Globe vs. SoWa?

Published Feb 26 2007, 06:46 PM by Adam Reilly

If you read the Globe's op-ed page in its entirety yesterday, you caught this interesting statement in Alyssa Haywoode's "Editorial notebook": "The SoWa nickname has a wannabe quality, an overeagerness to borrow the cache of SoHo in New York or London."

Never mind that the London neighborhood in question is "Soho"--bravo, Alyssa! You're entirely right. Of course, your employer has probably done more than any other local party to rebrand the area located South of Washington. Consider:

--"Crafters who work south of Washington Street (they call that the SoWa district) host the third annual SoWa Holiday Market today." Meredith Goldstein, December 9, 2006.

--"Bill Weddleton spends his evenings cruising the South End's gentrifying SoWa area in a Ford Explorer painted with rainbow-colored tiger stripes and equipped with a Sony minicam mounted to the dashboard and rooftop spotlight." Suzanne Smalley, May 26, 2006.

--"Boston's so-called SoWa neighborhood (south of Washington Street in the South End) is coming closer to the cool cultural currency of its more famous New York neighbor, SoHo, with the inauguration of its first film festival." Calendar section, May 18, 2006.

I fear the battle is already lost. But Alyssa, if you can convince the Globe to rethink its institutional endorsement of "SoWa's" existence, lunch is on me.