On Tue, 31 Jul 2007, David of Broadway wrote:

PigPOg wrote:

Found this site very interesting. I'm a Londoner yet know nothing of
NYC. I've never been able to find (or have someone explain) the
Uptown/Downtown concept. I mean, where exactly is Uptown New York?

However, downtown and uptown are both very commonly used as directions
within Manhattan. They are essentially synonymous with south and north,
respectively.

Whereas the Manhattan grid doesn't actually run dead north-south. They're
a sort of a local approximation to north that's more useful than what a
magnet has to say about it.

In Silicon Valley hacker culture, the same concept exists, based on an
axis running along El Camino Real - towards San Francisco is "logical
north", and away from it is "logical south":

http://catb.org/esr/jargon/html/L/logical.html

And indeed, and on-topically, not entirely unlike the 'up' and 'down' used
on railways!

tom

--
22% Essential Components, 22% Repetitive Patterns, 56% Pauses