March 15, 2004
BoCoCa - Not a New Cocoa
The naming of neighborhoods get kicked up a notch as Brooklyn tries to get some hip alternatives to call neighborhoods. Okay, maybe not hip, they're just alternatives and the Times looks at them. The first is "BoCoCa," from neighborhood web designer Christopher Branstetter, which covers Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, and Carroll Gardens. Then real estate agent Frank Galeano (whose boss said he'd lose money if he used "BoCoCa") offers "CoWaDi" for Columbia Waterfront District. Gothamist's thoughts: BoCoCa would be better if it could be pronounced "BoCoCoa," because right now we're tripping on it, saying, "BoCaCa." Plus there's nothing wrong with just saying Cobble Hill or whatever. Then CoWaDi sounds like "Witch Doctor" from Sha-Na-Na..."Ooh-ee-ooh-ah-ah, ting-tang-walla-walla-bing-bang." It would be better off if the area was called "The W.D." - think "The O.C" - or just "The District" - don't think the CBS show.
callalillie covers the issue and has a good guide to where these neighborhoods are.
|
Advertisement: Gothamist Continues Below!
Post a comment (Comment Policy)
the silly names are interesting but the real story is the purpose they serve: commodification. mr. branstetter publishes a self-styled BoCoCa "newsletter", in which he lists only restaurants and shops who pay for inclusion. it's an awful name and a misleading publication (imagine if gothamist only wrote about paying clients..).
i have never understood the bococa thing. it reminds me too much of the "barococo" period of art and architecture.
Anyone else mistake that map picture as an Ipod ad at first glance?
If Gothamist wrote about paying clients, we'd never post. Maybe we'd be writing about our parents. But this reminds me of something I had heard (heard, not confirmed) about Time Out Eating and Drinking Awards - that they focused on restaurants that had advertised. And when I was younger, I was struck how the suggestions from New York magazine (back of the book) were so similar to the ones that were advertising. Moral of the story: Production costs are expensive.
as a boerum hill resident, i'm not sure how my neighborhood is tied to cobble hill and carroll gardens. boerum hill could as easily be affiliated with fort green or park slope. carroll gardens could easily be affiliated with red hook (red garden, anyone??). it screams of some real estate marketing idea.
also, bococa just sounds hipster silly. i agree with one of the comments on callalillie's site, it'd be embarassing for me to say bococa to a 30-year resident of the neighborhood.
Just like Jersey City (Bergen, Pavonia, etc), a lot of the neighborhoods in Brooklyn take their names from the old Dutch villages that sat there. These were the original incorporated towns in Kings County, created after Stuyvesant's capitulation, but based on earlier Dutch villages: Brooklyn, Bushwick, Flatbush, Flatlands and New Utrecht. (Gravesend was an English village.) Williamsburg seceded from Bushwick in the 19th century, after the formation of the City of Brooklyn but before it occupied all of Kings County, and obviously before the formation of the modern City of Greater New York in 1898.
(The old spelling of Flatbush was "Vlacht-bos", by the way, Bushwick was "Boswyck" or "Boswijk", Brooklyn was "Breukelen" or "Breuck-landt, etc. Funny stuff.)
Sometimes they call it "advertorial", where the magazine coerces the restaurant into paying for an ad in exchange for a write-up. New York Mag does it too. Most restaurants can't afford to advertise in these mags, which is why the publications divide up the back infinitesimally, but a good review is worth the financial stretch to most restaurants if they can afford to buy one.
My neighbors in Carrol Gardens call it Red Hook.
Though it's a few blocks off-topic, I'd like to comment on the name given to the waterfront under the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges. I lived there through much of the eighties, long before it became a fashionable stop. And when I first heard it back then, I really did think that "D.U.M.B.O." was a joking suggestion for the neighborhood's name. But sadly, this gobsmackingly dumb name has stuck. Odd, as the neighborhood already had two names -- Vinegar Hill (though its historical boundaries are really more to the east) and Fulton Ferry (which may lack some pizzazz, but at least it doesn't sound silly).
I've invented a name for my neighborhood that I think is pretty catchy..."DULTO" which stands for District Under the Lincoln Tunnel Overpass. I live around 39th street and 9th ave, near Bellevue Bar, Holland Bar, Siberia bar. The Lincoln Tunnel overpass refers to the elevated bus ramp into and out of the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
Almost all of the kitschy names-- DUMBO, SoHo, etc-- were created out of general gentrification and real estate motives. How do you sell a neighborhood without sectioning it off, creating allure, making it "special?" (I say this with sarcasm). It's kind of akin to the suburbs, where giant developments are given their own names, such as "Island Estates," etc.
i'm considering a move to washington heights or above, and if i do, i will call it NoMan for "north manhattan" and concurrently "no man's land".
Maybe the West Village should be called WeVil.
Talk to anyone over the age of sixty and all of Brooklyn south of the Heights is Red Hook.
actually even boerum hill, where i live and which is ostensibly named after a dutch farm family, was invented out of thin air to sell real estate. at least that's what jonathan lethem suggests and he knows whereof he speaks right?
and dig the "carrol gardens diner" at smith and dean -- about a MILE from carrol gardens. and they might not even know, saddest of all.
ReTarDed
My friend suggested TriFlAntic, the Triangle between Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues.
Sounds a lot like a medication for reflux.
Re: janelle calling Washington Heights "NoMan" - Hee! Good call! I've already seen Washington Heights and Inwood get grouped together as something called WaHI, which I hope doesn't stick.
I thought Red Hook was RedHo. And, a half-second to the comment above. I've been calling it Baroque Rococo since I saw the site. It's been around awhile, right? At least as long as I've been hearing people say 'Billyburg' without any glimmer of irony or disgust.
unfortunately - or fortunately - "NoMan" probably won't take off because realtors would hate it.
Hey Calli This is Frank Galeano Real Estate Broker not "agent" and Mr Natoli works for me not the other way around .According to the Brooklyn Historical Society The area between the B.Q.E. , Hamilton ave ,Buttermilk channel and Atlantic Avenue is The Columbia Street Waterfront District .Just thought you might like to know the facts.Ciao
I live off Columbia Street, right around the corner from Moonshine bar. I like Frank's idea of calling the neighborhood Ihepatonga from the old Indian name. That would, at least, provoke some raised eyebrows.
I think people who try and "name" neighborhoods that have existed and done very well before they came along and tried to water them down and make them just as bland, dime a dozen and creepy as they are all come from somewhere known as DumFuk.
StuTiEvHrd
(stupidest thing I ever heard)
CoCaBo ... that's where I wanna go...