NoMad (North of Madison Square Park)

“NoMad” (or “Nomad”) stands for “North of Madison (Square Park).” This recent addition to New York City’s many neighborhood nicknames appeared in both the New York Times and New York Daily News in August and September 1999.
   
The real estate industry hasn’t taken to “NoMad” (selling something that sounds like the words “no mad” or the word “nomad” is perhaps not the most pleasant neighborhood nickname for people buying a home), but the nickname still receives some limited use.  Another nickname for the same area is “NoMaS.”
 
         
Wikipedia: NoMad District
NoMad District The area in New York City north of the Flatiron and south of Herald Square. So named by hotelier Michael Rawson for it’s location NOrth of MADison Square where he is opening a luxury hotel at Broadway and 28th Street. 
 
New York (NY) Times
The Trendy Discover NoMad Land, And Move In
By ELAINE LOUIE
Published: August 5, 1999
THE fashionistas are on the move, this time to a neighborhood so anonymous it hardly has a name. On the maps in city taxis that show Manhattan neighborhoods—Chelsea, Greenwich Village, the Upper East Side—this area is conspicuously gray. Historically minded people may refer to it as Rosehill, after an 18th-century farm belonging to John Watts, a Tory sympathizer, that covered roughly the same acreage. George Trescher, the fund-raiser, who lives in the area, calls it Curry Hill, because of the many Indian and Bangladesh restaurants. Others call it NoMad, for north of Madison Square Park.
 
The neighborhood, which extends from 23d Street to 34th Street, between Madison Avenue and Second Avenue, possesses history. Stanford White designed the Madison Square Garden that once stood on Madison Avenue at 26th Street. 
 
New York (NY) Daily News
SOHO, WANNA BE HIP? FOR NEW YORK NABES, IT’S ALL IN A NAME
By MIKE VOGEL
Saturday, September 18th 1999, 2:11AM
ARE YOU familiar with the latest trendy names for New York City neighborhoods?
 
Like NoHo (north of Houston St.)? Don’t be upset if it’s unknown to you the names change so rapidly it’s hard to keep up.
 
Now the quiet, unassuming area between Madison Square Park and Murray Hill has been dubbed by the beautiful people as tada! NoMad (north of Madison Square Park, get it?).
(...)
But NoMad? Now that has a certain je ne sais quoi no?
 
Okay, so what defines the area around Madison Square Park?
 
“Friendly people,” Javed Keen, Pakistan-born owner of Naghma House on Lexington off 28th St., decides. “And lots of hospitals.”
 
HOHO?
 
“And, unfortunately,” Keen adds, “hookers although it’s getting better.”
 
YoHo?
 
Perhaps NoMad isn’t such a bad choice after all. 
 
October 2000, Gifts & Decorative Accessories:
Buyers are invited to an orientation on the NOMAD (North Of MADison Square Park) area of New York, which includes the tabletop district.
 
9 October 2000, HFN (weekly of Home Furnishing Network):
At 225 Fifth Ave., new buyers can get a leg up on the market with the “Nomad” (North of Madison) orientation seminar being offered.
 
Google Books
Naming New York
by Sanna Feirstein
New York, NY: NYU Press
2001
Pg. 103:
NoMad
Edged by the Fashion District on the west and by the newish restaurant paradise on Park and Madison Avenues on the east, the neighborhood NOrth of MADison Square Park is one of those in-between areas currently experiencing a renaissance of sorts. Prized, ironically, for its lack of a cohesive entity, NoMad is drawing a residential population fond of the prices and the edgy quality of a neighborhood that may or may not become one.
 
Curbed.com
Madison Sq. Park Explodes, Contaminates Nearby Area
Friday, November 3, 2006, by Lockhart
(...)
As to the names, Grammuray? How about NoMad for the area north of Madison Square Park and west of Park Ave, and LoMuHi (Lower Murray Hill) for anything east of Park Ave. Even if these names suck they beat Grammury.
By Seamus at November 5, 2006 6:24 PM
 
Google Books
The Suburbanization of New York:
Is the World’s Greatest City Becoming Just Another Town?
by Jerilou Hammett, Kingsley H. Hammett, and Martha Cooper
Princeton, NJ: Princeton Architectural Press
2007
Pg. 27:
This quirky nickname for the area south of Houston Street has only led to a real estate fury to give every neighborhood catchy, and, now sadly, generic monikers. NoHo (north of Houston), NoLIta (north of Little Italy, (Pg. 28—ed.) TriBeCa (triangle below Canal), NoCa (north of Canal), NoMad (north of Madison Park), BoHo (Bowery and Houston)—should be HoBo!
 
New York (NY) Post
DREAM HOMES
WHEN ONLY A MANSION WILL DO
By VICTOR WISHNA
June 7, 2007
Midtown South
$3.595 million
If you buy this apartment at Fifth Avenue and 30th Street, you’ll be able to invite 100 of your closest friends over for an outdoor barbecue on your landscaped, 2,200-square-foot setback terrace. Even better, the terrace comes attached to an equally impressive 1,700-square-foot co-op, the product of a gut-renovation that combined two penthouse units into one “lovely and luminous” three-bedroom, three-bathroom spread. Luxurious features include private keyed elevator access, a wood-burning fireplace and four skylights. And, in the shadow of the Empire State Building, you’ll benefit from a perfectly convenient and central Fifth Avenue location in what some brokers are dubbing “NoMad” - north of Madison Square Park.
 
New York (NY) Times
A Neighborhood in Need of a Name
Published: July 22, 2007
To the Editor:
Charles Isherwood lives in Nomad, or NoMad. The felicitously nicknamed enclave north of Madison Square Park may not yet have a deli on every corner, but it boasts many other advantages. On Lexington Avenue in the 20s you can shop and eat in Little India, the food zone for discerning cabbies; go to the annual Modern Show at the armory; and improve your mind at Baruch.
 
Mr. Isherwood is a lucky guy. And NoMad is exactly where a “man without a country” should live, isn’t it?
Joan Warner
East Village
 
Hotel Chatter
Super Secret Hotel Insider Goes Inside the Ace Hotel New York
Where: New York, NY, United States
8/14/2008 at 12:27 PM
We are pretty stoked to have an exclusive scoop on the upcoming Ace Hotel New York today. A Super Secret Hotel Insider tells us what will be inside when this hotel opens in either January or February of 2009. Enjoy.
 
I had not seen or heard much about the Ace Hotel until I finally had the opportunity to see it first-hand. It is located at Broadway between 28th and 29th St in an area of midtown Manhattan soon to be transformed into the NoMad district (North of Madison Square Park I guess.)