Brooklyn Has Yet Another New, Made-Up Neighborhood
- Photo via Bridge and Tunnel Club
Yes, even if most of us are still adjusting to (or raging against) the messy birth of “Parkwanus.” Time marches on, you find weird stuff on Reddit, and now, we’ve learned that “Stuyshwick”—or the area surrounding Broadway I’ve just been calling “JMZ Bushwick” for a while now—is a term that’s made its way into the world.
Of course, it’s not without its detractors and competitors, mostly in the form of people who just think “Bush-Stuy” or “Bedwick” are better portmanteaus. But as much as the knee-jerk reaction is to rail against newly coined neighborhood names (and the soulless realtors that are usually behind them), this one I actually don’t mind so much.
In part because it’s mostly the work of a seemingly well-intentioned neighborhood Facebook page, whose administrator actually gave a pretty thoughtful explanation of themselves on Reddit:
“Just to be clear I don’t want to rename anything or create a “micro-nabe”. I live in Bed-Stuy (near Broadway), no doubt about that. I think it’s helpful to have a local page for the Broadway area of both neighborhoods though, sorry if you disagree. We share a train, we share our stores and Food Bazaars, why not talk about that stuff in one place?”
This is not totally wrong. Unlike “Parkwanus”—which requires us to acknowledge that pre-existing, fine-as-it-is neighborhood Gowanus is being slowly encroached upon by Park Slope—the area around Broadway and the JMZ actually is sort of its own distinct entity, embraced by both its bordering neighborhoods but a little bit of a hike from other major clusters of businesses in either Bed-Stuy or Bushwick. None of which means I’m gonna go around telling people to “come meet me in Stuyshwick” or anything like that. Let’s not get crazy. Just, devil’s advocate, this could all be much worse.
Follow Virginia K. Smith on Twitter @vksmith.