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SoWa tagu Siam

Jay Fitzgerald reminds us that just because a Trader Joe's is moving into that old power plant/trolley barn off Harrison Avenue doesn't mean you can now call that area SoWa.

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This part of the South End never had its own name, to my knowledge. SoWa is good marketing for the art galleries and condominiums that have sprouted up in the old warehouse district.

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South End.

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not the whole thing. It's quite different in character from Tremont Street or Columbus Avenue.

Simillarly, Fort Point is part of South Boston but doesn't look or feel much like L Street.

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"SoWa" is a lame attempt to make that neighborhood sound New Yorky, and the last thing Boston needs is for any of it to pretend to be New York. "Good marketing"? Eff that, and eff marketing generally.

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There was a really good antiques market there this summer. I hope that the city will help the market find another location. I had always hoped that the big barn could have become a permanent open market with shifting vendors, but looks like not. That will be an awfully big Trader Joes.

Whit

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Historically (according to an older family member of mine, later confirmed by a friends grandmother who grew up in Southie) the area was known as "off Harrison" or "Piano Row" (because of the piano factories along Harrison Av). This current moniker is stupid and cringeworthy to many of us who live in the South End. It's clumsy and doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. This is real estate marketing by committee at its worst. I have at least two friends who live in that area who refuse to acknowledge it and even sometimes poke fun at when it is mentioned in their presence.

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I always heard this term used to describe Boylston Street near the Colonial Theatre, which used to have many piano stores. M. Steinert & Sons is the only survivor today.

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What's now Boylston Place was actually called "Piano Alley." There were two sheet music stores/publishers as well.

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The area is indeed south of Washington Street, but only if you think Washington Street ends at Waltham Street. There is only, oh, about 27 miles of Washington Street that is south of SoWa.

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also, The Location Not Known As "SoWa" is more east of Washington St. than south of it.

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DoWiSeTrePla?

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is it necessary for every two-block segment of town to be a "neighborhood" with its own "name"?

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Because I'm a block west of Mass Av. Or SoCo because I'm a block south of Columbus Av.

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If you're on that side of Mass Ave, I call it a "bookend neighborhood" because it bookends the South End and Fenway / Roxbury.

Adorable, no?

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I have a friend who lives on Rutland St who calls anything on the other side of Massachusetts Avenue Canada because he thinks it might as well be another country.

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That has always confused me. I realize that they do target the upscale market and the bohemian mix areas out here, but that wasn't what I first knew as Trader Joe's.

The one near my dad's house in Portland, OR has an "everybody shops here" crowd and vibe and always has. I went to the Flagship, the original store in Pasadena, and it was more like a surfing theater troupe took over a warehouse store.

I kinda wish the rumors had been true and that Whole Foods hadn't decided to hang on to the Medford location ... at least Alewife opens today. Pretty economical way to get healthy food flow into the teenage eating machine.

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I mean, you can find overpriced deli-type items there, but even those are still cheaper than most other places. TJ's is great for nicer stuff that costs the same as crappy stuff. Like, we get their $1.99 shampoo, which has way less chemically crap in it than Suave and stuff, essential oils used for fragrance, etc. Also their store brand pine cat litter, which is cheaper than Feline Pine. And stuff like $1.99 condiments and things that are often twice as much at Shaw's and S&S.

I think this is one of those times where we need to talk about class in terms other than strictly one's income. Our family's income is certainly well below the median, but we spend a lot less on groceries than many families who have much less than we have.

I think a lot of this is because we're in an education bracket where we try to be educated consumers and have been willing to look in places like TJ's rather than just assuming from the looks of it that it must have higher prices than the large grocery store with the peeling floor tiles. We've also had exposure to ideas such as that vegetarian Indian/Latin/Thai/etc. cooking is much cheaper and healthier and tastier than much middle-America fare.

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http://1smootshort.blogspot.com

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It is even cheap for the packaged foods. Most of their lunch-sized entrees are $3-$4 ... not as cheap as left overs, but wayyyy cheaper and often healthier than grabbing lunch out.

I empty my panniers, grab a backpack and bike the two miles over to the Boylston St. location every two to three weeks and spend about $60. For that I get enough packaged lunches, yogurt and oatmeal, bread, peanut butter, and nuts and berries and chips for snackage to last me two to three weeks of breakfasts and lunches and snacks at work. I supplement with farmer's market produce for fresh stuff.

My hoard lasts longer if I have left overs ... but those are a rare commodity with two adolescent boys in the house.

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Losing... direction. Logic... fading.

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But the real reason I go there when I'm in the neighborhood is for those frozen croissants. It's just as well there isn't a Trader Joe's close by.

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We are hooked on them. Every couple of weeks we put them out at night to thaw and rise and then preprogram the oven to preheat starting at 6am. By 6:15, when the kids start stirring, the oven is preheated and the first boy up gets them into the oven and sets a 20 minute timer. Coffee starts brewing itself at 6:30, too.

By the time the kids shower and dress and I make it upstairs in my bike gear, they are ready. We then enjoy a breakfast of freshly-baked warm croissants that are as good as most bakeries can muster.

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I recently referred to SoWa as "a silly term for the south end of Boston’s South End." I was told that it's marketing, not silliness. For details, and an account of the last south end open market of 2009, see:
http://changingway.org/2009/10/31/like-etsy-but/

For a photo taken inside the rather lovely old trolley barn, see:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/andwat/4046630099/

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The term (well-planned or not) IS silly -- but the picture of the trolley barn is wonderful.

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no matter what they (whoever they are) call that area some old-timer or some new-timer would complain. my complaint? too many heterosexuals taking over the s.e. clogging the sidewalks and streets with their baby carriages, big hair, and suv's.

times change, things change. that's life.

and no matter what moves into the old power station structure people would complain, or if nothing moved into it, people would whine about that too.

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I live ON Washington Street. Does that mean I live in just plain ol' "Wa?"

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Well.

Do you live on the north side (NoWa) or the south side of Washington Street (SoWa). Wielding pretentious scalpels, we cut our neighborhoods into precise parts.

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