If you had to get to Midtown would you know where to go?

Published: 18 February 2010
by JOSIE HINTON

IT is steeped in intellectual and cultural history, home to the British Museum and famous for its association with literary giants including Virginia Woolf, E M Forster, and Lytton Strachey.

But now the area known for centuries as Bloomsbury, with Holborn, is facing a rebrand under the controversial new name: “Midtown.” 

Already common parlance for hotels looking to attract American tourists and estate agents, the term is part of a wider bid by InHolborn – a business interest group – to raise the profile of an area often seen merely as a transport corridor between the West End and the City.

Marked out for redevelopment by Mayor Boris Johnson, if the plans are successful £10million of private investment would be channelled into the area, paying for a new police force, the part-pedestrianisation of some streets and the re-introduction of two-way traffic to the area. 

The proposals must win the support of half of all nearby businesses before they can be implemented. But they have already irritated residents who see them as dismissive of the rich history of their area.

Jim Murray, chairman of the Bloomsbury Association, described the plans as “misguided.”

He said: “You can’t rebrand areas as historic as Bloomsbury, Holborn and St Giles. You can try but it’s going to cost an awful lot of money and it won’t catch on. 

“To the local people it’s laughable. It’s just estate agent and property developer-speak. 

“Londoners are proud of their historic districts and will never refer to them as Midtown or anything else for that matter.”

Jane Parker, a graphic designer who worked in Holborn for many years, added: “It’s just silly. It would make more sense if there was an uptown and downtown, but instead we have a West End and a City. 

“It doesn’t seem to follow any kind of logic. 

“It was just the same when they tried to re­brand Fitzrovia as Noho, which was a complete failure. 

“It’s an estate agent term for people who actually don’t know London.”

But Tass Mavrogordato, chief executive of InHolborn, said there had been  a “misunderstanding” over the plans – which she said were not trying to rename historic districts.

She said: “We’ve always very much seen the significance of local names and Bloomsbury, Holborn and St Giles have very entrenched histories. 

“There is no intention to take that away. 

“What we wanted to do was see if it could be beneficial to have an umbrella name for the whole area, such as exists in the West End and the City.”

And she added that the name Midtown was not set in stone.

“It’s not for us to say this is the name it will be,” she said. “It will be whatever name people want. We feel this is an opportunity to make this district as it should be. 

“It’s about adding value, not taking away.”

Hugh Cullen, chairman of the Bloomsbury Conservation Area Advisory Committee (CAAC), said he could see no problem with the new moniker.

“I don’t think it’s a bad name,” he said. “It’s a little reminiscent of New York but it’s quite a fitting description for somewhere that’s half way between the West End and the City. 

“But I would want the individual identities of the areas to continue to be acknowledged.”  

In 2008, plans to re-brand nearby Fitzrovia as “Noho” sparked anger from residents including comedian Griff Rhys Jones, restaurant critic Fay Maschler and gallery owner and Bloomsbury ward councillor Rebecca Hossack.