please empty your brain below
Hammersmith Apollo? I can't be alone in still thinking of it as the Hammersmith Odeon. But, yes, quite right.

dominic h | 03.10.14 - 7:21 a.m. | #

Blimey, and it wasn't even a full moon yesterday. It's only fair to say that the people (generally not "dull suckers") who write press releases have to abide by corporate rules of all kinds, whether they like them or not, if they want to have a job.

Waterhouse | 03.10.14 - 7:37 a.m. | #

Ah yes, the BT Tower.

No, the Telecom Tower.

"And people say the Post Office Tower - Post Office Tower? Pah! It is the Post Office Prick! Plunging in the sky in the hope that some little baby towers will fall out!" - The Not The Nine O'Clock News

Briantist | Homepage | 03.10.14 - 7:38 a.m. | #

Probably the most grating thing to come out of the Midtwon branding exercise for me was their twitter mascot - implausibly a bee, meant to emphasise some sort of 'buzz' hype nonsense, with sporadic updates full of 'buzz buzz' noises and references to flying over their branded area BECAUSE THEY ARE A BEE but containing little to no actual information. Have tried to find it on twitter just now but it appears to have vanished without trace - doubt that is a coincidence.

Nico | 03.10.14 - 7:45 a.m. | #

Ah I still fondly recall those few months when some property company I neither recall the name of nor have any inclination to research, was trying to make Noho happen. Must be something about New York. I trust Midtown will go the same way.

Ewan | Homepage | 03.10.14 - 7:55 a.m. | #

I noted with interest when I came across the "Midtown" name last year that it that it has been around since 2010.

BBC News - Historic London districts 'rebranded' Midtown 17 September 2010.

Briantist | Homepage | 03.10.14 - 8:27 a.m. | #

anyone remember north londonshire? (ie corby)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/northamptonshire/8548647.stm

bill | 03.10.14 - 8:40 a.m. | #

Hear hear.

Sarah | Homepage | 03.10.14 - 8:44 a.m. | #

Good luck to anyone who thinks they might be able to persuade the public to start calling Trafalgar Square the Northbank.

Charles | 03.10.14 - 9:06 a.m. | #

In the middle of the third paragraph. When I realized.

Greg | 03.10.14 - 9:13 a.m. | #

The only Midtown I know is in NYC.

Michael | 03.10.14 - 9:20 a.m. | #

I used to stand at the North Bank end at Highbury.
People still stand at the North Bank end at the new stadium despite there being lots of seats. Try sitting down to watch a match and you won't see a thing.
I still call the place Highbury.
Did you know there is another team that plays in red and white at Highbury Stadium? Fleetwood Town in Division Two.

Bernie | 03.10.14 - 9:23 a.m. | #

Amen to this. Don't forget Fitzrovia, too! Boos, too, to Harlequins RFC for bastardizing the Stoop Memorial Ground (named after a former player and club President) into the "Twickenham Stoop" hoping for what? by adding the name of the national stadium as a prefix.

David | 03.10.14 - 10:05 a.m. | #

As a Coventry ex-pat, are you aware that the stadium is doing considerably better financially than the football club? There's been all kinds of badness about that.

The Eventim Apollo is known to me as the Hammersmith big place, so as to distinguish it from, for instance, the Riverside Studios. Ditto with Kentish Town.

The Dome is still the Dome, but mostly because there are too many O2 sponsored venues for that to be a useful name.

Weaselspoon | 03.10.14 - 10:21 a.m. | #

I couldn't agree more. We have some beautiful roundabouts (yes) in Harrow, proper oases, where small notices have appeared saying "Sponsor this roundabout". The way things are going money might as well sprout legs and takeover, because the world is meant for money, not for us.

Feargal | Homepage | 03.10.14 - 10:26 a.m. | #

These peoplemust feel stupid. I hope they got the money up front.http://www.phones4uarena.co.uk/

mclm | 03.10.14 - 10:52 a.m. | #

Perhaps they need to call the area HolBloomWell? Oh look, I am being chased by an angry DG! ;-)

The long standing names for those parts of central London are perfectly decent and attractive.

PC | 03.10.14 - 11:00 a.m. | #

In fairness to Arsenal, the stadium never had a real name. And nobody called their old ground- Arsenal Stadium- by its proper name either. Same with West Ham's stadium; who actually calls it the Boleyn Ground?

My football team, Bradford City, always has sponsors for the ground and they're always delightfully low-rent- a provincial radio station here, a discount uPVC seller there. Needless to say nobody ever uses the sponsors names, and that's great.

Whisper it quietly, but Barclaycard Arena is probably more meaningful than "National Indoor Arena"...

Arctic Troll | 03.10.14 - 11:21 a.m. | #

Actually I think certain groups have been using "Midtown" for a bit longer than 2010. A quick Google returns a reference from 2008 and I'm sure I heard it before then.

Still seems to be used only by estate agents and developers. And they only ever talk bollocks anyway.

HoosierSands | Homepage | 03.10.14 - 11:28 a.m. | #

Regarding Briantist's "2010" comment, the name has existed and been in used for at least a few years longer than that.

Certainly when I worked in the commercial property industry back in about 2003, it was the standard name for the area within the industry.

So it does at least have some kind of provenance. DG doesn't have to like it of course, but we should at least try to blame the correct people.

Simon | 03.10.14 - 11:29 a.m. | #

Sounds like someone has employed an American to rebrand parts of London.

We had a school locally called Charles Dickens Primary School - cos it was in the Dickens ward. On it being changed to an Academy it is now Ark Dickens Academy - much to the disgust of many in the area. What was wrong with Charles Dickens Ark Academy?

w00t for Sponsorship!

Bronchitikat | Homepage | 03.10.14 - 11:30 a.m. | #

Ah, beaten to it.

Simon | 03.10.14 - 11:31 a.m. | #

We've completely forgotten the Millennium Dome because...

...because it was empty and unused for many many years.

Greg | 03.10.14 - 11:39 a.m. | #

I'm sure you think you're being big and clever and wonderfully ironic spelling it wrong, but it does your blog a dis-service to do so.

A shame really.

Jordan D | 03.10.14 - 11:44 a.m. | #

Jordan, I suspect DG has a very valid reason for mis-spelling it ... otherwise it would show up on a Google search and reinforce a name he very much wants to disappear

Caroline | 03.10.14 - 12:15 p.m. | #

I'd sell the naming rights to my house if someone wanted to pay me. Actually, I'd sell my name for some real cash.

Chris | 03.10.14 - 12:24 p.m. | #

As Simon says, the real estate industry have called the area between the City and the West End "Midtown" for some time.

I have found a reference in this 2001 book to "Holborn and the newly defined 'Midtown'" - http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZzlUAAAAMAAJ&q=holborn+midtown+london

Some early references to Midtown (meaning Holborn, not Manhattan) also mention "Bee Bee Developments" now known as Midtown Capital. Hmm.

I expect term "Midtown" was coined in the late 1990s or early 2000s, by analogy with New York, but here is one (lowercase "m") from 1968! http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hR8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA108&dq=%22midtown+london%22

Andrew | 03.10.14 - 12:44 p.m. | #

On "naming rights", it tends to work well with things that don't already have a well-established name (the Emirates, the O2) but less well with things with a well-known name (Hammersmith Apollo, Wembley Arena, St James' Park, London Eye).

That said, most people seem to call the City of Manchester Stadium the "Etihad"...

Andrew | 03.10.14 - 12:48 p.m. | #

As a pedantic Coventry City fan I'd like to point out that there's no prospect of us using Ricoh's naming rights money on additional players as the club doesn't own the stadium. The city of Coventry stadium does have a nice, if somewhat unimaginative, ring to it though.

Another Simon | 03.10.14 - 1:04 p.m. | #

It is a distressing trend and we should all try to subvert these re-brandings and the loss of familiar and meaningful names. All power to you DG in resisting rebranding.

But may I make plea: don't give these rebranding wonks the courtesy of calling them rebranding engineers and thereby further undermine those of us who are proud to be real (and chartered) engineers.

Tunnel Bore | 03.10.14 - 1:18 p.m. | #

"Consignia" arff arff
DimTwon - come on DG get it right.

B | 03.10.14 - 2:51 p.m. | #

"Nobody prefixes the London Eye with whatever the name of its sponsor is this week. The Kia Oval is only ever the Oval, ..."

You've come close to realising something rather unfortunate here. The reason people keep using the old name is that the old name is *a part* of the new one. Unfortunately, I'm sure the marketers now know that the only way to get a new name to stick is to totally trample over the old one (as with "Hammersmith" deleted from the Apollo), so we can expect that to become more common.

Jim | 03.10.14 - 4:25 p.m. | #

Can we have Lundenwic back please?

martxw | 03.10.14 - 6:26 p.m. | #

This type of renaming is endemic in the US. My all-time fave occurred when a stadium in Tampa was renamed Landshark stadium. Jimmy Buffett had bought an interest in the team and also owned a brewery making an evil concoction called Landshark beer. That name in turn was derived from a very old Saturday Night Live sketch (worth looking up on YouTube!)

Jim Webber | 03.10.14 - 7:58 p.m. | #

I thought Dg called it Midtwon so we would copy him and it will go the way of the Dangleway.

We should all use Midtwon at every opportunity.

Pedantic of Purley | 03.10.14 - 8:01 p.m. | #

There is no "midtown" in our fantastic, historic, multifaceted city you Business Improvement District people and you Advertising people. It's not going to work so stop it now!

On the other hand, I never thought I'd see a phrase mentioned more times in the Standard than Cara Delevingne but Midtown seems to have done it over the last few days. The power of advertising.

Steve | 03.10.14 - 10:12 p.m. | #

Ah yes Steve, the ES, otherwise known as the Evingne Standard.

Bob Lindsay-Smith | 03.10.14 - 10:41 p.m. | #

More perceptiveness from Tesco Geezer

Nole | 04.10.14 - 1:57 a.m. | #

Clearly the name was invented by a midtwonk.

Am I misremembering that someone once suggested London should be marketed as the Big Strawberry, or was that just a joke?

Estate agents have been doing this for years of course, what with West Greenwich, Charlton Slopes and the like. My favourite was the then nondescript bit between Balham, Wandsworth and Tooting Commons (later known as Nappy Valley): the local estate agents used to market houses there as "'Twixt the Commons".

Autolycus | Homepage | 04.10.14 - 6:10 p.m. | #

Wasn't "West Hampstead" coined by an estate agent? I think there are other parts of London with invented names. Why not? If an area has from a lack of identity it CAN affect business and even house prices. That is not the same as sponsorship, of course.

Regarding mid town I suppose until now it was just called Holborn or what?

Ian Brooker | 04.10.14 - 6:32 p.m. | #

Bit late to this but are you aware that Lower Regent Street's recently been rebranded? To Regent Street St James' ?

Jag | Homepage | 04.10.14 - 7:11 p.m. | #

Some people would put their children in "Sponsor this Space" teeshirts. And if they'd do that, you know very well they'd do anything. So they're not to be trusted. You can't trust people who worship money. They are tongue-flickering lizards.

Feargal | Homepage | 04.10.14 - 7:14 p.m. | #

I'm a little late to the game here, but just in case Arctic Troll happens to be passing: Arsenal's stadium is known as Ashburton Grove, if you ignore the sponsor's name.

martin | 06.10.14 - 8:45 a.m. | #

Actually, Arsenal's current ground is still "Arsenal Stadium" - as is used in matches when the stadium sponsor's name can't be used (e.g. European Champions League games). It is built on the site of Ashburton Grove hence it was originally know as that, although the proper non-branded name is 'Arsenal Stadium'.

Jordan D | 06.10.14 - 11:54 a.m. | #











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