# What's the difference between uptown and downtown? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 24, 2006, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-uptown-and-downtown/353983 "2006-04-24T13:40:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-uptown-and-downtown/353983/21 "2006-04-25T02:05:14Z")
As I understand it, like Philadelphia, Natchez MS also has an uptown and downtown with actual altitudinal meaning: Downtown is below the bluff on the riverbank, and Uptown is above it, on the bluff. I’m not sure if any other river cities have similar topography. ---
**Author:** ![Mathochist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c89c15/32.png) [@Mathochist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mathochist)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-uptown-and-downtown/353983/22 "2006-04-26T03:58:22Z")
“Downtown” was performed by Petula Clark, while “Uptown” was performed by Prince. WHAAAAAAT? ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-uptown-and-downtown/353983/23 "2006-04-26T04:59:44Z")
I live in uptown Dallas. A bit north of the central business district ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-uptown-and-downtown/353983/24 "2006-04-26T05:39:29Z")
In Washington DC, downtown refers to the government/business district centered around the White House. This includes the L street corridor where a lot of lobbyists, NGOs, law firms, and government contractors are located. There are also a lot of businesses in the area that cater to these businesses like restaraunts for lunch and copy shops. On the weekends this area feels kind of like a ghost-town as there aren’t many apartments and there isn’t much of a reason to be there on the weekends. DC doesn’t really have an uptown. Other than downtown, people use the terms Northwest, Southeast (mistakenly believed by people from Northern Virginia to be an incredibly dangerous no-go zone, but actually the site of one of the hottest real estate markets in the country: Capitol Hill); Northeast, and Southwest. ---
**Author:** ![Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellis_Aponte_Jr)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-uptown-and-downtown/353983/25 "2006-04-26T06:50:57Z")
In a reversal of the Billy Joel scheme, there was the 1960s girl group The Crystals, who sang a song called “Uptown” from the perspective of a girl who lived uptown, presumably in Harlem or Spanish Harlem, in a tenement (“where folks don’t have to pay much rent.”) She contrasts herself with her monied boyfriend, who works downtown, presumably in the financial district. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-uptown-and-downtown/353983/26 "2006-04-26T06:58:57Z")
Note, too, that the term “downtown” is, in my experience at least, a rather North American construction. Australians and Brits, for example, don’t really use the term. In Australia, if you’re headed to the main “downtown” part of the city, you will probably just say “I’m going into the city,” and people will understand what you mean. If you need to be more specific, you might even refer to it as the CBD, which stands for Central Business District. Of course, this sort of thing is further complicated in England. London is a sprawling city, which can, for some purposes, encompass just about everything inside the M25. But “The City” is a much more specific piece of property covering, i believe, about a square mile around the financial district. I’ve hardly ever heard Australians or Brits use “downtown” outside of North America. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-uptown-and-downtown/353983/27 "2006-04-26T07:31:51Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > In Australia, if you’re headed to the main “downtown” part of the city, you will probably just say “I’m going into the city,” and people will understand what you mean. I’d suggest the commonest phrase for Brits is “I’m going into town” - even when this means into London. > [@](#): > > But “The City” is a much more specific piece of property covering, i believe, about a square mile around the financial district. Yes, it means the district covered by the City of London, not Greater London. However, its more common usage is as a metaphor for the financial institutions of London, equivalent to ‘Wall Street’. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-uptown-and-downtown/353983/28 "2006-04-26T08:32:31Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > I’d suggest the commonest phrase for Brits is “I’m going into town” - even when this means into London. > > . This reminds me, what about the possibly obsolete phrase “up to Oxford” or “being sent down” meaning expelled from the University?. Is Oxford upriver of London, and if so, is that the origin of these expressions? That’s to say, as if the expellee was most likely a resident of London in the first place, so he’d head down the river back to London? Or were “up” and “down” always synonymous with “away from London” and “towards London”? ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-uptown-and-downtown/353983/29 "2006-04-26T08:42:36Z")
> [@Spectre of Pithecanthropus](#): > > This reminds me, what about the possibly obsolete phrase “up to Oxford” or “being sent down” meaning expelled from the University? I’ve never heard either of those phrases before. The closest I can think of are ‘sent down’ = ‘sent to prison’ (is that one just British?), and being ‘sent to Coventry’, being ostracised. > [@](#): > > Or were “up” and “down” always synonymous with “away from London” and “towards London”? All I can suggest is railway terminology, where the ‘up’ line/train/direction was/is generally in the direction of a major junction or terminus, most commonly London. ---
**Author:** ![Antonius\_Block](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/51bf81/32.png) [@Antonius\_Block](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antonius_Block)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-uptown-and-downtown/353983/30 "2006-04-26T09:41:32Z")
> [@Spectre of Pithecanthropus](#): > > This reminds me, what about the possibly obsolete phrase “up to Oxford” or “being sent down” meaning expelled from the University?. The terms are by no means obsolete: [this page](http://www.oxalumny.org/index.php) (Feb 2006) from the Oxford Alumni Association of New York contains: > [@](#): > > This would give American students going up to Oxford the opportunity to become familiarized with Oxford’s peculiarities, and to make some friends before arriving in Oxford. and [here](http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish-central-grammar-phrasal-verbs-send.htm) is a British Council definition: [QUOTE] send down somebody or send somebody down (British) to make a student leave a university because they have done something wrong [ul] [li]He was sent down after failing his second year exams. [usually passive][/li][li]She was sent down from Oxford for taking drugs. [often + from][/ul][/li][/QUOTE] Note that this meaning is listed _after_ **GorillaMan** ’s more universal British usage of “sent to prison”. > [@Spectre of Pithecanthropus](#): > > Is Oxford upriver of London, and if so, is that the origin of these expressions? That’s to say, as if the expellee was most likely a resident of London in the first place, so he’d head down the river back to London? > > Or were “up” and “down” always synonymous with “away from London” and “towards London”? Oxford is indeed upriver from London: the River Thames is often locally called the **Isis** in the neighborhood of Oxford, although an Oxonian would still refer to stretches _downriver from Oxford_ as the Thames. However, one also goes “up to Cambridge”, despite the lack of a connecting river in that case. I suspect that the origin of “sent down” is that, in the minds of the officials inflicting such punishment on a wayward student, banishment from the University would **invariably** involve a lowering of status. This would also explain the verb [to rusticate](http://www.highbeam.com/ref/doc3.asp?docid=1O999:rusticate), which is to _suspend_ (rather than “send down”, i.e. expel) a student. Despite its implication of being sent to the countryside, one can be “rusticated” from Oxbridge even if one ends up in London or New York, both noticeably larger cities than Oxford or Cambridge. Think of it as “Center-of-the-Universe-itis”, a disease not unknown in those hallowed halls of academe. Oxford and Cambridge aside, one goes “up” to London, as **GorillaMan** noted – certainly from anywhere in Southern England. It would sound wrong to me (a former Londoner) that one would go “up to London” from the North of England or Scotland, but I’d be happy to be corrected on that matter. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-uptown-and-downtown/353983/31 "2006-04-26T12:30:09Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > I’ve never heard either of those phrases before. The closest I can think of are ‘sent down’ = ‘sent to prison’ (is that one just British?), and being ‘sent to Coventry’, being ostracised. Evelyn Waugh used one of these these phrases in _Brideshead Revisited_, which was written after WWII but takes place largely in the 1920s. At one point Charles Ryder says that Sebastian Flyte “has been sent down” (expelled). And I don’t remember for sure, but I think at another point Charles tells his father he wants to leave Oxford and his father protests, “But everyone’s up at least three years!” Or maybe I read that one someplace else. I think P.G. Wodehouse used these expressions too, so it must have been an early 20th century custom. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-uptown-and-downtown/353983/32 "2006-04-26T15:09:56Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > I’d suggest the commonest phrase for Brits is “I’m going into town” - even when this means into London. I forgot about that. “Going into town” is a phrase that Australians use too, even for large cities like Sydney. ---
**Author:** ![Antonius\_Block](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/51bf81/32.png) [@Antonius\_Block](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antonius_Block)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-uptown-and-downtown/353983/33 "2006-04-26T17:12:45Z")
> [@Spectre of Pithecanthropus](#): > > Evelyn Waugh used one of these these phrases in _Brideshead Revisited_, which was written after WWII but takes place largely in the 1920s. At one point Charles Ryder says that Sebastian Flyte “has been sent down” (expelled). And I don’t remember for sure, but I think at another point Charles tells his father he wants to leave Oxford and his father protests, “But everyone’s up at least three years!” Or maybe I read that one someplace else. > > I think P.G. Wodehouse used these expressions too, so it must have been an early 20th century custom. **Spectre** , those phrases predate Waugh and Wodehouse by a long time, and are still in use today. They’re “Oxbridge vocabulary”, although not specifically confined to those two establishments (unlike some even more obscure terms and customs which may be limited to _individual colleges_). [Here](http://www.univ.ox.ac.uk/collegelife/info/academic_life.html) is a page from the official web site of [University College, Oxford](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_College,_Oxford) (founded 1249, and numbering amongst its alumni such diverse talents as Percy Shelley, C. S. Lewis, Stephen Hawking, and Bill Clinton): > [@](#): > > In the event of an undergraduate failing any part of the First Public Examination, a second attempt will normally be allowed, except that, in the case where the undergraduate’s work has given rise to such dissatisfaction that a formal warning to this effect had been given not later than the end of the previous term, the undergraduate **may be sent down**. [Here](http://www.cherwell.org/arts/culture?page=5) is a current page from the [Cherwell](http://www.cherwell.org/news), one of the student newspapers (named after Oxford’s [other river](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Cherwell)): > [@](#): > > This is a building past which every student of the University will walk, at some point, during their time **up at Oxford** , but whose significance few students will have realised. (bolding in the above quotes is mine) ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-uptown-and-downtown/353983/34 "2006-04-26T17:40:44Z")
I used to think that coke came in a bottle or can Silk underwear Wasn’t right on a man Hush puppies and sneakers Now it’s alligator shoes Because downtown came uptown for you David Wilcox ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-uptown-and-downtown/353983/35 "2006-04-26T18:04:17Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Exactly. When I was growing up in the Bronx, if we were going to Manhattan, we would say we were going “downtown,” even if we were going to Uptown. The Bronx doesn’t have a “Downtown” of it’s own; Brooklyn does. In Queens we talked about going to the city when we went to Manhattan. I don’t recall ever going downtown until we were there. Queens had a few downtownish places - Jamaica and Main Street Flushing, but I don’t recall anyone ever calling them downtown. ---
**Author:** ![Crandolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7cd45c/32.png) [@Crandolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crandolph)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-uptown-and-downtown/353983/36 "2006-04-26T19:26:39Z")
Philadelphian checking in; we really don’t use the term uptown for anything. Conceivably that could be North Philly in an analogous way to Harlem but if anyone ever said that it’s now archaic. It’s far more common to hear Center City or “going in town” as a downtown reference. In fact I can usually pick out non-natives easily by their grafting the downtown and uptown on to a city that really doesn’t use it. There is an Uptown String Band in the Mummers who started in 1938. Their logo is a (modernized) skyline of Center City so I assume they started in South Philly; the History portion of their website isn’t helpful on this count. And now their office is located in the far suburbs… ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-uptown-and-downtown/353983/37 "2006-04-26T19:26:55Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > In Queens we talked about going to the city when we went to Manhattan. Same here, when I lived in the Bronx. “I’m going into the City” was heading south to anywhere in Manhattan, even Harlem. In my hometown of Kingston, NY, Uptown was the business district and Downtown (where I live) was down by the creek away from the historic (first capital of NYS and all) and business area. Broadway ran pretty much the length of the town. ---
**Author:** ![LateComer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b5ac83/32.png) [@LateComer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LateComer)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-uptown-and-downtown/353983/38 "2006-04-26T19:38:28Z")
In Pittsburgh the area of the city center which is close to the point (the confluence) is called downtown while moving east from there you’re said to be going uptown. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-uptown-and-downtown/353983/39 "2006-05-02T13:22:34Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > DC doesn’t really have an uptown. Other than downtown, people use the terms Northwest, Southeast (mistakenly believed by people from Northern Virginia to be an incredibly dangerous no-go zone, but actually the site of one of the hottest real estate markets in the country: Capitol Hill); Northeast, and Southwest. Actually, since the advent of the Metrorail system in the mid-1970s, the idea of city district-type names has become revived in Washington. Although they don’t match up with postal designations, administrative designations (such as neighbourhood councils) or traditional neighbourhoods, most peopel refer to areas named after the Metrorail station nearby. I see this as a good thing and a bad thing. I think it’s good, because it’s much more convenient to refer to parts of a city by well-known neighbourhood or district descriptors, rather than major street names or compass directions. On the other hand, what has happened in many areas is that the Metro station name has swallowed up neighbourhoods that are not actually part of that district traditionally. For example, Washington’s West End, just across Rock Creek Park from Georgetown, is now considered part of Foggy Bottom. And the Buckingham neighbourhood of Arlington, near the interchange of Arlington Boulevard (U.S. 50) and Glebe Road (Virginia 120) is becoming part of Ballston. These days most people won’t understand what you’re talking about if you say “West End” or “Buckingham.” One thing that is happening now is that special interests are lobbying to have their designations added to station names. I think this is a very bad idea. What should just be the Woodley Park station is officially the “Woodley Park-National Zoo/Adams-Morgan” station and what should just be the Vienna station is officially the “Vienna-Fairfax/George Mason University” station (there’s a convoluted logic to the use of hyphens and slashes, but it seems entirely pointless to me). And the most petty, pointless, and harmful name change was the renaming of the “National Airport” station to “Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport Station,” which required an expenditure of millions by the financially strapped transportation authority to appease the St. Ronald cult at the Capitol. I do think though that Washington’s system is much better than in New York and Chicago, for example, where the train stations are named after streets rather than districts. ---
**Author:** ![Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bambi_Hassenpfeffer)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-uptown-and-downtown/353983/40 "2006-05-02T16:15:05Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > I should have added that uptown and downtown also have another connotation. “Uptown” can mean more affluent or cultured or sophisticated; “Downtown” can mean the opposite. These meanings no longer reflect anything resembling reality. See also _Little Shop of Horrors_: > [@](#): > > Alarm goes off at seven > And you start uptown. > You put in your eight hours > For the powers that have always been. > Till it’s five P.M. > > Then you go > > Downtown > Where the folks are broke. > Downtown > Where your life’s a joke. > Downtown > When you buy your token, > you go > Home to skid row. Of course, the part of town they’re referring to as downtown hasn’t moved, but it’s quickly becoming expensive. Except the Bowery, which I’m not sure will ever actually gentrify. > [@acsenray](#): > > I do think though that Washington’s system is much better than in New York and Chicago, for example, where the train stations are named after streets rather than districts. I prefer the MTA’s solution. I can name more than one train station in many largish “districts” in Manhattan (Examples? In Chinatown: the B & D at Grand & Chrystie Sts, the N, Q, R, & W at Broadway & Canal St, the 6 at Lafayette & Canal Sts, and the J, M, & Z at Centre & Canal Sts; City Hall & the courthouses: the 6 on Park Row at the Brooklyn Bridge, the J, M, & Z at Park Row and Reade St, and the R & W at Broadway & Murray St; in the Financial District: the R & W at Cortlandt St & Trinity Pl, the E at the WTC and Park Pl, the 4 & 5 at Fulton St and Broadway, the A & C and J, M, & Z at Fulton and Nassau Sts, the 2 & 3 at William and Fulton Sts, the 2 & 3 at Wall and William Sts, the J, M, & Z at Broad St and Exchange Pl, the 4 & 5 at Wall St and Broadway, the 1 at Rector and Greenwich Sts, the 4 & 5 at Bowling Green & State St, the R & W at Whitehall & State Sts, and the 1 at the South Ferry). With the density of train stations in most of New York (especially midtown and lower Manhattan and much of Brooklyn), naming them after neighborhoods or districts might not work as well as it does in DC, where there is one Metro station per larger area. Besides, many of these stations have had the same names for decades – some for over 100 years – so it would unnecessarily confuse commuters at first. And the MTA would never want to confuse or inconvenience its commuters, would it? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-uptown-and-downtown/353983.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-uptown-and-downtown/353983.md?page=3)