Earlier this week, the blog DumboNYC ran a very interesting post about the origins of the neighborhood name Dumbo. As opposed to the being the concoction of real estate developers and politicians, the name came out of a drunken brainstorming session among several artists in the area in the late 1970s. One of those artists, Crane Davis, described how it all went down:

In 1978, as the inevitability of development became apparent, the community decided that, if we were to die, at least we should be buried under a name of our choosing. A naming committee consisting of Selby Beebe, Crane Davis, Monte Davis and John Donovan was appointed. After much sitting around and drinking beer, to a point where none of us could remember who had suggested what, we came up with two alternatives:

DUMBO: Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass

DANYA: District Around the Navy Yard Annex

The choice was presented to the community at a huge loft party and the results weren’t even close. It was DUMBO by a landslide. Everyone agreed that it had just the right kind of Dadaist anti-marketing positioning to protect our turf from developers: who, after all, would spend a million dollars for a loft in a place called DUMBO?

Who, indeed.

Hah.
How Dumbo Got Its Name [Dumbo NYC]
Photo by Hoot Owl