
The Sears Tower, long the tallest building in the United States, will no longer be called "The Sears Tower". In fact, Sears vacated the building back in 1992. According to
this article on Consumerist, the new name will be The Willis Tower to reflect the newest tenant, Willis Group Holdings.
If that weren't enough, there's talk of refitting the building's exterior with
building silver.
Silver? Fuck that. Aint broke, don't fix it. Furthermore, they can call it what they want its still Sears to me.
When they started selling the names to ballparks people continued calling them by their original name. Candlestick Park has been renamed a half-dozen times and it's still Candlestick to most. Same thing with the Oakland Coliseum.
Interestingly enough, when the SF Giants built their new park with PacBell it was called PacBell Park. The company has since changed its name three times, but most people still call it PacBell.
No one, outside of the people working in the tower will call that building Willis.
I live in NW Indiana. They were making a bunch of "Big Willy" jokes on the radio this morning. Chicagoans will call it "Sears Tower" no matter what. We're stubborn, proud and we like what's ours. Hell, people here only call what USED to be Marshall Fields (downtown) Macy's only with extreme disgust. The whole "US Cellular Field" thing hasn't gone over either since everyone refers to it as "Sox's Park."