Supervisor looks to ‘rebrand’ downtown Riverhead
Just as people tried to combat the bad reputation of the Riverhead neighborhood long known as The Greens by changing its name to Millbrook Gables years back, Supervisor Sean Walter is hoping to do away with the practice of referring to downtown Riverhead as downtown Riverhead.
Mr. Walter said there’s a certain negative connotation connected with that term, and he wants to change it by coming up with a new name, or “rebranding,” as he termed it.
The supervisor initially wanted to call the area formally known as downtown — if he’s successful — the “Bay District.”
He sprang that idea on students from SUNY’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse as they made downtown master plan proposals to town officials last Wednesday. Most of the students then called it the Bay District as they made their presentations, although some of them had to stop short as they were just about to say “downtown,” and instead said “Bay District.”
The supervisor said on Tuesday that some people he’s spoken to since didn’t like “Bay District,” and instead just want to call downtown “The District.”
He said he’s hoping to come up with logos for The District and to start getting people used to the new name.
