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Any port in a storm: Cambridge ponders neighborhood rename
By adamg on Wed, 08/12/2015 - 8:29pm
Cambridge Day tries to keep our heads from hurting as we read about an effort to rename Area IV the Port even though it would sit right next to Cambridgeport.
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Comments
I like the name "Area IV"
It has that whole UFO, "In Search Of",conspiracy theory, eerie kind of resonance to it, which I think is appropriate. Though it's an up and coming happening place, part of it still retains the sort of eerie, empty feel of the old, deserted Kendall Square of the 70s and early 80s. It has a charm all it's own.
I always assumed this was
I always assumed this was just some bland zoning label that people started using for a name due to a lack of an actual one.
Port 44 4-life
Port 44 4-life
It Seems Obvious To Call It "The Port"
After all, it's where all the big container carriers and cruise ships dock in Cambridge, isn't it?
They could market the area to hospital employees
and call it the IV Port.
Area IV has always been known
Area IV has always been known as The Port. No need to officially change the name...if you knew, you knew.
I lived there for many years
and never heard anyone call it "The Port", ever.
If a student roommate ad tried to find a name for the area, they'd tend to mistakenly call it Central Sq. Usually it was just "Cambridge, near Harvard and MIT!".
People in-the-know called it Area IV, and knew that the other side of Mass. Ave. was Cambridgeport.
Maybe a few decades ago Area IV was known as something else, or maybe this is a new thing being pushed by real estate agents, or by "community leaders" who think the is the most pressing issue for Area IV. But it is and has been Area IV for a while, as far as I know.
I mean, you obviously don't
I mean, you obviously don't know then. And honestly, that's expected. It's mostly known as The Port by people born and raised in Cambridge. You're an outsider (like so many Cambridge residents these days) and wouldn't really expect you to know that you've lived in The Port for many years. This is definitely not a new thing but rather, as you mentioned, an old thing.
And I would LOVE to see these people you claim as "in the know" lol. Out of curiosity, where are they from?
Area IV is known as 'The Port
Area IV is known as 'The Port' in the way Cambridgeport is known as 'The Coast'. Mass Ave in Central Square is/was somewhat of a boundary line. I went to CRLS and it didn't seem like territorial issues readily existed, but kids were very vocal about their neighborhoods.
When Someone In The Neighborhood Throws A Loud, Boisterous Party
... do their neighbors call the city and file a Port noise complaint?
bravo!
.
The Port?!
Oof, FFS. If you really want to glom onto something adjacent and much, much cooler, just watch for what the new BPD puppy gets named, and copy that. Or call it, "Nearly Linguiça Land." People love linguiça, and puppies, for good reason. Aren't they afraid that folks might confuse them with the utterly craptastic Seaport?
Hmm, maybe "Perto do Porto?"
Working the linguiça theme.
Don't they know:
You don't vote to change a neighborhood name. It must either come over time organically and in reference to a nearby geographic feature or area use, etc. or it must be a meaningless nonsense word (or truncated parts of the neighborhood's name stuck together) suddenly be slapped up as a marketing ploy created by the least creative departments at ad agencies and overpaid for by local real estate interests.
"Midtown Cambridge"? :D
"Midtown Cambridge"? :D
Geographically challenged
er... actually East Boston is as far north as you can go in Boston and it is also edges out South Boston for the point farthest east (discounting the Harbor Islands).
Don't the N/W/E/S End names
Don't the N/W/E/S End names simply come from when Boston was much smaller geographically - before places like Dorchester and Roxbury were annexed? And back then they made geographic sense?
Historically Challenged
When those Boston neighborhoods were named they made perfect sense. Boston was nigh an island and those "End" neighborhoods were precisely where they were named.
To note, Cambridgeport is was once Area 4 and Area 5 before being split in two. There is some precedent for giving Area 4 another name. But not Port. A more fitting name might be Candyland or something equally silly but referencing its original usage.
no.
Even when Boston was mostly the Shawmut peninsula East Boston was part of Boston. So it has always been the northernmost part of Boston. Most of the South End was land fill and was therefore not a n'hood until later. The point is not to be pedantic, but to indicate that the Cambridge Day article left out East Boston as part of Boston when trying to highlight the contradictions of the place names, which as you point out made sense to a degree in times past but not today. But go ahead and be pedantic.
Area IV
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_4,_Cambridge
So, based on this Cambridge history, you could justify
calling it "the Old Port", which is different enough from Cambridgeport to be less confusing. It's not unlike Back Bay: a lot more of it used to be underwater. Echoes of Portland, ME's lovely Old Port don't hurt. I'd be okay with that.
CaPoBuNoCaPo
Cambridge Port But Not Cambridgeport
"Capobu, Nocapo, Capobu, Nocapo." Could be sung to the
tune of "Hakuna Matata." Has potential.
Back in the 1990s, Senator McGee
put forth a proposal to change the name of Lynn to Ocean Park. His stated reason for advocating the change was because of the old "Lynn, Lynn, the City of Sin" rhyme. Fortunately, everyone had the good sense to realize how stupid the idea was, and it just faded away.
Of course, had they changed the name of Lynn, the rhyme would have changed as well.
I was wrong. The illuminati
I was wrong. The illuminati don't really care about world domination. They are just all about devising insidious new ways to confuse travellers to Massachusetts.