NYC's Upper, Lower, and mid- East Sides

[Laurence Horn]

On Jan 7, 2013, at 12:35 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

>> Nowadays--by which I mean at least the last 20 years...
>
> Convicted by your own words!
>
> "Midtown East," clearly a real estate confection, sounds as ludicrous to me
> as "SoHo" and "NoHo."
>
> JL

I thought "Midtown East" might have been an NYPD designation, but I don't really know.  There's some possibly useful information here, or at least some nice photos:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midtown_Manhattan

LH (< Chelsea 1945-48, Washington Heights 1948-57)
>
> On Mon, Jan 7, 2013 at 12:30 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> I meant "Yorkville," not "Yorktown."
>>
>> See, one part of my mind was anticipating the "town" in "Germantown" while
>> the other was obviously thinking of the American Revolution. The older you
>> get, the more this happens. Thinking of the American Revolution, I mean.
>>
>> "Yorkville" is correct.
>>
>> JL
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 7, 2013 at 12:15 PM, Jesse Sheidlower <jester at panix.com>wrote:
>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM>
>>> Subject:      Re: NYC's Upper, Lower, and mid- East Sides
>>>
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> As a twenty-year resident of Midtown East (or East Midtown), I can
>>> assure you that it is a real neighborhood and that is really called
>>> that. There are other neighborhoods in the area (including the ones you
>>> mentioned, as well as Kips Bay and more diffuse things like "the Sutton
>>> Place area") too. Agreed that the UES starts at 60th and goes to 96th,
>>> with its own subneighborhoods (Yorkville, Carnegie Hill, etc. etc.).
>>>
>>> Nowadays--by which I mean at least the last 20 years--the LES is
>>> regarded as a separate neighborhood from the East Village (or its
>>> subneighborhoods, like NoHo, Alphabet City, etc.) It would be really
>>> unusual to regard the East Village as part of the LES. I'd agree that
>>> the LES would refer to the below-Houston, east-of-Allen area (north of,
>>> say, East Broadway).
>>>
>>> Maryam Bakht, at Hunter, sent out a questionnaire last month about these
>>> exact issues. I don't know if she's published the results.
>>>
>>> Jesse Sheidlower
>>> OED
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jan 07, 2013 at 05:56:20PM +0100, Michael Newman wrote:
>>>> For me:
>>>>
>>>> The Upper East Side is from 60th to 96th. Above that is East Harlem.
>>> East Side is just a vague way of saying east of 5th Avenue above Washington
>>> Square and Bway below it. There is no neighborhood called "The East Side"
>>>> The Lower East Side is ambiguous. Some days it's below 14th St, but
>>> other days the East Village gets in the way, and in that case, it's below
>>> Houston and east more or less of Allen. The question is whether I consider
>>> the East Village part of the LES, which is a variable for me. Actually,
>>> Kara Becker has a great discussion of this in her 2010 NYU Diss, which I
>>> hope she publishes one day. The basic idea is that the whole East Village
>>> area was once part of the LES until real estate interests promoted the name
>>> East Village during the late 60s if I remember right. As far as I know the
>>> Upper East Side hasn't changed in my lifetime.
>>>>
>>>> There is no Mid East Side. There is talk now of Midtown East, but that
>>> seems recent to me. Traditional names are Turtle Bay, Gramercy Park, and
>>> Murray Hill, all of which are distinct neighborhoods, all of which are in
>>> what might be thought of generally as Midtown East.
>>>>
>>>> BTW, the Upper West Side goes right up to about 110st, and of course
>>> there is no Lower West Side.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Michael Newman
>>>> Associate Professor of Linguistics
>>>> Queens College/CUNY
>>>> michael.newman at qc.cuny.edu
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Jan 7, 2013, at 5:18 PM, "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>>> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>>>>> Subject:      NYC's Upper, Lower, and mid- East Sides
>>>>>
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>
>>>>> Where did New Yorkers use to place, and where do they now place --
>>>>>
>>>>> the Upper East Side?  Do I correctly remember a definition of "above
>>>>> 96th Street"?
>>>>>
>>>>> the Lower East Side?  Below what?
>>>>>
>>>>> the mid East Side?  And what term is used for that region?  (Aside
>>>>> from "the fashionable East Side".)
>>>>>
>>>>> Joel
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
>> truth."
>>
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org