Just what it means to be in “Silicon Alley” is getting a little fuzzy. Or it may have always been fuzzy, according to a piece in the Wall Street Journal. Like any self-identifying community, the precise neighborhoods that the term designates isn’t really clear. The term may, in fact, be in the process of fading from use, now in a sort of middle ground as a term for tech in Manhattan.
The WSJ writes:
Even so, the [Silicon Alley] brand isn’t entirely dead. A local newsletter, “This Week in Silicon Alley,” tracks the sector, and earlier this week New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli proclaimed in a news release that “Silicon Alley now stretches from Midtown South to lower Manhattan and into Brooklyn and Queens.”
That sort of definition rings true with veterans of the city’s real-estate scene.
What is clear is that tech is growing here and looks to be part of the fabric of the city for a good long time to come. So does the term apply to Kings County or not? And does anyone really care?
Join our growing Slack community
Join 5,000 tech professionals and entrepreneurs in our community Slack today!
Donate to the Journalism Fund
Your support powers our independent journalism. Unlike most business-media outlets, we don’t have a paywall. Instead, we count on your personal and organizational contributions.