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's Manhattan Midtown , a superlative example of a downtown as found in North America .]] Downtown (also called a " Central Business District " in British English ) is a term used in North America when referring to an Inner City , 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". Conversely, 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. Conversely, 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 Borough s 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 . Similarly, in New Orleans , "downtown" is a synonym for "downriver", and "uptown" is a synonym for "upriver". The New Orleans central business district is actually referred to as "the CBD" rather than as "downtown". In Seattle , "Downtown" is actually the formal name of the neighborhood in which the city's Central Business District resides. When referring to someone or something within the boundaries of that neighborhod, one properly refers to them as being "''in'' Downtown," rather than simply being "Downtown." SEE ALSO Downtown (song) REFERENCES |
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