Downtown
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In American and Canadian cities, the term downtown refers to the heart of a city, which is usually the city's central business district. This is by analogy with its coinage in New York City, where downtown was first used to refer to the original town on southern tip of the island of Manhattan. As the town of New York grew into a city, the only direction it could grow on the island was toward the north, increasingly upriver from the original settlement. Thus, anything north of the original town became known as "uptown," while the original town (which was also New York's only major center of business at the time) became known as "downtown." The term was adopted in cities across the United States and Canada to refer to the historical core of the city (which was most often the same as the commericial heart of the city).
Incidentally, in Manhattan, "Downtown" is also a relative term. Anything south of where the speaker is currently standing is said to be "downtown." Conversely, anything north of the speaker is "uptown." Similarly, in New Orleans, "downtown" is a synonym for "downriver," and "uptown" is a synonym for "upriver." The New Orleans central business district is actually referred to as "the CBD" rather than as "downtown."
