City Council Renames Brady Street After Another Famous Brady

The Tulsa city council tonight approved a name change for Brady Street, but it doesn't satisfy many of the people who wanted it changed, because the new name is also "Brady Street."

The Brady Street signs will be changing, but only slightly.

The city council compromise on Brady Street is to both rename it and keep the Brady name. They'll do that by changing it from a name presumed to honor Tulsa founder Tate Brady and make it an honor for Civil War photographer Mathew B. Brady, who has no ties to Tulsa.

On a 7-1 vote, the council decided MB Brady Street would be better than just Brady.

"The effort here is towards anything that's an improvement over what the likely outcome would have been, which is that it would have lost," said Councilor Blake Ewing.

It was City Councilor Phil Lakin who came up with the compromise, which was met with approval by most of the elected officials, and with disappointment by most of the citizens at the meeting.

"But take the Brady name down, period, and bury it with Tate Brady. That's where it belongs," said James Johnson.

Some of the people pushing for change marched out of the meeting and out of City Hall, singing in protest as they went.

8/15/2013 Related Story: Councilor Lakin Indicates His Stance On Brady Street Name Change

Inside the discussion continued, even after the vote, about the significance of renaming a street by adding initials to the name.

"I don't want to leave here today thinking that we planned this down, like we're not changing the name of the street," Councilor Jack Henderson said.

The renaming of Brady to MB Brady will mean the street signs will change, and everyone on the street will get a new address. But the slight change to the signs doesn't mean much for the people who wanted more change than that.

"Because Brady did not change, so it will always be Brady Street to the community," said Carolyn Ingram.

The council also voted to add honorary signs above the street signs, reading "Reconciliation Way." Those signs will only go up within the Inner Dispersal Loop.

It's going to cost about $10,000 to change the street signs. We don't know how long that's going to take or whether the city will make any effort to honor photographer Mathew Brady in the process.