NOMA’s a Made Up Neighboorhood
27 11 2007
Ok we all know how developers are always itching to make up new more glamorous names for neighborhoods that have names that don’t sound hip. A recent travesty that has resulted from this trend is NOMA, which for the uninformed and unhip stands for “North of Massachusetts.”
Given the loose definition, NOMA could very well encompass everything from Dupont, to Logan Circle, and Mt. Vernon. Have no fear though, NOMA now has it’s own proposed business improvement district.
The area that NOMA is most often used to describe is the area right around Union Station. However despite the name being purely made up by developers, the change of name for this area is slightly forgivable given that the area used to be called Swampoodle (you can’t make this stuff up). Imagine a new condo development advertising it’s location in the historic, storied neighborhood of Swampoodle! Hilarious!
ha! i live withing the “NoMa” boundaries (barely), at 2nd and Parker street. yea, NoMa is made up. but… i can see the allure. i’d much rather swampoodle, but hey, that was many moons ago, although i still call the area swampoodle. :o)
i think that if developers latched on to an historic name, they might actually boost their potential sales!
imagine if they called georgetown “BeMa” (below mass. ave.)!
kinda nutso!
having said that, folks are hoping to sell that stale area north of union station as a “new place” in dc. NoMa is sort of ‘forward’ and gives a totally new identity to the area. a bit more hip than ’swampoodle’, so hopefully we can lure NPR there. we already have a letter of intent from harris teeter to move in at around 1st and M.
kinda like the china town/gallery place metro stop. did you know that the friendship arch was only erected in early 2000?
that’s what happens to a transient city like dc…..
change is slow, and yet, oh so fast…..
I didn’t know that about the friendship arch, that’s interesting.
Maybe they will errect a swampoodle in NOMA that tourists can take pictures next too!
The Harris Teeter is going to be so great, especially if they build one of the larger ones with all the prepared food sections! Yum!
i hope it’s a big store too!
from what i understand, the ‘china town’ area was really known as gallery place for decades, until someone went with the ‘china town’ nomenclature.
also, you’ll notice that ‘glover park’ is slowly being transformed into ‘upper georgetown’.
i live next to the old children’t museum. it’s technically called ‘old town’, but nowadays, everyone refers to it as ‘north capitol hill’.
language is like magic when you’re trying to sell real estate….
the arch was made in the 1980’s. chinatowns been around since the early 1900’s. “gallery place” was the name to try to boost tourism and an arts as catalyst movement. it included a tax incentive for buildings with an arts space. thats why the landsburg has a theatre in it that the shakespeare theatre ultimately moved into. it was considered the neighborhood south of chinatown, now generally called penn quarter
a. salon. wilson gallery, etc.. were part of that movement.
lots of neighborhoods in dc, and elsewhere are and were named by developers. surrounding noma are Trinidad, Eckington, Bloomingdale, all named by developers. Le Droit park was named by its developer too.
the area around the old childrens museum is either “old city #1″
according to l’enfant. or in modern times “Near Northeast”.
That’s interesting about Trinidad, Eckington, Bloomingdale, and LeDroit Park. I suppose if you go far enough back in time, you’ll eventually find someone naming each neighborhood for an arbitrary reason. Perhaps one day the name ‘NoMa’ will even seem authentic…for now it just oozes marketing.
What I find interesting in the ever-changing boundaries of our neighborhoods. A few years ago there were calling parts of Logan “Dupont East” to get people to move out there. Now that Logan Circle is the place to be, they’re calling parts of Shaw “Logan Circle” as well. The boundaries of neighborhoods that we associate with wealth and status seem to grow over time, while the boundaries of neighborhoods we associate with blight seem to shrink.
Well, I live in “Noma”, and the one nice thing is that I’ve noticed that somebody paid a guy to come through the neighborhood with a trash can and pick up trash. Yep, his trash can has a sign on the side that says “NOMA BID” So that is a welcome change to trash piled up on the side of 2nd st NE and under the bridge on K.
DC has a history of odd neighborhood names. The Federal Triangle area used to be called ‘Murder Bay’. Pleasant.
I’m in love with the name swampoodle! It’s so unique, I just had to research the origin and I find the history fascinating. Maybe if it retained its original name more residents would be interested in preserving the heritage of the community.
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