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Let's Rename The FiDi "SoMa," Or Let's Not!
By
John Del Signore
Published Apr 8, 2011
Modified Apr 8, 2011
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By
John Del Signore
Published Apr 8, 2011
Modified Apr 8, 2011
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A group of Lower Manhattan residents clustered around the Financial District think the FiDi is just too reductive a portmanteau these days. Because it's not just for banksters anymore, you know! And so, in an attempt to shed the neighborhood's reputation as an after-hours ghost town, they're trying to rebrand the area with a name that "embodies the new spirit and community": SoMa, for South Manhattan. So moronic, or so marvelous? Here's their pitch:
Over the past ten years, real estate developers decided to rebuild south of Tribeca and east of Battery Park to help create a more residential neighborhood. Old commercial buildings with turn of the century architecture were converted into residential luxury condominiums and rentals. With financial incentives given to prospective buyers, new families were gradually introduced into the SoMa neighborhood. The great public schools in the neighborhood made it easy for young families to raise new ones.
Restaurants and stores started popping up in streets that only bankers and brokers used to frequent. The days of empty streets during the weekends are long gone. Today, its streets are filled with baby strollers and nearby residents running to the gyms around the corners or perhaps one of the many restaurants down in Stone Street. Weekdays still has its share of bankers and brokers. However, today, we have the young Internet entrepreneurs inhabiting offices across the New York Stock Exchange. We have actors, famous chefs, models, and photographers living in buildings that once were headquarters of banking institutions.
We know from Wikipedia that Soma (lowercase "m") was a sacred drink "among the early Indo-Iranians, and the subsequent Vedic and greater Persian cultures." It's also a district in San Francisco and Omaha. Well, move over California, Nebraska, and Vedic scholars: SoMa is now also "an ideal place to live and work" in New York City! In fact, it's SoMaMaZing it makes BoCoCa look like ProCro! [Via FiDi Denizen]
Tagged
fidi
financial district
lower manhattan
Neighborhoods
soma
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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