Sugerman update

This appeared on Oct. 22, 2006


Two months ago, I reminded you faithful readers that the county‘s construction of new court space on West Market Street in West Chester is proceeding apace without the benefit of a suitable name for the finished product.

When one studies the signs in front of the building, all we are told is that the edifice will be known as the Chester County Justice Center.

At that time, I also asked for your forgiveness for stating that I have only contempt for that wretched, generically bureaucratic name. It is my considered opinion that one of the foremost problems in America today is the unwillingness of our municipal governments to name any new building after anybody or anything -- witness the blandness of Downingtown West High School and West Goshen Community Park. (Thank goodness for the brave folks on the West Chester Area School Board for going out on that Bayard Rustin limb. Go Golden Knights!)

I firmly believe that the general lack of creativity or historical acknowledgement in the act of building-naming is another example of the failure of the country‘s educational system, but that is a column for another day.

At the time, I had been remembering the late Judge Leonard Sugerman, and proposed that in his honor, the county undertake to christen the new building when it opens after him.

My proposal was greeted with a brief flurry of positive reaction ­ one Constant Reader generously offered to help me in my campaign; I received a nice note about the idea from Sugerman‘s widow Carol; and a former clerk to the judge who was passing through town and saw the column kindly said, ”I think what you have proposed is brilliant.“

Then, nothing.

My idea took off with as much momentum as the 1973 Volkswagen I used to drive had going up Blackhorse Hill in West Vincent. But the thought of the ”Justice Center“ stuck in my craw, so last week I made some gentle inquiries with the folks I hoped would be most inclined to join me in my quest: his former colleagues on the bench.

Their reaction? As one might expect: reasoned, articulate, and ”Here‘s your hat, Mr. Rellahan, what‘s your hurry?“

President Judge Paula Francisco Ott, Sugerman‘s successor in Courtroom One, put it bluntly: You can‘t name the new courthouse after any judge from Chester County , because it would be too hard to choose. After all, how do you pick the tallest redwood in the forest?

But leave it to current judge and ex-DA James P. MacElree II to slap me across the face for proposing the idea. Figuratively speaking, of course.

To put it mildly, he said, Sugerman would have been ”uncomfortable“ with the very notion of the new courthouse, moved as it is from the historic location of the county‘s current center of justice. He was a creature of Thomas U. Walter‘s courthouse, a lover of its beauty and majesty, and would have had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the new building, had he lived long enough to occupy one of its courtrooms.

He would have looked at anyone who suggested putting his name on that building and with a withering glance, said simply: ”How utterly ridiculous. Next case.“