Will always be the Sears Tower to nearly all Chicagoans for years to come. Personally, I refuse to call it anything else. a structure constructed 5 years before I was born, it is a part of Chicago history. It doesn’t matter that Sears Holdings doesn’t hold naming rights any longer, or that Sears Holdings hasn’t occupied any part of the building since the late 1990′s. To call it Willis Tower is akin to renaming Wrigley Field to Budweiser Ballpark. Truly ludicrous and it sounds like crap too. Willis Group Holdings isn’t some household name in these parts nor do they even own the building, they were given naming rights because they’ll be the largest tenant. At itsthesearstower.com, nearly 50,000 people have signed an online petition to save the Sears Tower Name or, as it now stands, to change the name back to the Sears Tower.

Other buildings have undergone name changes in downtown Chicago as well. The Standard Oil Building became the Aon Center. You’d be hard pressed to find any locals around here that call it Aon Center.

Comiskey Park become U.S. Cellular Field as well. Apart from me calling it the Phone Booth from time to time, or others calling it “The Cell”,  it will always be Comiskey Park. And, of course, The iconic Marshall Fields and Company Building became, ugh … Macy’s on State Street. The most glaring and controversial of all name changes the city has had to endure as of late.

In a world where everything changes so rapidly and often, it would be nice to see some things stay the same.  Alas, that’s not very likely.

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