Photo by PoPville flickr user ianseanlivingston
Dear PoPville,
I was reading the comments about a house for sale in the 100 block of T street. I noticed people talking about east of the park and west of the park. I don’t know what park they are talking about. The Park at LeDroit? Can’t be. I need a real estate “street” or “PoPville” dictionary for DC neighborhoods. they seem to get relabeled so quickly. I can’t keep up. Please school me.
Also what is PoPville? Is it a group Flickr account? Sorry to be so behind the times. I need a tutorial.
LeDroit park resident.
When folks say “east of the park” they are referring to the neighborhoods east of Rock Creek Park.
PoPville is a flickr group and it is also my twitter feed but more importantly it is a name I made up to represent all of the neighborhoods that I cover. The name derives from Prince of Petworth which is often abbreviated as PoP and I added the ‘ville to capture the areas covered by the blog. I grew up in a town called Rockville Centre so I have affinity for ‘villes.
I’ll take this opportunity to invite you all to the 6th anniversary of PoPville. On Nov. 29th we will celebrate and drink some special DC Brau beer brewed for the occasion at Meridian Pint (11th and Park Rd, NW) – more details when we get a bit closer to the date.
East (or west) of the park doesn’t carry much relevance these days anyway.
Unless you have a school-aged child.
Are looking at the price of homes
Both unfortunately correct.
I’d say it’s less relevant (or differently relevant?) but it’s far from irrelevant. So I guess for me it depends what you mean by “much”.
I’ll have some of whatever it is that you’re smoking.
East/West of the Park??? Man that’s like from the 80s.
extra questions marks are so 1970′s?!
Anonymous snarkiness on the Internet is so 1990s.
and you are?
I wouldn’t say it’s irrelevant these days. It’s very relevant in the sense that you will learn if someone has been in the District for a long time or not since there tends to be a divide of who uses the term. Of course there are newer residents that know but as neighborhoods or areas came into their own (be it development or otherwise), these areas became neighborhoods, which in turn became more defined with a name. And if a neighborhood gets really lucky, it will eventually reach the plateau of a shortened nickname a la SoHo (NYC) or TriBeCa (again, NYC). People have tried to do this naming in the District but with very mixed responses.
I’m still waiting for the day that someone says “NoMa,” I don’t first think of a Bostonian referring to a shortstop.