Dumbo Article in Toronto Star

Toronto Star has an article about Dumbo’s emerging neighborhood, and says it’s not quite SoHo yet, but has some gems:

SoHo is short for South of Houston Street. That makes sense. Tribeca means Triangle below Canal. That’s okay.

NoLIta — North of Little Italy — is pushing the cute geographical acronym (CGA) a bit too far. Now, however, New Yorkers have outdone themselves. Welcome to DUMBO — Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.

Old factories have been overtaken by chi-chi restaurants, far-out record shops and tony delicatessens and chocolate shops. Ultra-swanky bars attract the after-work set, and ultra-thin models strut about as cameras whir, taking advantage of the gritty landscape for the latest magazine mood shot.

The greatest transformation might be the one that’s happening closest to Manhattan, or at least closest to the Manhattan bridge. DUMBO (it’s hard to write that with a straight face) is most decidedly still in transition, no longer derelict and decrepit but not yet SoHo. You can pass a lovely boutique selling what looks like nothing but virgin-white women’s clothing, and then next door there’s a hulking mechanic banging on a 20-year-old Honda Civic at the local body shop. Down the road you’ll spot a pair of local Goths trudging home from a night on the town, their enormous, knee-high, black boots clonking noisily on the broken pavement.

Virgin-white clothing, Goths trudging home, and mechanics? Interesting images, Toronto Star.

{Brooklyn gets the spit and polish treatment, Toronto Star, July 22, 2006}

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