Comments on: Riding the Subway with John Turturro

By: Dervala

Dervala — Wed, 04 Aug 2004 11:50:42 +0000

You’re right! You know, I wondered about that one. I had it in my mind that he was Steve Buscemi’s sidekick in Fargo, but now I see he’s much too tall.

I write all my blog entries offline, with no Google oracle to jog my failing memory. It shows.

By: Eli

Eli — Wed, 04 Aug 2004 02:00:14 +0000

Fargo? JT wasn’t in Fargo, that was Steve Buscemi. I will focus on this, your error, in order to drive the fannish envy of you and your guayabera-pressing from my mind.

By: Dervala

Dervala — Mon, 02 Aug 2004 16:55:08 +0000

You, of course, are from NoLif, Justin.

;-)

By: Justin

Justin — Mon, 02 Aug 2004 16:11:55 +0000

So that’s the deal with all those BlaBlaBla concoctions! Hilarious. hmm — now that I know the details, I think I’ll deliberately misuse that in inappropriate parts of the world…

By: Dervala

Dervala — Mon, 02 Aug 2004 14:30:09 +0000

I, you’re right. I stand corrected. This is NoHo.

I’m almost wilful in my ignorance of fake Manhattan neighborhoods.

By: I.

I. — Mon, 02 Aug 2004 14:13:03 +0000

We Will Not Be BoCoCa! I refuse it.

I must confess, however, that after a lot of initial sneering, I seem to have let “NoLiTa” into my vocabulary. I think my use of it is still slightly sarcastic, though. I hope. I only say “NoLiTa” when I mean “Where the how-do-they-pay-their-rent boutiques are.”

IANAR (I am not a realtor), but my understanding is that above Houston, from Broadway to Bowery, is “NoHo,” hence the NoHo Star restaurant at Bleecker and Lafayette. My parents, at Lafayette and Bond, say they live in NoHo or the East Village. The region stretches up to Astor, I’d guess. NoLiTa, on the other hand, I think of as what used to just be considered eastern SoHo—from Kenmare to Houston, Lafayette to Bowery.

By: Dervala

Dervala — Mon, 02 Aug 2004 10:55:29 +0000

NoLiTa is real estate speak for North of Little Italy. We’re one block north of Houston Street, and below that is South of Houston, or SoHo. So we’re surrounded by downtown babes on Broadway.

New York real estate loves these concoctions. Tribeca is Triangle Below Canal Street. The latest one I’m aware of is in my old Brooklyn neighborhood, which was once called South Brooklyn, and later gentrified into Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, and Carroll Gardens. Now it’s transmogrifying further into BoCoCa.

I kind of like the idea that Brooklyn natives will continue to live happily in Gowanus or Carroll Gardens, but their white yuppie tenants will live in the superimposed, parallel universe of BoCoCa. That pretty much sums up what’s going on there.

By: David

David — Mon, 02 Aug 2004 10:40:38 +0000

Small world. :)

By the way, where in New York is glamorous NoLiTa? (Not that my knowledge of New York geography is terribly deep anyway. I’ve been there once, nine years ago.)

By: Dervala

Dervala — Mon, 02 Aug 2004 10:25:56 +0000

Oddly enough, the guy you link to used to work for my husband. Briefly. And I can’t say I recognize the star-struck Brooklynites of his post. After a full month of riding the subway with Turturro, I never once saw “excited whispers” passing up and down the car. Which is not to say they didn’t know who he was—but this is Brooklyn, and he ain’t all that. Besides, we have to get to work. :-)

By: David

David — Mon, 02 Aug 2004 10:18:18 +0000

You’re not the only web.person to be watching John Turturro on the subway. Behold something that I read a few years ago, have remembered and have now been able to find:

Observing Brooklynites Observing John Turturro
http://www.shunn.net/bill/memos/980320.html