Via gap.com

As City Desk spotted earlier this afternoon, the phenomenon of assigning arbitrary neighborhood names to small corners of clearly established neighborhoods is continuing unfettered, currently in the comments section of Prince of Petworth.

Under a post containing a letter from some Prince of Petworth reader complaining about a “flim-flam man,” said reader was asked to identify his neighborhood. His response:

Our house is in the GaP . . . near the Ga Ave.-Petworth (GaP) metro, the neighborhood nestled in the gap between Columbia Heights, Petworth, Crestwood, and 16th St. Heights . . .

Um, what? First off, let’s overlook the flagrant misuse and improper spacing of the elipses, and instead focus on what appears to be D.C.’s newest fake neighborhood. Seriously, nicknaming one’s supposedly nebulous nabe “the GaP” is exactly the slippery slope created by the Adams Morgan Main Street organization when it decided unilaterally to rename the intersection of 18th and U streets NW “SoMo,” as in South Adams Morgan, aka “We’re So Desperate for Attention We’ll Just Make Shit Up.”

As for the indefinable GaP, it’s pretty obvious that if you live near the Georgia Avenue-Petworth station, you’re probably in Petworth (north of Rock Creek Church Road) or Park View (south of Rock Creek Church Road); if you’re further north and cozied against Rock Creek Park, that’s Crestwood; and if you’re sitting on Sherman Avenue, well, then, that’s the eastern side of Columbia Heights.

But not even the denizens of PoPville are buying into the GaP, with one remarking, “free chinos for everyone!!!”

And hey, don’t take it from the Prince of Petworth commenters. Even at higher, respectable levels, this game of crafting catchy names for every last corner of D.C.’s street grid is a turnoff. “Neighborhood names are the third rail for us,” Harriet Tregoning, the city’s planning director, said at a D.C. Council hearing today. “I try to stay out of the neighborhood-naming business.”

Greetings from HowHip.