Starting tomorrow, the iconic Sear tower gets a face-lift, literally in name only. The Willis Holding Group, out of London, paid for the naming rights to the Chicago landmark skyscraper. Henceforth it will be known, at least on paper, as the Willis Tower. Granted, they are moving their offices and 500 employees there as well. Chicagoans are already irate after naming rights changed the name of Comiskey Park to US Cellular Field, and the wildly modernistic renovation of Soldier Field stripped it of its historical landmark status. Macy's bought out Marshall Field's, changing the ownership and name of that building as well.
I think that it is fitting for a city that was built on a back-filled swamp that it's venerated structures' names be as equally unstable. Personally, I think Chicago is just catching up to the rest of the country. Naming rights have evolved as big business, and they are not going away any time soon. At the end of the day, they are still business entities, not civic shrines. The next generation won't think twice about Willis Tower, or the "former Sears Tower".
Now that the Cubs are being sold to new owners, anyone care to catch a game at "Ricketts Field"? Come that day, the city would really burn!
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