Outside the Mars Bar from 2009
That's the question posed in a New York Times piece examining a small but increasingly noticeable shift in how New Yorkers talk about neighborhood names.
The article centers on the growing tendency — especially among younger New Yorkers and newcomers — to drop the definite article, saying "East Village" instead of "the East Village" (and "West Village" instead of "the West Village").
The trend has sparked spirited debate online, with longtime residents arguing that omitting "the" just sounds wrong.
The story cites New York City walking tour guide Nicky Shapiro, whose TikTok video urging people to "hold onto their articles" drew hundreds of comments.
Some readers blamed social media and abbreviated speech, while others said dropping "the" is simply more efficient.
The Times also notes that neighborhood signs and maps typically omit articles for space, which may contribute to the confusion, and points to other naming debates, from "the Bronx" versus "Bronx" to the use of "L.E.S." for the Lower East Side.
As for us? We'll be over here in the East Village.
Long live the East Village....
ReplyDelete"The East Village is, face it New Yorkers, the Lower East Side." — Sheila Levine is Dead and Living in New York (1973, Gail Parent, Bantam Paperback)
ReplyDeleteBorn and raised Staten Island, NY 53 y.o. ago but my heart ❤️ is always in THE East Village. Leave THE word IN for F***KS sake 😘
ReplyDeleteI am a frequent reader and sometime contributor to The EV Grieve.
ReplyDeleteIf you fail to use "the" you should automatically get a 20% rent hike because your transplant butt can handle it
ReplyDeleteWill truth is kids have been saying East and West village for YEARS now.
ReplyDeleteArrivistes, transplants, real estate folk, bridge-and-tunnel crowd, Tik Tokers, 2-3 year transients and tourists- you don't belong here if you don't say THE East Village..
ReplyDeleteWe refer to one borough as The Bronx, but if you mail a letter we generally write Bronx, NY on the envelope.
ReplyDeleteIt’s nice to see that some of us are finding the time for this ridiculous conversation
I've lived at 9 St. & 2nd Ave. for 50+ years. I live in the Lower East Side. After years of being considered a backwater, forgotten, and dangerous neighborhood, Real Estate interests "discovered" us & came up with East Village hoping to create a little cachet to garner the historic glamour and $$$ of Greenwich Village.
ReplyDeleteAgreed; it’s totally a real-estate term.
DeleteNevertheless, since the term had stuck since the 80s, and since it makes a total geographic sense, The East Village it is.
DeleteAnd no real New Yorker would ever drop the The. One more reason to not allow people who live here less than a decade to vote for mayor and city council.
If there’s a N-S-E-W compass reference, has to have a The.
ReplyDeleteIt's "Greenwich Village" -> "the Village" for short and then "the East Village" when it became desirable to rebrand a section of the LES - so while I reject "East Village" I think I'd accept "East Greenwich Village" with no article if someone wanted to do that.
ReplyDeleteThe Bronx, and then we have Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Manhattan.
ReplyDeleteBack in the 1980’s there was a band called The The. So if you dropped The from their name…
ReplyDeleteThe Times piece was not about "East Village" vs "Lower East Side," it was about an imagined trend that people are not using the article "the" before "East Village" or "West Village." I for one, think saying "we're going to West Village" vs "the West Village" sounds wrong, naked and frankly, I've never heard anyone not put the "the" before "East Village" or "West Village" is this usage. If you're answering where do you live, "East Village" sounds fine. If it is the subject of a verb, then "The East Village." IMO.
ReplyDeleteI would expect a map to say “East Village” but a human to say “I live in the East Village”- as they say in the article this is arbitrary no one says I live in the harlem or the manhattan, things are just said a certain way. To me the “speech virus” probably just comes from visitors using the map.
ReplyDeleteI’m still calling it Alphabet City.
ReplyDeleteOf course it's "The East Village," just like it's not "The Soho" or "The Tribeca." And if the kids can't handle that, they can move back Suburbs.
ReplyDeleteThe East Village. The Lower East Side. The Bronx. The End.
ReplyDeleteBut here’s my question to you, EV Grievers-is it Key Food or The Key Food? For 55 years I’ve been saying “I’m going to the Key Food”. It just seems right to honor Key Food with a The.
Never heard anyone say it without THE. That would be someone who doesn't know the city who would do that.
ReplyDeleteTHE. THE THE THE!! Use proper English you lazy people. Efficient it is not.
ReplyDeleteThe people say THE! So be it
ReplyDelete