Just Say “DivCo” ?
by Andrew Dalton on February 8, 2010
No. Wrong. Ugh. I don’t even know what to say about this post on Modern Luxury Magazine (whatever that is). Ignoring, for a moment, the fact that we’ve all known we can get $2 beers on Divis for years now – you can’t just go making up names for (parts of) a neighborhood that already has too many names, which is what homeslice over there is trying to do with “DivCo” a contraction of “Divisadero Corridor”. It’s sounds like something Carles would make up.
Remind me again what’s wrong with just “Divis”?
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Miguel23, Derek Bradley and AggressivePanhandler, AggressivePanhandler. AggressivePanhandler said: If you start calling Divisadero “DivCo” then I'm afraid we can't be friends anymore: http://bit.ly/dn1vbx [...]
No. Wrong. Ugh. I don’t even know what to say about your smug post regarding the story in San Francisco Magazine, which I noticed is owned by a company called Modern Luxury, not called Modern Luxury Magazine (start with Google, maybe?). You would have also learned by way of Google that the author didn’t make up “Divisadero Corridor,” he merely shortened it, which is perhaps also meant to be facetious? And, as a recent inhabitant of this hood, “Divis” could be in the Marina, it could be Duboce Triangle, Pac Heights. I had no idea there were so many concentrated $2 beer offerings between Haight and McAllister, hence the corridor. Lastly, you made the cliche of insisting that your terminology is right and somebody else’s is wrong. Herb Caen beat you to it, like uh, 57 years ago. See that? I Googled his book, “Don’t Call it Frisco”, so that I wouldn’t sound stupid when referencing it. I hope this blog gets better, I thought it had potential.
I appreciate your thoughtful response, although I never did say the writer came up with the term “Divisadero Corridor” – I’ve heard more than one person call it that in the past. But as an inhabitant of the neighborhood, these contractions admittedly cause me to get all stabby because people have a hard enough time knowing what neighborhood I’m talking about as it is. So, I was implying that Mr. Bloom was trying to make “DivCo” a thing, as the kids say. Was he being facetious himself? That’s entirely possible and a valid assumption, but just because it’s a joke doesn’t mean I have to laugh at it. (Some jokes are kind of lame, is what I’m saying.) In a neighborhood that doesn’t know (or can’t agree on) whether to call itself NoPa or Park North or Western Addition or Alamo Square or Lower Haight or The Wiggle Heights, I’m really advocating to clear out the clutter and get some consistent naming going.
And, you’re right, Divisadero is a long street, so just saying that these places are “on Divisadero” might get some Marina residents’ hopes up for affordable beer options (have you ever tried to drink in that neighborhood? It’s expensive!), but adding another nickname to the mix doesn’t really help our friends mentally locate our favorite watering holes either, does it? (Probably irrelevant, since we’re all just googling everything anyway.)
Finally, your Herb Caen non-reference provides context, but doesn’t really invalidate my argument for a consistent name. If we’re talking about who wrote what first, well our friend Ramona wrote this list two months ago. I hope this blog gets better too. It hasn’t really been that funny lately.
My favorite part is that bitchin’ DivCo beer can graphic where you can’t read any of the annotations about the places that have the cheap beers. (Helpful!) And the part where Christopher is being a baby. I’ll call whatever part of Divis, “Divis” that I want to, Christopher. I mean, who gives a fuck about the Marina, Duboce Triangle or Pac Heights? Not me, that’s who.
[...] Just Say “DivCo” ? [...]
Thanks for reading my piece in San Francisco magazine. I didn’t realize neighborhood naming conventions were such serious business!