Realtors are now declaring that the blocks within NE 14th Street and NW 20th Street, and NW First Avenue and NE Second Avenue -- a square officially in the northeast jurisdiction of Overtown -- shall be called "SoWyn." For "South of Wynwood." Which means that what was once known as the wider downtown area of Miami now consists of the Media and Entertainment District, midtown, the Design District, NoBri (no, really), and on and on until you can buy crack or get your face chewed off in any neighborhood that sounds like it might be home to a film festival run by Robert DeNiro.
"It was a marketing strategy, basically," allows Steve Mayer of John Wilfred Realty LLC, which trademarked SoWyn™. "We were getting negative reactions from people. They were like, 'Ugh, that neighborhood.'"
Before we move on, in case you didn't click on SoWyn's website link, could you do that now, please? What exactly is that portrait of Overtown there, with the cracked buildings and bombed-out windows and the Desert Storm scope lighting and the musical notes that you can bet aren't supposed to represent the gentle chords of Yo-Yo Ma's cello music? Mayer says the caricature is supposed to represent "a vibrant, sort of emerging neighborhood."
So, what can we name other blighted neighborhoods? What's that? They already renamed the Take One Lounge area the Upper Eastside? Well, there goes one joke. How about:
Opa-Locka NeTheRLANDS (Near The Really Little Airport Nobody Dares to uSe)
Florida City NoKeys
Cuba SoKeys
The erstwhile sex offender's colony under the Julia Tuttle Causeway DUMBO (Down Under Miami Beach's Overpass)
Whew, we can understand why realtors trademark these things -- this is a tough day's work. Won't you help us out in the comments section?
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