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Oh, for Christ's sake, can't New York hipsters just leave us the frick alone?

By adamg on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 11:15am

Some Web site that caters to men below a certain age and above a certain income level is busy attempting to redefine the Financial District as FiDi.

Another hip new Web site with a hip new name posts the world's most boring photo of what it calls the FiDi (if you're having trouble getting to sleep tonight, here's another one of their photos of the FiDi).

Arrgh, it's everywhere. Make it stop!

And another thing: How the hell do you even pronounce it? Fie-Die? Fihdee? Actually, I could almost get behind Fihdee, but only if whoever came up with this thing is forced to put on a robot suit and walk around the entire area going fidi fidi fidi over and over and over again until he goes mad. That would be worth it.

Thanks to Femmefatal for reminding me to pick up some brain bleach.

Neighborhoods: 
Downtown
Free tagging: 
Financial District


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Comments

By kokernutz on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 11:20am.

Just as bad as the Innovation District.

By anon on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 11:48am.

Just as bad as the so-called "Ladder District". Glad that one never really caught on.

By dga on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 11:48am.

As in "Fiddy Cent."

Fidi before I wake, I prey on stocks and bonds to take?

By BostonUrbEx on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 12:14pm.

I've called it Fie-Dye in my head for quite a while, just kinda popped up there on it's own. Before I even heard of SoBro or any of those things.

By Brian Riccio on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 12:25pm.

they may change it from "FiDi" to "shithole" real soon. Don't these assholes have anything better to do?

By SwirlyGrrl on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 12:35pm.

No grocery store, sidewalks rolled up promptly at 7pm, no real streetlife ... why would anyone want to live there?

By anon on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 12:54pm.

Um... b/c some people like to live where they work? There are plenty of people who don't bother cooking or going to the grocery store. I've known many single men who work in the financial industry who live on take-out and live downtown.

By Ron Newman on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 5:03pm.

is hard when most of the take-out places are open mainly for lunch and close by 5 pm. I guess you could go to Chinatown or to the Faneuil Hall food court.

By HennyPenny on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 5:38pm.

That's generous. Try getting a sandwich there after 2.

By anon on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 7:05pm.

If you worked in finance, wouldn't you need to go drinking every day after work, to dull your conscience?

By Ron Newman on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 1:38pm.

when I recently biked through it around 2 am on a Saturday night (bar closing time). This was around State and Broad streets.

By SwirlyGrrl on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 6:18pm.

That's all there is to it.

Offices and watering holes.

There are much more habitable places nearby if you want to live near work.

By anon on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 12:31pm.

Although it's a moot point now, since Filene's is gone, the question of how to pronounce FiDi reminds me of the old Filene's pronunciation question. The store was clearly called "Fie-leen's", but older Boston women of a certain age invariably pronounced it "Fuh-leen's". Invariably! It was seldom older men that did this, just women. I never quite figured out why. It was just one of those things.

By Brian Riccio on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 1:10pm.

Both of my grandmothers pronounced it "Fuh-leen's" They also said "fo-ah" as the number after 3, and my Irish grandmother would never call it "Brigham and Women's", always "THE Peter Bent Brigham",lovey.

By anon on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 2:09pm.

Old joke...ambulance driver said to me, "Peter Bent?" I said, "No, broken leg."

Ta dum.

By adamg on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 2:43pm.

Did she threaten to bend you like Peter Bent Brigham?

By Brian Riccio on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 12:01pm.

to the nuns. My mom was real old school. If I came home with a bruise or two on me, as soon as I said the nuns did it, I would always get asked; "Now what'd you do to deserve that?"!

By anon on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 5:25pm.

My family always called Woolworth's "The Five and Ten", and I noticed a lot of other local people also did. I guess that stems from it once having been a five and ten cent store, when such things existed.

By fenwayguy on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 1:37pm.

Those first three links were posted in August and September of last year, so apparently the "trend" has been a well-deserved market failure.

By anon on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 2:19pm.

They should make it mandatory when these people graduate from BU and BC that they take their degrees and move out of state.

By anon on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 4:50pm.

Or is it people just trying to create a market desire and capitalize on it?

By BlackKat on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 2:19pm.

I think the inherent problem here is their unwillingness to use full words. Look at the site, it's called the Nabe. Because Neighborhood apparently has too many syllables.
This is similar to those asshats that use the word Bro.

By Ron Newman on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 2:41pm.

You mean like 'Mass Ave', 'Comm Ave', and 'Mem Drive' ? See also 'JP', 'Rozzie', 'Eastie', and 'Southie'.

I haven't yet heard Brookline abbreviated to 'Bro' but maybe I'm just not paying enough attention to current trends.

By J on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 3:33pm.

Never heard "mem drive". Usually just "memorial".

By anon on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 4:52pm.

at MIT, which is on that street.

When a visitor is asking for directions, I have to be careful to say "memorial".

By anon on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 5:08pm.

Ron, I'm glad you haven't heard Brookline shortened in this way. However, both Sobro and Nobro have been in widespread use by NATIVES of this town for several years. These terms were created for and by kids from Brookline High School for the purpose of repping their respective hoods. Sobro kids are notorious for indulging in activities such as drunk driving, and rep Sobro as though members of a gang defending its turf. Nobro arose as a semi-ironic response to this idiocy.

Repeat. These are *not* the inventions of unimaginative real estate agents, and they are *not* further evidence of a yuppie invasion (as Brookline has long been full of yuppies)

By adamg on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 6:44pm.

I bet they duke it out at night with the Westie guys out behind the Star Market (the one in West Roxbury, of course; less likely to run into their parents than at the Chestnut Hill one).

By UserGoogol on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 4:07pm.

The forefather of all these silly names is SoHo, which was pretty much the classic example of artists moving into a deindustrialized neighborhood and then gentrification followed them. It wasn't "frat boys" too dumb to pronounce whole words, it was artists trying to put a cute spin on their little area south of Houston street.

Of course, like the gentrification of SoHo, the goal has shifted from artists being artsy to marketers trying to sound hip, (obviously, FiDi is not a particularly artsy neighborhood, although there's the occasional loft here or there) but there's nothing fratty about it.

By NotWhitey on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 5:56pm.

Actually, nabe seems more a reflection of 'hood' for neighborhood. And white guys who use 'the hood' always sound like asshats, so this is a safe-for-caucasian construction.

By Radical in the Back Bay on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 8:16pm.

No hipster from NYC thought that one up. Clearly the work of a native of some smaller city who thinks they're hip and this really is the HUB of the Universe. I swear some people in this town gaze upon the Bunker Hill Monument like it's the friggin' Eiffel Tower.

By anon on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 10:01pm.

small town.

By Neal on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 9:36pm.

FiDi? Are you FuKi-ing me?!

By plt3012 on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 9:51am.

I may be wrong,(or inaccurate) but doesn't 'fi di' mean hurry or something like that in (Cantonese) Chinese? Really, why does everything need a new catchy name. Leave things be.

By cybah on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 6:36pm.

Maybe Fidi needs to be Fini ? (as in 'finished')

(okay I had to say that)