DC's Newest Neighborhood: Tivoli North?

• February 2nd 2009

by Mark Wellborn

DC’s most prolific neighborhood blogger Prince of Petworth had a post earlier today that covered a potentially controversial subject: re-christening a DC neighborhood with a new name. PoP reported that there are plans in the works to rename the area of 14th Street between Monroe Street and Shepherd Street. That area technically falls in Columbia Heights, but the proposed new names apparently include Tivoli North and Tivoli North Corridor.

Judging from the reaction of various commenters after the post, this would not be a very popular decision.

Here is one who opposes the change:

“I consider that part of Columbia Heights. Why the need to differentiate? Now that the area is being gentrified it needs to divorce itself from the Columbia Heights it’s leaving behind? Sorry, calling it Tivoli North just feels icky.”

Others got straight to the point:

“Tivoli North sounds dumb. It’s Columbia Heights.”

This is certainly not the first time DC neighborhoods have been given new names in the hopes of making them more appealing. Parts of Shaw have seceded in recent years and now are known by names like Logan East and NoMa (North of Massachusetts Avenue). Not surprisingly, these name changes were also met with a fair amount of opposition, so it will be interesting to see how people react if this name change is made official.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/dcs_newest_neighborhood_tivoli_north/508.