Please, No Mo' Contrived Neighborhood Names
This makes me angry. From the Washington Business Journal:
Yes, they're trying to rename the neighborhood just north of Massachusetts Avenue NE "NoMa." This on the heels of the planned "Tribeca" development in PG County (despite the absence of either a Canal Street or a triangle below said street anywhere near the development). These developers aren't doing much to help dispel the perception that DC has a huge inferiority complex to New York.
Even considered apart from this apparent New York City penis envy, however, the name "NoMa" makes me cringe. To me, "NoMa" brings to mind annoying Red Sox fans circa 1999. Or something Jay-Z would say in a rap song.*
The best line of the article (which you probably can't access, since you need a subscription) is this:
"Plans for NoMa, once a crime-infested industrial wasteland, have evolved to the point that the goal now is to create DC's own SoHo or Greenwich Village, with plenty of retail and condominiums as part of the 20 million square feet of development on the drawing board."
Now, I spend a lot of time in New York. And I don't typically associate brand-new condominium developments and 21st-century McRetailers (Container Store, Pottery Barn, Barnes & Noble, etc.) with SoHo or Greenwich Village. But maybe those neighborhoods have changed a lot since I was up there in April.
* The specific Jay-Z lyric I'm thinking of appears in One Minute Man, his collaboration with Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott. It goes like this: "I'm not your man, not Ralph Tresvant, not Ronnie Romance... no ma. I'm tryin to hit you then put you in the middle of the round like I'm Roberto Duran... no mas." I love Jay-Z.
Yes, they're trying to rename the neighborhood just north of Massachusetts Avenue NE "NoMa." This on the heels of the planned "Tribeca" development in PG County (despite the absence of either a Canal Street or a triangle below said street anywhere near the development). These developers aren't doing much to help dispel the perception that DC has a huge inferiority complex to New York.
Even considered apart from this apparent New York City penis envy, however, the name "NoMa" makes me cringe. To me, "NoMa" brings to mind annoying Red Sox fans circa 1999. Or something Jay-Z would say in a rap song.*
The best line of the article (which you probably can't access, since you need a subscription) is this:
"Plans for NoMa, once a crime-infested industrial wasteland, have evolved to the point that the goal now is to create DC's own SoHo or Greenwich Village, with plenty of retail and condominiums as part of the 20 million square feet of development on the drawing board."
Now, I spend a lot of time in New York. And I don't typically associate brand-new condominium developments and 21st-century McRetailers (Container Store, Pottery Barn, Barnes & Noble, etc.) with SoHo or Greenwich Village. But maybe those neighborhoods have changed a lot since I was up there in April.
* The specific Jay-Z lyric I'm thinking of appears in One Minute Man, his collaboration with Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott. It goes like this: "I'm not your man, not Ralph Tresvant, not Ronnie Romance... no ma. I'm tryin to hit you then put you in the middle of the round like I'm Roberto Duran... no mas." I love Jay-Z.
posted by Johnny Shades at
8/29/2006
8 Comments:
im not a big fan of the moniker NoMa, but its term thats been tossed around for at least the eight years since i first heard it. There was a collective of artists that were first trying to utilize the name. later on it got picked up by developers.
still, even that is five years old.
By
Sean Hennessey, at 8:50 PM
wow! five, nay, perhaps eight years!?!? What rich history! Perhaps this collective will have to rename themselves, so history can never remember their contrived work under a truly distinctive name.
Naming your own artistic movement is worse than trying to select your own nickname. It means only two things: 1) you have missed the point completely, and (2) you're in it for the wrong reason.
The best part? Oh, that would be that disagreeing with my view on self-naming by method of identifying groups that have chosen their own popular names will only raise suspicions further about the derivative, pretentious and inconsequential character of works by members of the already-super-fire-suspect NoMa art collective.
J'Nor'Mass (pronounced Jay-NORM-ass) is a much better name anyway.
By
Conor, at 2:36 AM
You know what? Eff it. They should just rename Washington, DC "Sony," for "South of New York."
By
Johnny Shades, at 11:15 AM
It's hot when you go on your rants. Whooo. Where's my fan?
By
Melissa, at 11:21 AM
Whoa, Velvet, settle down, girl.
Anyway ... don't you also hate when people refer to some area of DC is "midtown"? Where the fuck is that?
By
Wicketywack, at 11:27 AM
Whatever. "DUMBO" is just as recently contrived, but somehow NYC can get away with that shit but not DC? And NYC is slowly falling to the same shit that has long ago taken over suburbs (and DC): Impossibly long lines outside NYC Whole Foods and Trader Joe's instantly come to mind. And Manhatten's also getting a Best Buy soon.
Give it up, there's nothing more "special" about one place more than another, other than a few years and romanticized invented memories.
What you should really be talking about is how every "artist's rendetion" of "new" neighborhoods in DC look exactly like Clarendon. That shit is wack.
By
Anonymous, at 12:30 PM
san francisco rules.
By
Anonymous, at 5:50 PM
These lazy, tedious names can only come from real estate developers hoping to make a buck on the gullibility of the dare-to-be-hip scenesters. Build it and they will come!
By
inlewof, at 7:24 PM
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