Posts about Neighborhood Names

Public Spaces

Give new streets meaningful names

by Dan Reed   •   December 13, 2010 10:17 am

Montgomery County has over two hundred years of historic people, places and events that deserve recognition. Meanwhile, new streets and neighborhoods are being laid across the county as it grows, and they need names. Why can't we think of more creative titles for them?

Photo by thecourtyard on Flickr.

Back in September, county officials and developers Washington Property Company celebrated the groundbreaking of 1150 Ripley Street, a new apartment building in downtown Silver Spring's Ripley District, which is bounded by Georgia Avenue, Wayne Avenue and the train tracks.

Silver Spring, Singular often makes fun of the "Ripley District" name, which for now is just a marketing term. This logo found at the developer's website doesn't help their case:

The new development will include a new street between Ripley and Bonifant streets. TBD suggested it would be called "Ripifant," a portmanteau of the two streets that left a few people, including myself, scratching their heads. Though County Councilmember George Leventhal says that it'll just be called Ripley Street, I started thinking about how we name places and streets in Montgomery County.

Often, you can tell how old a place is by what things are named after and how meaningful they are. A map of Montgomery County reads like a history textbook: Generals Sherman, Lee and Grant have avenues named after them in Takoma Park, which was first laid out after the Civil War.

In the 1930's, we named the county's first regional high schools for Lincoln's postmaster general and a Revolutionary War hero. Even minor figures, like businessman William Thayer, were memorialized in street names.

Meanwhile, in the five-year-old subdivision of Woodcliffe Park in Germantown, you can go to the corner of Northern Dancer Lane and Dark Star Way. In Clarksburg Town Center, still under construction, Granite Rock Road crosses Rainbow Arch Lane. And in Poplar Run, a new development at the former Indian Spring Country Club in Layhill that hasn't even opened yet, there's a Moonlight Trail Drive and Autumn Sage Lane.

Does this street in Germantown look like a Bright Plume Terrace to you?

These names are sweet and poetic, but what do they really mean? Do they actually have any significance to the communities they're located in? Street names in the planned community of Columbia don't always have a local tie, as entire neighborhoods have street names derived from Shakespeare's plays, for instance. But having themed street names can result in a memorable place, even if they can be embarrassing to the people living on, say, Satan Wood Drive.

It doesn't have to be this way. Names should reflect the people, events and history of the places they serve. A few blocks from Silver Spring's Ripley District is a new street called Bottleworks Lane, named for the former Canada Dry bottling plant nearby.

And in the Tanterra neighborhood of Olney there's a street called Considine Drive. It's named after Andy Considine, a former cop who walked the streets around the Park and Planning Commission in Silver Spring during the 1970's. Andy was my driving instructor in high school, and one day during my on-road lesson he directed me to the street named for him.

"A builder came in with a plan for a subdivision, but he didn't have names for all the streets," he told me. "So one of the planners said, why don't we just name it after Andy?" It's a small gesture, but one that gives a place added significance and character.

Re-dedicating the Praisner Library in Burtonsville in 2008.

We already do that with the naming of parks and some public buildings. After County Councilmember Marilyn Praisner passed away two years ago, we named a library and recreation center after her. She helped get them built and funded, and now every kid who reads a book or plays basketball in East County will know who she is.

There's a playground in Kensington dedicated to recently-passed civic activist Wayne Goldstein and a park in downtown Silver Spring for current just-retired Planning Board Chairman Royce Hanson - dedicated after he retired the first time thirty years ago.

There's no shortage of potential namesakes for the Ripifant Streets and Moonlight Trail Drives of Montgomery County. Instead of going with a derivative name, we should pick one that commemorates our local history and heritage. Otherwise, we stand to lose them amidst a word salad of place names that could be anywhere else.

Public Safety

Southeast has as many neighborhoods as Northwest

by Nikki Peele   •   April 2, 2010 1:50 pm

In light of the recent shootings at 4000 South Capitol Street SE and 1300 Congress Place SE, it seems like the rest of the city is once more going to be given the impression that all of Southeast is the Wild West. One of the ways this idea is perpetuated is by referring to the entire area as "Southeast," compounded, in this instance, by insisting that it is less than a mile between these two incidents.

Image from Ork Posters.

This is plain wrong. Its 1.6 miles from 4000 South Capitol Street, SE, in the Washington Highlands neighborhood, to 1300 Congress Place, SE, in the Congress Heights neighborhood.

For those who need a Northwest orientation, this is about the same distance from the corner of 17th and U to Metro Center. If two incidents had occurred in those two locations, would the media be referring to all of Northwest as a free-fire zone? I don't think so.

As someone who grew up in Northwest and now lives in Southeast, I shared the Northwest misapprehension that all of Southeast was also called "Anacostia," and that one was taking one's life into one's hands crossing the eponymous river.

Public Spaces

Giving Upper Northwest a bad (neighborhood) name

by Neil Flanagan   •   February 25, 2010 12:07 pm

I've never really cared for the name of the neighborhood in which grew up, "North Cleveland Park." Possibly because I didn't grow up in North Cleveland Park. No, apparently I grew up in "Wakefield."

Have you seen this neighborhood?

Unfortunately, I did not know that until I was 23. And understandably: the name is forgettable. It lacks the hanger-on cachet of "North Cleveland Park" or the actual uniqueness of "Tenleytown." It's a white-bread name reminiscent of too many other suburban developments. And, in fact, most of the area West of Connecticut Ave, North of Albemarle St., and East of Nebraska was built shortly before World War II and is one of the last areas to be developed as a tract in DC.

Because this name and others in the area came with the developments, neighborhood names tend to be bounded by major roads. Yet the centers of community and busy commercial areas. So, residents have ended up with indistinct locations bearing forgotten names and very popular ones with no names but provisional monikers, like "Comet Corner" and "Van Ness." Or, according to City Paper, the area consists of Upper Caucasia, Connecticut, and Subarubia.

People have been attempting to name the area between Chevy Chase and Cleveland Park for over a century. Tenleytown may have grown up around John Tennally's Tavern, but family names like Nourse and Dryer have disappeared from maps. In the late 1900s, the first developers came along and tried to add Armsleigh Park, Colorado Heights, Mount Airy, and Gizor. What seems to make a difference in whether the names stuck or not is whether the neighborhood has a clear social and commercial center. Tenleytown and Georgetown have such places. Forest Hills and AU Park do not.

A few historical neighborhood names. Red text indicates a natural name while blue indicates a development.

Now, the names of the neighborhoods today are not any better than the ones lost to time. Just for example, here's how Wikipedia divides the area, based on real estate convention:

Neighborhoods according to Wikipedia.

Here, neighborhood divisions pass right through the centers of activity, such as on Wisconsin Ave. By this map, the vast majority of what people regard as Tenleytown is not in Tenleytown, such as the Janney School, Cityline at Tenley, and the Tenley-Friendship Library hole. It is as though the places where most neighborhood activity occurs have no bearing on the official geography. With that in mind, I asked some friends where neighborhoods begin and end. Here's what I came up with:

Neighborhoods designated by residents.

In my opinion, this map reflects the general image of neighborhoods better, especially in the way it characterizes Tenleytown, but it's still somewhat imperfect. For example, the Comet Corner node at Connecticut and Nebraska is still stuck between Chevy Chase, Forest Hills, and Tobago. Or, take the Van Ness hub, which is technically split between Forest Hills and North Cleveland Park. And, good lord, parts of AU park are a mile from American's main campus.

Now, crumby names may not actually harm the businesses at these locations, but I have found it strangely hard to explain to outsiders how to get to Politics & Prose. It just does not exist on the mental maps of most inhabitants of the region. The lack of landmarks or a transportation node might be one reason it's unremarkable, but the fact that people have spontaneously named the area suggests that area is not so much lacking as the naming system is itself insufficient.

Although a line is drawn down the middle of Wisconsin Avenue, a person will not feel that the neighborhood changed when he or she crosses the street. Both sides of the street sit in the same space – and one perceives them as the same place. So, from an urbanist standpoint, it makes more sense to approach neighborhood names through the experience of space and human activity.

In the next post, I explore an alternative.

Public Spaces

Montgomery County, land of few names

by David Alpert   •   August 27, 2009 12:05 pm

Silver Spring or Colesville? North Bethesda or White Flint? With large swaths of unincorporated land and few official place names in some densely populated areas, Montgomery County residents frequently debate what, exactly, to call their homes. That's becoming especially important as areas that were once just part of larger commercial strips, like White Flint, develop their own identities.

Growing up, numerous cousins and summer camp friends hailed from Montgomery County. I often wondered why they all seemed to live in four towns: Bethesda, Rockville, Chevy Chase, and Silver Spring (and at that time, mostly not Silver Spring). The answer is that as far as the U.S. Postal Service is concerned, the bulk of Montgomery County's population is is in a place with one of those four names. The USPS was remarkably uncreative when naming postal areas in Montgomery County.

Despite a number of historic town names like Cloverly, Colesville, and Norbeck, seven whole ZIP codes stretching 13 miles from the DC line bear the name "Silver Spring." And, as Dan Reed explains, many people who live there—or even outside of there—still say they live in "Silver Spring." Matt Johnson once made a humorous Metro map poking fun at this.

Above: Matt's humorous Metro map renaming most Montgomery stations "Bethesda" or "Silver Spring." Left: ZIP codes designated "Silver Spring, MD" (20901, 20902, 20903, 20904, 20905, 20906, and 20910).

But which is the chicken, and which the egg? Many people have started to call the neighborhood around Van Ness Metro "Van Ness"; do folks in eastern Montgomery County say they live in Silver Spring because the USPS says they do, or did the USPS name all of those areas Silver Spring because that's what the residents called it?

At a recent gathering, Dan and I discussed the topic of fluid place names. I pointed out the San Francisco Neighborhood Project, which used Craigslist listings to identify neighborhood boundaries. Many listings contain a neighborhood name and a precise street intersection, allowing the Neighborhood Project to map those and try to determine where, exactly, the Mission turns into Noe Valley. Dan was inspired to make his own Craigslist-based map of Silver Spring.

Left: The Neighborhood Project map of San Francisco. Right: Dan Reed's map of "Silver Spring" listings.

The area between Bethesda and Rockville, too, lies in a nomenclature no-man's land. Rockville is an incorporated city with actual city limits, but the Postal Service designates addresses as "Rockville" even 7 miles northeast of the city limits. The area around Grosvenor, White Flint, and Twinbrook Metros was once "Rockville," but at some point in the last 20 years the Postal Service and many residents started calling it "North Bethesda." Realtors embraced the name early, wanting to associate with trendy Bethesda instead of less hip Rockville.

North Bethesda is an official Census Designated Place, though it too is pretty big. Does the walkable center deserve its own name? And as the Friends of White Flint point out, the North Bethesda CDP spans ZIP codes the USPS calls Kensington and Garrett Park, both also incorporated places of their own.

The Gazette reviews the debate about what to call the area. Will people follow the Van Ness pattern and name the neighborhood White Flint, after the Metro station which was itself named for a mall? If plans continue, one day there will be no White Flint Mall, but the name may live on.

Public Spaces

Orangington?

by Dan Malouff   •   June 22, 2009 4:02 pm

Arlington: The Rap is a hilarious spoof that lovingly pokes fun at Washington's even-more yuppie-filled western extension. The rap isn't really about Arlington, though; it's about that specific portion of Arlington lying along Metro's Orange line that over the past generation has morphed from sleepy suburb to central city destination. The rap got me thinking: That part of Arlington needs a unique name. People talk about it all the time. Why not give it a single identifier?

"Arlington," after all, refers to the whole 26 square mile county, from Chain Bridge on the north to Four Mile Run on the south, and west almost to Leesburg Pike. "North Arlington" also won't do, since it refers as much to the rolling suburbs north of Route 29 as it does to the Orange Line Corridor. "Orange Line Corridor" itself is too much of a mouthful, as are the other frequent substitutes, "Wilson Boulevard Corridor" and "Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor". Even shortening to "R-B" or "R-B Corridor" leaves much to be desired.

But how about "Orangington"? It spells a little awkward, but it sounds verbally clean, fits the blankington scheme used by both Washington, Arlington and Shirlington, and the connection between the neighborhoods in question and Metro's Orange Line is so strong that it's immediately obvious what the name refers to. Normally I'd be hesitant to try and force a contrived name on unwanting locals (Penn Quarter and NoMa, anyone?), but in this case there does seem to be a need and the name does seem to be pretty organic. Indeed, I've been dropping it in casual conversation lately and although I get some "I've never heard that" comments, everyone I've spoken to has understood the reference immediately. It seems a natural moniker for an area that increasingly needs one.

So how about it, folks? Orangington from now on?

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.

Public Spaces

Will Columbia Heights inevitably subdivide?

by David Alpert   •   April 17, 2009 2:31 pm

Last week, Columbia Heights residents and the ANC objected to proposed banners that seemed to be rebranding a segment of 14th Street, from Irving to Shepherd, as "Tivoli North." Many argued that Columbia Heights is just beginning to develop a citywide reputation as a desirable place to go, and didn't like the impression that businesses were shying away from the name. That's all true, but I suspect Columbia Heights will eventually become more than one neighborhood whether local leaders like it or not.

One neighborhood, indivisible?

Many maps show "Shaw" encompassing a wide swath from 16th and U to Georgia and Florida down to 14th and M and New Jersey and M. Today, most people call the northern portion of that area the "U Street" neighborhood and the southwestern portion "Logan Circle." Likewise, Sherman and Euclid is very far from 14th and Randolph. They're not in the same ward, and are each as close or closer to other Metro stations than the Columbia Heights station.

The neighborhoods to the east and west, like Adams Morgan, Mount Pleasant, Park View, and Pleasant Plains, are all smaller. Columbia Heights spans a much larger area than "Dupont Circle," which by some measures reaches the southwest corner of 14th and U due to the ANC boundaries. As the blocks in the area develop even more citywide appeal, people will naturally want to explain to their friends where they live, and "Columbia Heights" may simply not be specific enough.

Sure, Chevy Chase DC is even larger in area, but it's also relatively sparsely populated compared to Columbia Heights, has fewer stores, and is much more auto-dependent. When in a car, distances feel smaller, and Chevy Chase can feel like one neighborhood because the typical resident can cross it in five minutes. The typical person in Columbia Heights is on foot, and it takes a lot longer to get from Clifton to Shepherd. Also, there's less inside the boundaries of Chevy Chase to fit into one mental box than in Columbia Heights.

In general, fancier neighborhoods seem to have more names for areas than less affluent ones. The Benning-Minnesota crossroads is often termed "Downtown Ward 7," while only one resident of Georgetown ever calls the area "Ward 2." (Though people do talk about "Ward 3.") Some of this stems from realtors trying to shed the poorer connotations of areas. That's probably why we have "Kalorama Triangle" and "Lanier Heights." Still, there's also a natural desire to better identify one's area.

A friend lived for a short while on Spring Road, and was never sure what to call the area. Is it Petworth? (That's mostly east of Georgia). Sixteenth Street Heights? (The large, fancy houses on 16th are a world away from the row houses near 14th, and separated by a parkway). Does Columbia Heights extend up to Taylor Street, as some tax databases claim? What about people at 15th and Chapin? Is that "Meridian Hill"? "BUCo" (Between U and Columbia Heights)? Or just southern Columbia Heights?

Evenutally, some names are going to stick for the northern and southern portions of this neighborhood. It could be as simple as "Northern Columbia Heights" or (to follow San Francisco's model) "Upper Columbia Heights". Or, they could earn their own monikers. But as more people move to the area and even more people start to have friends in the area, nonresidents' collective mental picture of the area will become more nuanced. People will start to recognize the difference between the part between the area near Howard, the area near DC USA, and the area near Arkansas Avenue. And they'll naturally want language to describe those areas.

Transit

No bloody slashes, dashes or unnecessary acronyms

by Dan Malouff   •   March 10, 2009 10:00 am

According to Zachary Schrag's famous book about Metro history, The Great Society Subway, the planners originally in charge of naming stations were told to keep it simple. In fact, says Schrag, the rule of thumb at the time was for no stations to be longer than two words.

Obviously with names like U Street/African-American Civil War Memorial/Cardozo WMATA has moved away from that principle in recent years. These days many of the stations in the system are appended with some sort of slash-this or dash-something.

Sometimes the change has made sense. The Federal government mandated that Reagan be added to National Airport, after all. A great many of the new names aren't all that useful though.

Do we really need to know, for example, that students attending George Mason University sometimes use the Vienna station? GMU's campus is over 5 miles from Vienna. The station does not directly serve the university. The name doesn't have to be there.

At the same time, some stops could use a re-branding. When Dunn Loring opened, it was envisioned as a park and ride serving commuters living in the Dunn Loring residential area north of the stop. The way things worked out, most of the riders using the station are actually going or coming from the Merrifield commercial/industrial area south of the stop. The station originally called Dunn Loring would now be better named Merrifield.

It seems a good time to look at the whole system. The map below illustrates a possible station renaming scheme. In some cases I renamed stations that are too long, or have too many acronyms attached at the end. In other cases I renamed to focus on a specific neighborhood or landmark. Where possible I've tried to stick to the two word maximum, but in a case or two have gone to three.

On the map gray station names are unchanged while black ones are those that have been modified.

Click to enlarge.

Have your own ideas? Share them in the comments.

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.