MePa (Meat Packing District)

The "meat packing district" on the west side of Manhattan, around 14th Street, has turned into a "meet" market almost overnight.

The new name is "Mepa" or "MePa," for "meat packing." But why have the new name reflect something that is no longer there?

The first Google Groups citation appears to be "Manhattan's meat-packing district (MePa)" on September 24, 2000.

There was more than one "meat-packing district" in New York. Brooklyn had one. Imagine if the United Nations had kept the name?



25 June 1950, Washington Post, pg. L7:
The structure (United Nations-ed.) is an artichectural (sic) eye-smacker, a huge glass-paneled box rearing high over the 17-acre headquarters site that used to be New York's slaughterhouse and meat packing district.


25 November 1956, New York Times, pg. 147:
He (actor Jason Robards-ed.) took a $60-a-month cold water flat in the meat-packing district of Greenwich Village.