Kingston’s Neighbourhood Nicknames

Neighbourhoods earn their nicknames for a variety of reasons including the types of residents who live there, commonalities and abbreviations of a cluster of street names, crimes and tragic events, as well as creative re-branding by real estate agents attempting to lure home buyers. The latter is rampant in larger centres such as the Big Apple, where there have been calls to outlaw re-branding of neighbourhoods by savvy brokers who reportedly jack up the price by affixing catchy slang names such as SoBro (Southern Bronx), NoLita (Northern Little Italy), ProCro (Prospect Heights and Crown Heights) and DoWiSeTrePla (Down Wind of the Sewage Treatment Plant) to gentrified pockets of development. The Limestone City’s neighbourhoods have earned their nicknames based on many influencing factors, while I would prefer to believe that history is predominant. History, as we know, is not always kind, which explains why City Park is/was known as Pervert Park.  In an effort to suss out local micro-neighbourhood pseudonyms, this week’s question asks:

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When the idea to craft a poll and post around neighbourhood nicknames came to me, I didn’t think it would be overly difficult to come up with a list that was truly representative of the entire city.  Unfortunately it was really challenging, which is either indicative of our collective lack if creativity, or not enough people feeding me information on Twitter. Needless to say, neighbourhood nicknames tend to have humble beginnings, forged by two neighbours out of necessity or mere frivolity (ie Derbyville for the hood that is occupied by many of our Derby Girls, and Gidbridge combining Gibson and Oakridge Avenues).  Even in the case of Pervert and Skeleton Parks, I tend to think that the areas are a bit more charming as a result of their sustained identities and long standing labels.

Obviously we missed a great deal of local hood nicknames, so please drop us a few of your faves as well as why the name came to be. Of course, if you need any explanations for the nicknames referred to in this week’s poll, please ask!