Hint: it’s not East Williamsburg.
Neighborhood names come and go in New York, and always have. The East Village was born out of the Lower East Side. Artists applied acronyms like SoHo and TriBeCa to formerly industrial areas. Places like Clinton Hill and Ditmas Park disappeared for a century before being resurrected.
Last month RPA staff, not knowing any better at the time, started a Twitter thread asking “What’s the most recently invented neighborhood name currently in common usage?”
After a deluge of responses, we soon realized we had to first define our terms: “most recent” was defined by the first time the name appeared in The New York Times in the post-war period. We added “post-war period” in order to incorporate the “Ditmas Park” scenario: older neighborhood names, long out of public usage, that are revived in modern times. “Common usage” was tougher. The definition settled on was “Common usage means a typical resident of the neighborhood would say name out loud to a stranger when asked ‘where do you live.’”
RPA’s hypothesis was that the most recent neighborhood name in common usage was Nolita : Its first NY Times appearance was in late 1996, and was popularly considered to be in common usage today. Twitter tested our hypothesis with over a dozen suggestions. We go into detail below.
Neighborhood names in common use, but which predate Nolita.
DUMBO: A worthy challenger, but first NY Times appearance of DUMBO was three years before Nolita in 1993 (in a note of how much the neighborhood has changed over the last two decades, it was a passing reference in an article about a horrific triple murder).
Koreatown: Although Korean restaurants on 32nd street date back at least to the 1980s, the first mention in the NY Times also came in 1993, in an article of five of the newest ethnic neighborhoods in New York City (also spotlighted were Sunset Park’s Chinatown, Caribbean Flatbush, and both the “Little India” and “Little Colombia” sections of Jackson Heights).
NoHo: Usage of Noho actually dates all the way back to 1972, when it first appeared in the Times in relation to the lack of loft-law protections in the area.
East Williamsburg: East Williamsburg was common in the 1800s, but first used by the NY Times in the post-war period in 1985 in relation to the redevelopment of the Pfizer site.
Greenwood Heights: An interesting twist – in the mid 1800s, Greenwood Heights referred to the area that would become Prospect Park, not the area between Greenwood Cemetery and the Upper New York Bay. Later on, the Greenwood Reformed Church would be established on 7th avenue and 41th street, and later moved four blocks south to 45th street – an area firmly established as Sunset Park today. Usage to refer to the current geography first appeared in the NY Times in 1987, in an article about whether a development on 33rd street and 4th Avenue should be referred to as being in Park Slope, Park Slope South, Sunset Park, or Greenwood Heights (for more on the history of the name “Greenwood Heights,” check out this article from Curbed).
Clinton Hill: Another name in common use in the 1800s, it was used in reference to a housing development by the Equitable Life Insurance Company at Clinton and Willoughby in the 1940s, although the neighborhood itself was referred to as “Brooklyn Hill.” However, there are several references to the area as “Clinton Hill” starting in the 1950s, although many long-time residents assert that common use of the name is much more recent.
Neighborhood names which postdate Nolita, but whose “common usage” is debatable.
FiDi: If FiDi is indeed in common usage, as many on Twitter claimed, it would be the winner, with the first appearance in the NY Times in 2009. However, nobody could produce any stand-alone references to “FiDi.”
BoCoCa: While there were heated arguments as to whether BoCoCa was in common usage, it was ultimately disqualified as being a term used to refer to three neighborhoods (BoCoCa is a portmanteau of Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, and Carroll Gardens) each with their own name in current popular usage, not a neighborhood name in and of itself.
Hudson Yards: It was debated whether Hudson Yards is simply a specific development (like Pacific Park), was a single development whose name now extends to the entire neighborhood (like Clinton Hill) or if the development is large enough to qualify as a neighborhood in and of itself (like Stuy-Town or Co-op City). RPA recused itself from the debate, having proposed the current mixed-use neighborhood over the Hudson Rail Yards in 2004.
Billionaire’s Row: Although it is not clear on the actual location, the term “Billionaire’s Row” actually first appeared in the New York Times in 1914, in a letter to the editor complaining about limousine congestion at the Queensboro Market. Since then, it appeared in reference to Palm Beach, Florida in 2005, Tuckers Town, Bermuda in 2006, Kensington Gardens, London in 2007, and Pacific Heights, San Francisco in 2012, before first being used in reference to 57th street in Midtown in late 2013. It’s currently on the cusp of “common usage,” but references found still refer to it in quotes or use a geographic modifier.
Names not in Common Usage.
Several neighborhoods names were proposed, but not considered to be in common usage. These were SoBro, SoHa, WaHi, MePa, ProCro, SoFi, RAMBO, North New York, and the Piano District. Nobody successfully attempted to appeal these determinations.
The Winner
NoMad: NoMad first appeared in the Times in this 2007 letter to the editor, and produced an incredibly contentious debate as to its common usage. RPA staff determined this to not be in common usage, however this was contested by several others who accused RPA staff of applying a “grumpy old man” filter to this determination. RPA can admit when it was wrong – upon further research, we can see NoMad has started to be used in a stand-alone fashion within the last year, making it New York City’s newest neighborhood name.
Photo: Department of City Planning Map of NYC Neighborhoods
