downtown

Information about downtown

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New York City's Manhattan Midtown, a example of a downtown as found in North America.


Downtown (called a "city centre" in British English) is a term used in North America when referring to a city's core, usually both in a geographical and commercial / community sense.

Etymology

The term is thought to have been coined in New York City, where downtown was first used to refer to the original town on southern tip of the island of Manhattan. As the town of New York grew into a city, the only direction it could grow on the island was toward the north, proceeding upriver from the original settlement. Thus, anything north of the original town became known as "uptown", while the original town (which was also New York's only major center of business at the time) became known as "downtown" or "Lower Manhattan". The term was adopted in cities across the United States and Canada to refer to the historical core of the city (which was most often the same as the commercial heart of the city).

Relative use

The terms downtown and uptown can refer to cardinal directions, for example in Manhattan where "Downtown" is also a relative term. Anything south of where the speaker is currently standing, in most places, is said to be "downtown". Anything north of the speaker is "uptown". In the New York phrase, "We're going to take the subway downtown," downtown refers to traveling in the geographic direction of south. A person standing on 121st Street and walking ten blocks south could also be said to have walked ten blocks downtown. The term uptown is used to refer to the cardinal direction north.

Such concepts derive from Manhattan's elongated shape, running roughly north/south and nowhere more than two miles (3300 meters) wide. As such, most of the train service and major thoroughfares on the island travel in the uptown/downtown directions. The other boroughs are wider, and "Downtown" there refers to Lower Manhattan, Downtown Brooklyn, or some more local business district. Mercantile efforts to promote the South Bronx as "Downtown Bronx" have met little success.

Manhattan exceptions to the equation of "downtown" with "south" include Cherry Street and nearby parts of the Lower East Side, where downtown is westward towards City Hall, while south on Montgomery Street is not called downtown since it runs into the East River.

In New Orleans, "downtown" is a synonym for "downriver", and "uptown" is a synonym for "upriver". The New Orleans central business district is referred to as "the CBD" rather than as "downtown".

In most other North American cities such as Seattle, "Downtown" is the formal name of the neighborhood in which the city's Central Business District resides. Someone or something within the boundaries of that neighborhod are said to be "in Downtown", rather than "Downtown".

See also

Downtown (song)

References

central business district (CBD) (also called 'Downtown' in American English) is the commercial and often geographic heart of a city. In the United Kingdom, Australia, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore and parts of South Africa, the
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British English (BrE, BE, en-GB) is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere in the Anglophone world.
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North America is a continent [1] in the Earth's northern hemisphere and (chiefly) western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the south and west
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City of New York
New York City at sunset

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Nickname: The Big Apple, Gotham, The City that Never Sleeps
Location in the state of New York
Coordinates:
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Manhattan is a borough of New York City, New York, USA, with New York County. With a 2000 population of 1,537,195[2] living in a land area of 22.96 square miles (59.
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Upper Manhattan denotes the more northerly region of the New York City Borough of Manhattan. Its southern boundary may be defined anywhere between 59th Street and 155th Street.
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Lower Manhattan is the southernmost part of the island of Manhattan, the main island and center of business and government of the City of New York. Lower Manhattan is generally defined as the area delineated on the north by Chambers Street, on the west by the Hudson River (North
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New York City Subway

Locale New York City
Transit type(s) Rapid transit
Began operation first section of subway: October 27, 1904
first elevated operation: July 3, 1868
first railroad operation: October 9, 1863[1]
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1: Manhattan 2: Brooklyn 3: Queens 4: The Bronx 5: Staten Island]]
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Lower Manhattan is the southernmost part of the island of Manhattan, the main island and center of business and government of the City of New York. Lower Manhattan is generally defined as the area delineated on the north by Chambers Street, on the west by the Hudson River (North
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Downtown Brooklyn is the third largest central business district in New York City (following Midtown Manhattan and Lower Manhattan), and is located in the northwestern section of the borough of Brooklyn.
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The South Bronx is a region of the New York City borough of The Bronx. It strictly refers to the southwestern portion of the borough, and should not be confused with the southern Bronx. It is also the home of Yankee Stadium.
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Cherry Street, in the New York City borough of Manhattan, was originally established in colonial times to run from the intersection of Pearl Street and Frankfort Street in Lower Manhattan, approximately 1.44 Mile north to Grand Street in Corlears Hook.
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Lower East Side is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of New York City borough of Manhattan. It has traditionally been an immigrant, working class neighborhood, but it has undergone gentrification in recent years and is increasingly populated by young professionals and
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East River is a tidal strait in New York City in the United States. It connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island (including the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn) from the island of Manhattan and the Bronx on the
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City of New Orleans
Ville de La Nouvelle-Orléans

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Nickname:
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B-side(s) "You'd Better Love Me"
Released November 1964
Recorded 1964
Label Warner Bros. Records (US)
Pye Records (UK)
Writer(s) Tony Hatch
Producer(s) Tony Hatch
Peak chart positions

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