What can we name after David Letterman?

Ball State University in Muncie named a $21 million building after him. The city of Lawrence — Lawrence! — named a street after him.

But Indianapolis, where David Letterman was born, went to high school and started his broadcast career?

Nothing.

As Letterman prepares to wrap up his late-night legacy May 20, one month from today, it's time we name something after the most famous funnyman in the city's history.

The idea was bandied about before but abruptly left on the cutting room floor.

In 2002, two years after a quintuple bypass heart surgery, Letterman launched a campaign to rename I-465 after himself. He proposed calling it the "Letterman Bypass."

In one show Letterman called Mayor Bart Peterson. After being transferred twice ("How many aides does this guy have?") he got Peterson on the phone and made his pitch.

The mayor said he would see what he could do, but nothing more came of it.

The I-465 loop, by the way, since has a namesake. It was named in 2012 in honor of the USS Indianapolis, the heavy cruiser that was torpedoed and sunk in World War II.

So if Dave still wants a highway named after him, he will either have to tick off a bunch of veterans or look elsewhere.

But where?

First, let's forget about naming a highway after Letterman. The other highways wouldn't make any sense, and it would take too long to get approval from the state legislature.

We'll settle instead for naming a street after him.

But what street?

One possibility is to rename the road that runs in front of Broad Ripple High, which he attended. But that might be tricky because Broad Ripple Avenue is a somewhat iconic and identifiable name.

If it were up to me, I'd look at the area around the former Atlas supermarket, at 54th Street and College Avenue, where Letterman worked as a stock boy during high school.

Atlas and the current supermarket, Fresh Market, happen to sit on the coolest block in the city because it has two alleys.

The parallel alleys run from 55th Street to the back of the grocery store and are separated by a single house.

One alley could be named for Letterman and one could be named for his mother, Dorothy, a frequent guest on the show, or for his bandleader, Paul Shaffer, or one could be named David and one could be named Letterman.

Hey, I'm just throwing ideas out here.

Maybe Indianapolis and Broad Ripple aren't the places to look, anyway. Maybe Speedway holds the ticket.

Later in his career, Letterman was associated as much with the Indy 500 as he was with anything in his hometown. He is co-owner of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, which has won 30 races in two decades, and often attends the race.

It so happens the town just reconfigured the area in front of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, including construction of an $18 million roundabout at the corner of 16th and Main streets.

Let's name it the David Letterman Roundabout.

It would get maximum exposure (not that Letterman needs it), with 30,000 cars passing each day and 200,000 on race day. We could even put a statue of Letterman in the middle of it, holding a canned ham or a watermelon, ready to drop to the ground.

The timing works out, too. Letterman's last day is May 20, and the race is May 24. The roundabout could be dedicated the day before the race.

Town Manager Ian Nicolini called the idea "intriguing."

"You've got an intersection there that connects legendary structures and legendary people, so that could work," he said.

But Nicolini cautioned that Crawfordsville Road and 16th Street from I-465 to the White River is named after Tony Hulman, one-time owner of the speedway.

So the Letterman Roundabout would be on Hulman Memorial Way.

That's all right.

It's called sharing the roadway.

Call Star reporter John Tuohy at 317 444-6418 and follow on Twitter @john_tuohy.