BODY POLITIC : It’s Bradleytown, Jake

It’s a good thing Tom Bradley didn’t die in office: If he had, we’d probably be living in Bradleyville now. As it is, the 20-year mayor of Los Angeles has already been honored in a way usually reserved for saints or Revolutionary War heroes.

First came LAX’s Tom Bradley International Terminal. Then the downtown library’s Tom Bradley Wing. More recently, the City Council voted to name the reception room in the City Hall Tower after him. Wanna guess what they’re going to call one of the new exhibit halls at the L.A. Convention Center? And let’s not forget the New Westminster Tom Bradley Youth Center or Bradley Bridge, a pedestrian walkway at White Memorial Hospital in East L.A.

That brings the total to an impressive six posterity-enhancing structures--seven if you count the lobby of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, which was recently enhanced with a Tom Bradley Walk of Fame-style star--pushing Bradley far ahead of the pack of former L.A. mayors.

Some might suggest that it is more seemly to wait until people finish their earthly terms before honoring them with edifices, but City Councilman Nate Holden, who initiated the Bradley Tower resolution, disagrees. “When you’re alive, you can know that people still care about you and what you’ve done,” Holden says. “The time to do something like that is when you can still smell your own roses.”

You and everybody else.