Do you live in "The GaP"? No, because it's a terrible name.

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How do you define our neighborhoods?

A buddy recently sent this along: the City Paper noted that a commenter on PoP, talking about something unrelated, coined a new term:

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

The GaP is a terrible name. Admittedly it's a little bit clever, but I hate those cutesy, manufactured nicknames like NoMa, AdMo and CoHi.

Plus how is there a gap? North of Mt. Pleasant and Columbia Heights, you have Crestwood to the west and Petworth to the east. North of that it's 16th Street Heights and Brightwood. As far as I'm concerned, there isn't really a "gap." North of Columbia Heights and Park View is Petworth. That's it.

The Post talks about 14th Street Heights but says it's almost totally surrounded by 16th Street Heights.

DCist also got into it, and the original PoP poster responded there with a rambling argument, including that 10th and Randolph is in Columbia Heights according to their house's tax assessment -- the tax neighborhood argument is one we've debunked here before, as the tax neighborhoods have nothing to do with the actual neighborhoods. Tax documents also claim North Capitol Street is in Columbia Heights, and there are no such neighborhoods as Logan Circle, Adams Morgan, or Shaw, but there are places called Old City I and Old City II. Tax documents say Adams Morgan is part of "Garfield," whatever that is.

Here's my updated map of where I think the boundaries are, with Petworth in light blue and Crestwood in Pink. Spring Road isn't a hard border, maybe it's more like Randolph, and I'm not sure really what the northern end of Petworth is -- interested in your opinion! (I wrote about this earlier too, though with more focus on Columbia Heights.) Do agree with me?


View Columbia Heights Borders in a larger map