Is it the Hamilton Mountain? Or is it Uptown?

A local marketing effort is underway that aims to rebrand the escarpment

If you’ve been in Hamilton for even five minutes, you’re familiar with that escarpment that geographically cuts our city in half. The one you probably call the Mountain. Unless you call it “Uptown.” Uptown?

Yup. There’s an effort underway to rebrand the elevated part of the city by a new name. Though new is relative. It’s apparently been going on for a few years now. Real estate agent Krysta Boyer says she first heard it a while back during a showing near Concession Street.

“There were two young men and they referred to the area as Uptown Hamilton,” she says. “I asked them where they had heard it from. They couldn’t pinpoint where, they just knew that is how you refer to that area.”

A recent online post by a former 900CHML reporter pointed out the idea was gaining some traction. Which seems to be true. But where did it start? The story behind it isn’t entirely clear, but it seems to go like this.

After a trip to New York City five or six years ago, Jan Burnett was talking with her son-in-law about his restaurant on Concession. Leo

Santos — owner of Papa Leos — was looking to rebrand the area and introduce it to people downtown who rarely ventured his way.

As they chatted, she got thinking about the Big Apple’s regions. There’s the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side and Upper Manhattan. They’re all considered uptown. Other cities have uptown areas, too.

Then she remembered the incline railway that used to go up the Mountain. Up the Mountain. Upper city. Hmm …

“She said, ‘Maybe we should use the hashtag #Uptown,’” Santos says.

He thought it was brilliant. He didn’t see it as an elitist renaming of a traditional region of the city or an attempt to gentrify the area. Rather, it’s a verbal bridge to connect the two geographic parts of town that sometimes seem to divide us. You have downtown and you have uptown. Easy. Perhaps a

nice clean name could even help change the less-than-exciting connotation some in the lower city have of the Mountain.

On top of everything else, having worked out west for a number of years in the Rocky Mountains, Santos was always reluctant to call our hill a mountain.

“We do not have a mountain,” he says, laughing.

It’s taken time, but it’s begun to click. A number of other businesses have latched onto the “Uptown” name.

The Dirty South opened a new restaurant on Concession on Friday. The first word in its Facebook post announcing it? Uptown.

“It’s a little more modern,” says co-owner Kara Liersch.

The Concession Street BIA regularly uses the hashtag #Uptown. Tourism Hamilton mentions “Uptown” at least once on its website. Ward 8 Coun. John-Paul Danko — whose ward is on the Mountain, er, Uptown — has tweeted out the #Uptown hashtag a couple times recently.

And what does Boyer call the

area in her listings now?

“I refer to it as the Uptown,” she says. “I do.”

But it’s still the Mountain, right? The proof is right there in the names. Dave Andreychuk Mountain Arena. Mountain

Plaza, Mount Hamilton Baptist Church, Mount Hamilton Youth Soccer and Mountain Mosque. Heck, there’s even a federal and provincial riding of Hamilton Mountain.

“I have no plans to change (the name),” said MP Scott Duvall, with a laugh.

Neither does MPP Monique Taylor, who has heard the references to Uptown and suggests it might convey a certain sophistication, but …

“I love the name Hamilton Mountain,” she says.

Some folks who’ve been in this city for a while — who’ll blanch at the idea of tinkering with the name of an established part of town — might point out another fly in the Uptown ointment. Once upon a time, the corner of King and James streets was considered uptown. Which means some had to go across town to reach the downtown in order to get uptown. Which is all very confusing. Not to mention a long way from the Mountain.

But linguistically Uptown makes sense. And heck, there’s even a Broadway song called “It’s Quiet Uptown.” The play it’s from? “Hamilton.” Geez, that’s almost a sign.

So is it the Mountain or is it Uptown? Are we going to stick with tradition or go modern? Are we going to adhere to our roots or branch out into something new?

“We’re always going to call it the Mountain,” Danko says. But?

“I think (Uptown) is becoming a thing.”

“We’re always going to call it the Mountain.”

JOHN-PAUL DANKO

COUNCILLOR FOR WARD 8