At Last: Emperor Norton Bridge

Posted on December 15, 2004 in California Watch Nortoniana

Jeremy sent along a link to an article bearing good news for all Nortonophiles: the San Francisco/Oakland Bay Bridge shall be renamed The Emperor Norton Bridge:

Norton, who occupied a 10-by-6-foot front room of a Sacramento Street lodging house, would have been a present-day constituent of Supervisor Aaron Peskin. And so it was Peskin who picked up Frank’s idea, molded it into a resolution and brought it to the Board of Supervisors, where it was approved Tuesday 8-2, with Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier absent. Supervisors Sean Elsbernd and Fiona Ma cast the dissenting votes.

It’s about time. Now that the Emperor has been duly honored in the City of San Francisco, it is time to press the City of Oakland and the California State Legislature. I support this move to honor a nearly homeless person who rose above his mental illness to become a legend in the city of his adoption and one of the patron saints of the InterNet. If you live in Oakland, please call your city councilperson and ask that they support the resolution. I’ll be watching this.

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In the meantime, I’ll be working on another scheme: the naming of a local peak for science fiction author Phil K. Dick.

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Note that the Chronicle says that Bummer and Lazarus were his dogs. This would have angered the Emperor. Let it be said again that this is a cruel calumny based on a caricature of the man. The Emperor broke at least one window over this. We should respect his memory by keeping the facts straight.