The Hub — the commercial strip around Third Avenue and 149th Street — is among the parts of the South Bronx that some boosters are trying to rebrand as the “Downtown Bronx.” (Photos: David Gonzalez/The New York Times) City and Bronx officials this week trumpeted a major pedestrians and traffic redesign of the Hub, the commercial strip around Third Avenue and East 149th Street. Perhaps it will be more successful than a previous makeover, which tried to rebrand the area as the “Downtown Bronx.”
Fluttering above the heads of officials — and sometimes above the consciousness of local residents — were banners affixed several years ago to lampposts promoting the “Downtown Bronx Shopping District.” Never mind that the term is nothing less than a geographical impossibility to anyone who actually grew up in the Bronx, where “downtown” pretty much meant any place below 125th Street in Manhattan.
This attempt at rebranding stumps many people who walk past those banners daily (as they go to take the subway downtown, of course). Some thought it meant you could catch Manhattan-bound buses. Others said Downtown Bronx was all the way south, up against the river in Port Morris. Few knew they were smack dab in the thick of it.
Banners in the Hub commercial district in the South Bronx calls the area the “Downtown Bronx.”
Jonathan Sanchez, a security guard on his way to work, had no clue where it was. “This is the South Bronx right here,” he said, oblivious to the banner on a nearby lamppost. “Downtown is more like, Manhattan. The South Bronx is, you know, this area. It seems very good. It’s not like it used to be.” Read more..
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