Abbi and Ilana spend a lot of time in the subway, they hang out in apartments that look like mine and my friends', they reference neighborhoods like Gowanus and they loiter around dog parks to vicariously live the life of a pet owner.
In the heart of midtown Manhattan's garment district, the boutique Archer Hotel references the neighborhood's history with industrial exposed brick and steel design and a mix of textiles throughout.
Worse still, many of the texts contained location information that only Haitians familiar with the geography of Port-au-Prince could comprehend, such as references to neighborhoods or popular landmarks.
It makes no sense to think about the disaster site in isolation, without reference to its neighborhood, municipality, metropolitan region, nation and civilization.
Both a play on words and a joking reference to the neighborhood's nascent gentrification, the sign does not seem an accurate prediction -- at least not yet.
A banner on a brick wall at the eastern edge of the town says "The District of Heroes," a reference to this neighborhood where many took up arms and died in the worst fighting of the year-old American military occupation.
The latest product seeking to capitalize on the Harlem Renaissance has arrived -- a beer called Sugar Hill, a reference to the neighborhood's most famous district, where figures as diverse as Duke Ellington, Ralph Ellison and Adam Clayton Powell Sr .lived.
Projected red lines run the length of the building, imbuing the facade with a tongue-in-cheek reference to the neighborhood's history as the Red Light district.
But with D.C.'s sometimes complicated local identity politics, Anacostia can be used as an easy blanket reference for every neighborhood east of the Anacostia River -- a place where poverty, high unemployment and crime often overshadow other news stories.
At first reference, the midtown neighborhood is an unlikely destination for such a sleek new tower usually found in the Meatpacking District or in the Financial District, but upon visiting the site an air of upscale artistry becomes clear.
