If you’ve ever visited or spent time in New York City and wandered over to SoHo or NoHo, you may have wondered the origins of these names. Or you may have just accepted TriBeCa as TriBeCa and assumed the names of these trendy neighborhoods to be just that: names.

NoHo and SoHo: North of Houston and South of Houston

But as this map illustrated by Theo Inglis shows, each neighborhood took on its hip name after it became cool. Scroll through the postcards and check out different New York neighborhoods and how they absorbed others to get their names. Who knew Dumbo was actually Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass?!

Click through the rest of the postcards here.

Thanks to PSFK for bringing this to my attention. If you’re interested in creative design, advertising and/or interesting ideation, I highly recommend PSFK.com‘s daily newsletter.

You can see more of Inglis’ work here.

Dumbo: Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass

Living in New York every day, it is sometimes easy to forget to take in all that is around you. I realized the other day how I never really look above me as I shuffle from home to work, work to home, etc. And if you saw where I sat in my office, you’d consider it a miracle that I even knew what the weather was like outside. It took a visit from my cousin and an elevator ride up to a rooftop terrace in SoHo to ground me.

The elevator ride that grounded me

This view took my breath away. On the 10th anniversary of 9/11, with the lights beaming up where the World Trade Centers used to stand, I was floored.

So why post about this? I think I needed a little reminder to look up…and I encourage you all to do the same.