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Pop quiz — how did New York neighborhoods like Harlem, DUMBO, and NoMad get their names?
New York has some pretty unusual neighborhood names, and it can be pretty hard to guess what they mean. Tribeca seems like a perfectly acceptable name, but when you see it stylized as TriBeCa, you may start to question why there are so many letters capitalized.
Many of the neighborhood names in New York have a rich history that dates back many, many years. In fact, one of the neighborhoods that we’re going to talk about is actually the birthplace of New York!
Of course, we’d love to show you around in-person on a New York neighborhood tour, but until then, read on to learn how some of our favorite NYC neighborhoods got their names.
SoHo
The name SoHo actually stands for South of Houston Street.
It was coined in the early 1960s by an urban planner named Chester Rapkin, but it really took headway in the 1980s and ’90s when the neighborhood was starting to grow in popularity. SoHo extends north and south from Houston Street to Canal Street and east and west from Sixth Avenue to Lafayette Street (though some debate the exact boundaries of the neighborhood).
Before SoHo even became a popular place to live, it was almost nothing but highways.
In the 1960s, the city intended the neighborhood to be the location to be a thoroughfare connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn, but the plans were scrapped. The historic (and unappealing at the time) buildings were snapped up by artists in the 1980s, and SoHo blossomed.
SoHo now is an affluent neighborhood with designer stores like Louis Vuitton, Prada, Saint Laurent, and more. Rent prices are at a premium, and buying property here will cost a pretty penny. Some of the hottest restaurants are also in SoHo, including The Corner Store, Flipper’s, and Lure Fish Bar.
Local tip: While Houston Street is spelled identical to the city in Texas, it’s actually pronounced HOWston Street.
NoHo
Now that you know SoHo, NoHo should be pretty obvious. It stands for North of Houston Street. Once artists began renting lofts there in the 1970s and 80s, the name was used to distinguish it from its southern counterpart.
The neighborhood has gone through many iterations in New York’s history. In the early 1800s, it was the place to live if you were wealthy. The Vanderbilts once lived in a beautiful row house in the neighborhood, as did Charles Dickens. As the 1900s neared, however, the richest people started moving farther north in Manhattan, and NoHo became known as the warehouse district, because of the changes being made to the buildings.
Running north to south from Astor Place to Houston Street and east to west from the Bowery to Broadway, the neighborhood is much smaller and quieter than SoHo, with few even knowing of its existence.
NoLIta
A bit more complicated than the first two, NoLITa stands for North of Little Italy. Occupying space that was previously deemed Little Italy territory, the area saw an influx of trendy bars, restaurants, and shops in the latter half of the 1990s.
Often written as Nolita, the neighborhood’s name was actually coined by The New York Times in a 1996 article describing how this part of what was once Little Italy had experienced a boom of trendiness that some were not a fan of. Caught between Little Italy and SoHo, this area needed its own identity. Thus, NoLIta was born.
Standing north of the tiny but vibrant Little Italy, NoLIta extends north and south from Houston Street to Broome Street and east and west from Bowery to Lafayette Street.
Chinatown
New York’s Chinatown dates back to the 1850s, when the first wave of Chinese immigrants started arriving in the U.S. Many stayed in California looking for gold (as part of the Gold Rush), but still many more came to New York looking for a new life. They arrived in a neighborhood in southern Manhattan that would eventually become Chinatown.
Over the years, the neighborhood has attracted more and more Asian residents, making for a densely populated area. Though many cities in the world have their own Chinatown neighborhoods, New York’s is one of the largest with one of the largest populations. In fact, it has the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western hemisphere.
The boundaries of Chinatown are a little wishy-washy because the neighborhood isn’t perfectly shaped. It mostly extends east and west from Broadway to Essex Street and north and south from Grand Street to Henry Street, but there are nooks and crannies cut out here and there that make this an interestingly shaped piece of land.
There’s plenty to see in Chinatown, from fresh markets to kitschy shops and hole-in-the-wall restaurants. One of our tour guides will show you the best spots (and some of the beautiful Chinese decor strung up in the streets) on our SoHo, Little Italy, Chinatown Walking Tour.
Local tip: I highly recommend grabbing some soup dumplings at Joe’s Shanghai while you’re in the neighborhood. It’s one of the most well-known restaurants, especially popular for its xiao long bao.
NoMad
Blink and you’ll miss it, NoMad stands for the area North of Madison Square Park. In use since 1999, its name (like the others) derives entirely from its location. From 25th Street to 30th Street, between Sixth Avenue and Lexington Avenue, NoMad is home to commercial businesses, upscale restaurants, and trendy night spots.
You can actually experience NoMad as part of our Private Luxury Tour of NYC, which rolls through the Madison Square Park area (among other places). Your tour guide will give you plenty of NoMad history, along with fun facts about all the rest of the spots on the tour.
One of those fun facts? This area is the original home of Madison Square Garden, though that wasn’t its name at the time. Before it moved up to 33rd Street, the event venue began its life in what is now Madison Square Park.
TriBeCa
Here’s where it gets a bit more tricky. While many people know of the world-renowned Tribeca Festival, few know that TriBeCa stands for the Triangle Below Canal Street. While not perfectly symmetrical and angular, the borders of this residential hub do form a triangular shape just underneath Canal Street, between SoHo and Chinatown. The neighborhood is bound by Canal Street, West Street, Chambers Street, and Broadway.
Coined in the 1970s, the name didn’t really hit stride until after Sept. 11, which led to the creation of the Tribeca Film Festival in 2002, planned to help enliven the neighborhood after the destruction of the attacks. The festival was founded by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, and Craig Hatkoff, and in 2020, it was renamed simply the Tribeca Festival to include TV, games, music, and more. It brings thousands of people to the neighborhood each year to celebrate the arts.
Local tip: You won’t usually see TriBeCa stylized that way, even though the neighborhood name is three abbreviations. Most of the time, it’s written as Tribeca.
DUMBO
A very popular neighborhood in Brooklyn, DUMBO stands for Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass. Few people can guess it until they’re actually told.
Sitting between Bridge Street and the Brooklyn Bridge Promenade, the neighborhood earned its acronym in 1978, as newer residents started using it to help deter developers in the rapidly renewing neighborhood. It wasn’t until almost 2000, though, that the name started to take hold.
The neighborhood is bound by Brooklyn Bridge Park to the north, the Brooklyn Bridge to the west, Brooklyn Heights to the south, and Vinegar Hill to the east. Prior to becoming DUMBO, the neighborhood — which was a ferry landing before being built up with homes and businesses — was known as Gairville, Rapailie, Olympia, and Walentasville.
The area went through different iterations over the years, including a time when it was primarily a manufacturing district, a warehouse district, and then a home for artists. At one point, it was thought it could be a place for Manhattanites to summer. It ended up becoming gentrified and turning into the place it is today.
And yes, like many other NYC neighborhoods that are acronyms, you’ll often see it written just as Dumbo, like the Disney elephant.
FiDi
A bit more modern than the preceding names, this abbreviation for the Financial District didn’t come to light until the early 2000s. The neighborhood encompasses quite a large swath of Lower Manhattan: from the West Side Highway all the way over to the FDR along the East River and up to about Warren Street or the Brooklyn Bridge. It nudges up against Battery Park City to the west but Battery Park to the south isn’t included.
FiDi was actually the birthplace of New York in 1624 when it was New Amsterdam. The area got its name because of its many financial institutions, including the New York Stock Exchange and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It is also the home of Wall Street.
You can see a few of these spots in FiDi on our Lower Manhattan Walking Tour next time you visit New York (and make sure you snap that picture with the Charging Bull — it’s a must on any visit to the city!).
Greenwich Village
Another one of the villages in the city is Greenwich Village — often just called the Village. This one gets its name from the Dutch word Groenwijck, which means Green District. It’s on the west side of Lower Manhattan and bound by 14th Street to the north, Houston Street to the south, Broadway to the east, and the Hudson River to the west.
This large and vibrant neighborhood is the home of New York University and has long been an artists’ paradise. It’s also where Washington Square Park can be found, as well as the New School. For decades, it has been a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community.
The Greenwich Village name dates back as early as 1696, though it wasn’t in city records until 1713. For many years after that, the neighborhood was seen as a central part of bohemian culture. You can still find plenty of comedy clubs, theaters, restaurants, and buildings that have been in the Village for decades that hold the city’s rich history.
Local tip: Don’t miss Stonewall Inn when you’re in Greenwich Village. Located 53 Christopher St., this historic landmark is the site of the 1969 riots that started the gay rights movement.
Harlem
Harlem is arguably quite massive, and that’s not even including East Harlem, which is technically a separate neighborhood. Harlem proper starts at the top of Central Park and goes to 155th Street. East and west, it extends from the Hudson River (minus Morningside Heights) to Fifth Avenue, give or take. If you add in East Harlem, you can extend over to the East River and go down to 96th Street.
Harlem was organized in 1658 and named after Haarlem in the Netherlands, much like other neighborhoods in New York. It was originally settled by Jewish and Italian people before a large number of Black people started to arrive in the area during the Great Migration in the early 20th century.
The early 1900s were known as the Harlem Renaissance, a time of artistic and intellection flourishing in the African-American community, but in recent years, the neighborhood has seen a surge in gentrification.
Williamsburg
Williamsburg, formerly known as Williamsburgh, in Brooklyn actually used to be its own city until 1855. The neighborhood is bordered by Greenpoint to the north, Bedford-Stuyvesant to the south, East Williamsburg and Bushwick to the east, and the East River to the west.
Once a very industrial area, Williamsburg grew into a large warehouse district in the 1980s, full of artists and activists. It also has a large Hasidic Jewish community in the area. In the years that followed, Williamsburg saw a boom in apartment and retail buildings, which caused the price of rent to increase for residents and business owners.
Williamsburg remains a high cost-of-living neighborhood in Brooklyn and still has a vibrant arts scene, as well as an active nightlife scene reminiscent of the way it was decades ago. You can see it all firsthand on our NYC Bus Tour of Brooklyn, Bronx, and Queens, which also includes Harlem in Manhattan.
Get to know NYC’s neighborhoods firsthand
NYC is huge, and there are a lot more neighborhoods than the ones we covered here. It can be overwhelming to try to visit everything in New York, but exploring with a local makes it personal. It’s why we started offering our immersive, local-led New York tours way back in 2009.
Want to learn more about NYC neighborhoods? Read about Chelsea in our guide to Chelsea Market, which is one of the stops on our High Line and Chelsea Tour. This waterfront neighborhood is trendy and fun for tourists with lots of great food and art.
While you’re there, swing by the nearby Hudson Yards neighborhood. This posh district is filled with popular attractions like the interactive Vessel and Edge observation deck. I highly recommend a visit!
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