Jump to content

Does East Downtown Need An Inane Made-Up Name


bachanon

Name for that area east of downtown  

50 members have voted

  1. 1. What about "Eado"?

    • You've got to be kidding..
      16
    • Why, I think "Eado" is perfectly grand!
      10
    • It needs a name, just another one
      6
    • It has been decided. We must accept and say nothing.
      11
    • .
      7


Recommended Posts

Guest Jackwood

Since we get to change the names of parts of town we don't like the sound of now, I have decided that we are going to start calling Myerland - "M-town" 

 

And since some people in the world have trouble pronouncing "Houston" I have decided that we will start spelling Houston, YOOSTUN.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 62
  • Created
  • Last Reply

I think I shall start calling The Woodlands "TheWoo" or "TheWo" depending on my mood. When I'm in Sterling Ridge, I'll say I'm in WeWoo and when I'm in Grogan's Mill I'll say EaWoo. (sarcasm intended....)

 

Should the West side of Downtown now be called "WeDo"?  I'm hanging out in EaDo but then running over WeDo.  I'm still not sure if the "o" is an "oo" or a long "o" sound.

 

South of Bissonnett - SoBi

South of Memorial - SoMe

South of High Street - SoHi

East Montrose - EaMo  (I miss emo's.....EaMo is one neighborhood nickname that actually works)

 

I digress.  It's too easy to make up names.   How much thought went into "EaDo".  I'm told they used a public forum and a marketing firm to come up with the name.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

yeah, I bet the public opinion was only to select between 2 or 3 options.

 

if eado was the best they came up with (the least worst), then so be it, but I'm actually really curious what the other options were, how bad could they have been that eado was the best?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

I digress.  It's too easy to make up names.   How much thought went into "EaDo".  I'm told they used a public forum and a marketing firm to come up with the name.

 

I think it was one of those cases where a public forum was just a fig leaf for public input when they were going to use what the marketing consultant came up with regardless.  You know, so they could claim that they considered the wishes of the public when they arrived where we all thought they would all along.  The brief to the consultants was probably something along the lines of "We want to denote a 'hip' and 'arty' neighborhood, with a name that ends in 'Do'.  See what you can come up."  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The brief to the consultants was probably something along the lines of "We want to denote a 'hip' and 'arty' neighborhood, with a name that ends in 'Do'. See what you can come up."

To which the consultants responded, "We'll call it EaDo. Here's our bill for $100k."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok, I'm willing to go on record... 

 

I like EaDo.  It's a nice brand to help grow the area, and it's both unique and predictable.  Several cities have something like this (SoHo, LoHo, WeHo, LoDo, SoCo), and I think Houston is deserving of the same.  Most importantly, it's a good name because it honors the area's past as an industrial section of Downtown, but looks forward with future branding opportunities.  So yeah... I'm a go for EaDo!! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok, I'm willing to go on record... 

 

I like EaDo.  It's a nice brand to help grow the area, and it's both unique and predictable.  Several cities have something like this (SoHo, LoHo, WeHo, LoDo, SoCo), and I think Houston is deserving of the same.  Most importantly, it's a good name because it honors the area's past as an industrial section of Downtown, but looks forward with future branding opportunities.  So yeah... I'm a go for EaDo!! 

how does the name eado honor the area's industrial history?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Some anti-"EaDo" commentary on twitter tonight. One comment joked that a blogger was upset over the term "EaDoHo". It is East of Downtown Houston after all. Might as well go all the way with the stupid initials.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

What especially gripes me about “Eado” isn’t that they set out to create a name for the district, it’s that they resorted to such a trite, hackneyed naming convention that has been used by countless other cities to designate neighborhoods that they wish to be seen as hip and arty (places like Orlando).  Copying a naming formulation that way is just so second rate-and striving, and a first-class city should be embarrassed to resort to it.  Even more amazing, people have been wanting a **Do area in Houston for a long time.  In the past there were proposals for NoDo and SoDo.  It’s like the city somehow wasn’t complete without one. 

 

What it makes me think of is an insecure teenager who worries about being cool, so he goes out and gets a tee-shirt that says “I’m really quite cool”.  He might think that people will buy it, and doubtlessly some will, but the real message that comes across is “I’m very shallow and insecure”.   

 

To me your argument seems to come across as one a hipster would argue lol

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Call it what you want but Old Chinatown doesn't get you very far past the Kim Son to me. :)

 

I always thought the reference to "Chinatown" was a bit odd since so many of the businesses there such as Kim Son were owned/run by people who immigrated from Southeast Asia, i.e. Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, etc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Call it what you want but Old Chinatown doesn't get you very far past the Kim Son to me. :)

 

I always thought the reference to "Chinatown" was a bit odd since so many of the businesses there such as Kim Son were owned/run by people who immigrated from Southeast Asia, i.e. Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, etc.

 

Vietnamtown doesn't roll off the tongue as easily.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Vietnamtown doesn't roll off the tongue as easily.

 

 

. . . and "Indo-Chinatown" is not much better. Society today can be a bit sensitive about labels anyway. To my mind "Chinatown" always seemed segregationist if not unintentionally racist. Fortunately, Houston and the surrounding area is so diverse such labels don't really make sense. That's why we have the Harwin District. :)  

 

Back to the thread topic: IMO "EaDo" is a contrivance of the pseudo-cool and hip wannabes, i.e. marketing wonks. I doubt Tribeca in Manhattan was first a marketing moniker. It probably arose informally from residents and neighbors as a loose description of that area. Once it was formalized (and used as a name for a particular model of automobile) it lost "cool-ness." How about the name "Gentrificationtown" for the area east of downtown on the other side of U. S. 59? I think "Yuppieville" has already been used.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

...I doubt Tribeca in Manhattan was first a marketing moniker...

"Triangle Below Canal Street" 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribeca

 

I'm under the impression that NYC has a lot of neighborhoods that were really rough parts of town in the past, and/or they grew to be what they are now (the names) out of convinience to people who are by and large rather impatient.  Houston should have a few neighborhoods with quirky names: Rice Military, The Heights, Eastwood, Woodland Heights etc. but they should be named so because that's what they are and historically have been.  EaDo is silly (acceptable), but silly and not really needed.

 

...of course there was a time when Rice Military or The Heights was something else and then it too was renamed.  Everything starts somewhere.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think The (Houston) Heights, Woodland Heights, and Eastwood were names selected by the developers to denote their developments much like River Oaks and Tanglewood. Today, as one can see from some of the spirited debates on various threads in this forum, "the Heights" is a more loosely defined area.

Yes, New Yorkers are much more abrupt in their speech and by that I mean more economical with syllables, not rude. Maybe because it is colder there they try not to open their mouths any longer than necessary to conserve body heat. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's interesting how these monikers for gentrifying neighborhoods generate so much emotion.  (I'm not immune, either, I just enjoy speculating on why it is.)  I think Denver adopted "LoDo" early enough not to sound too copycattish.  I think Houston arrived late in the game, so, EaDo sounds corny.  But anyway ... it's not really such a big deal.  Personally, if I had to copy that old trend, I'd tweak it toward something slightly different, like "EaDoHo", which sounds kinda like Japanese.  But then, that would conflict with the tenuous "Old Chinatown" connection.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.


All of the HAIF
None of the ads!
HAIF+
Just
$5!


×
×
  • Create New...