Branding the city and the 'hood

One of my nemeses at H Street Main Street came up with this slogan for H Street: "We're over the hump." Did that refer to bad times in the past, or the H Street bridge over the railyard? In any case, as a slogan it needed work.

My own slogan--since dropped I'm sure--was "It's our neighborhood. It's our business." It was oriented to our "internal" market of current customers, residents, and businesses and centered upon my belief that until the people using or in proximity to the H Street Commercial District were active patrons, we had no business trying to market H Street to new market segments. (Kevin Palmer's logo was dropped as well, although the "new" logo is very similar, and modeled after the 500 block of H Street instead of the 400 block of H Street.)

Thinking about Downtown DC, what associations come to mind for you? Here are some of mine:

office buildings, Hechts, Warner Theater, National Theater, 7th Street, Jaleo, Red Sage, the relatively empty Pennsylvania Avenue, proximity to the National Mall, empty streets at night, restaurants.

Please let me know what associations you have. Would you consider the White House part of downtown?

Index Keywords: tourism