Naming
The bridge was named for the Reverend John Harvard, for whom Harvard University is also named, rather than after the university itself. Other names suggested included Blaxton, Chester, Shawmut, and Longfellow. The structure now called the Longfellow Bridge opened 15 years later. John Harvard was an early donor to what later became the university; not, as is often assumed, its founder.
Possibly due to its proximity to the bridge, there have been a number of tales reported at MIT as to how the bridge came to be named "Harvard", all apocryphal. The Harvard Bridge was first constructed in 1891. MIT did not move to its current location adjacent to the bridge until 1916.
Read more about this topic: Harvard Bridge
Famous quotes containing the word naming:
“Husband,
who am I to reject the naming of foods
in a time of famine?”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“See, see where Christ’s blood streams in the firmament!
One drop would save my soul—half a drop! ah, my Christ!—
Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ!—
Yet will I call on him!—O, spare me, Lucifer!—
Where is it now? ‘T is gone; and see where God
Stretcheth out his arm, and bends his ireful brows!—
Mountains and hills, come, come and fall on me,
And hide me from the heavy wrath of God!”
—Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593)
“The night is itself sleep
And what goes on in it, the naming of the wind,
Our notes to each other, always repeated, always the same.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)