In this town, you need a name:...

In this town, you need a name: Sad to say that the pop star who used to call himself Prince was one of 176 people whose application for the Hollywood Walk of Fame was rejected in the latest balloting. Part of the problem was: What would the Chamber of Commerce put on his plaque? After all, he recently announced that he no longer has a name and, instead, will be known by a symbol that seems to combine the designations for a male and female.

His present lack of a name “was discussed,” said a chamber spokeswoman, without going into detail.

In any case, the chamber’s attitude toward honoring the ex-Prince could best be summed up by another symbol: a thumb pointing down.

*

Is the bowl missing too?Mike Owen of Hermosa Beach spotted a sign that said:

Lost

Dog

Chow

*

Quiet anniversary: Nice to have a June 28 pass without an earthquake. That was the date of the Landers (7.6) and Big Bear (6.7) twin temblors of 1992 and the Sierra Madre quake (5.8) of 1991.

*

List of the Day: L.A.’s Downtown News, after surveying its staff and readers, released its “Best of Downtown 1993” selections this week, including:

* Best place to get away from it all: The downtown Hilton Hotel. After all, that’s where the jurors in the second Rodney G. King trial were hidden.

* Best example of truth in politics: “The people will have plenty of chances to see Mr. Woo and myself on TV during this campaign. I think they’ll be sick of us by the end of the campaign.” --Richard Riordan.

The Downtown News also gave “Best Public Art” and “Worst Public Art” awards. Trouble is, we lost our copy of the newspaper. And we can’t remember which designation was for Jonathan Borofsky’s “Molecule Men” outside the Roybal Federal Center and which was for Terry Allen’s “Corporate Head” outside the Citicorp building on Figueroa Street. (We’ll leave that up to you.)

It’s always risky interpreting art. But a clue to Allen’s sculpture is provided by an accompanying poem by Phil Levine, which begins: “They said/I had a head/For business. . . .” Borofsky’s work is more ambiguous. One theory is that it represents motorists fighting over a parking place downtown.

*

Generation chasm: Five-year-old Sarah Harvey, an unpaid researcher for this column, pointed to a dusty box in her Long Beach house and asked: “What are those round, black things?”

Phonograph records, she was told.

miscelLAny:

The former Prince was born Prince Rogers Nelson.