I'm far from crazy about the idea. We used to name stadiums and the like after prominent people and this corporate takeover of everything American is a little sickening. But if we're going to do it, make UMass pay to have their name on what was once Columbia station. The same goes for Boston College, Boston University (2 stations), Charles/MGH, Harvard, Museum of Fine Arts -- I could go on, but you get the idea. If the T is going to charge, nobody should get it for free.

From a Globe article from 2001, when this exact plan failed. It also references the time in 1997 where this exact plan failed. SUBWAY SPONSORS ARE SCARCE PLAN TO SELL MBTA NAMING RIGHTS DRAWS LITTLE INTEREST Boston Globe - Boston, Mass. Author: Raphael Lewis, Globe Staff Date: Mar 8, 2001 Start Page: B.1 Section: Metro/Region Text Word Count: 746 Abstract (Document Summary) While corporations are shelling out millions of dollars to plaster their names and logos on football stadiums, basketball arenas, and even shopping malls, the MBTA's plan to sell naming rights to four subway stations has failed to attract a single bid, officials said yesterday. A week before the original deadline for bids, Feb. 23, the T pushed back the deadline three weeks "in order to maximize interest," MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said yesterday. At that time, no bids had come in, he said. The T has also dropped its minimum asking prices and said companies can commit for as little as two years. Those efforts have apparently fallen flat as well. A conference held for potential bidders yesterday drew just two people - both of them advertising consultants with no interest in spending money to have their company's names or logos in the stations, officials said. The plan's seeming lack of appeal echoes a similar situation in 1997, when the MBTA sought corp orations to maintain grimy subway stops in return for naming rights. Only Citizens Bank signed on, in a deal worth just $475,000 over four years.

Even though I understand the T's rationale for selling naming rights, I share the dismay of earlier commentators. Cultural sinews are being reduced to little more than commercial billboards. :-(

This is an awful idea. Community landmarks to be renamed for corporations, so that we can feel that we live and die by the gracious largesse of our corporate masters even more than we already do. I for one will refuse to ever refer to Park Street as Microsoft Center or Starbucks Corner or whatever other awful name they come up with. Surely we can do better than to turn key pieces of our community's infrastructure into billboards for corporations.