The neighborhood meeting full of announcements a few Saturday mornings ago was moving along just like Greater South Loop Association meetings generally do: news about a new grocery story definitely coming to 16th and Clark; reports from the 2nd and 3rd ward aldermen on topics such as how the infrastructure is improving, new plans for rebuilding parts of Grant Park, a new building being built for East-West University unveiled.

All of this information was being digested at the Daystar Center at 16th and State streets, along with fair-traded coffee and scrumptious mini muffins and scones from Overflow Coffee Bar.

Suddenly, there was a presenter who really caught my attention — a marketing student from Columbia College who explained that she would be working with GSLA to “rebrand” the South Loop. Rebrand us?

Yes, plans are in the works to begin treating our diverse neighborhood like a product that needs a more recognizable and useful set of logos. The South Loop: a little like laundry detergent and canned peas.

Alderman Fioretti, whose office will also be involved in the rebranding, said he thought a rebranding campaign should ensue for every little neighborhood in our overall South Loop, from Dearborn Park to Motor Row to Museum Park to Printers Row.

At first, it seemed to me that the current “brand names” have served us (and the realtors) well enough. But maybe concretizing, organizing, jazzing up and publicizing the names of distinct South Loop neighborhoods with definitive boundaries would attract visitors and make people who live here feel more secure. Just like Coke, Pepsi, Sprite, Dove soap, Bounty paper towels and Green Giant green beans do.

I can certainly see rebranding the South Loop as a way to distance it from its very sordid past — it was at one time the most successful vice district in the world. Ever hear of the Mann Act? It’s a law that prohibits transporting women across state lines for immoral purposes, and it was passed specifically to get at what was going on right here in the South Loop.

Our area was also filled with once-thriving railroad tracks, which became abandoned railroad tracks, which later became the site of sought-after expensive homes and condos. (One of which can now be branded “The Former Home of our Longest-Surviving Mayor.”)

The railroad stations themselves were once the South Loop brand, too. Dearborn Station at Polk and Dearborn streets and the Illinois Central station at 11th Street and Michigan Avenue were both huge destinations. The IC station welcomed the “Great Migration” of African Americans from the south to the north between the world wars for plentiful jobs. But Bronzeville, a neighborhood just to the south of us has the branding on that milestone already sewn up with its welcoming statue on King Drive of a man and his valise, all made of sculpted shoe soles to symbolize the moving.

As for branding the southern part of the South Loop along Michigan Avenue south of Roosevelt, a tug of war already exists between monikers Motor Row and Music Row. Both cars and music — overwhelming numbers of car showrooms back in the day, and historic recording studios — peppered the now-thriving avenue full of residences, restaurants and retail establishments. Which name will win out?

The Prairie District, which sounds like the branding of a landscape when the first explorers came to the Chicago area, needs to rebrand itself in line with what it really is: a symbol of the gilded age, a neighborhood now filled with historic mansions, new homes built to look like historic mansions. Oh, it has a marker at the site of the Fort Dearborn Massacre.

Printers Row, of course, has been branded since the start of its development 30-plus years ago as a desirable place to live, while paying homage to the printers of the past who thrived in the huge loft buildings with strong floors for presses and huge windows for light.

We even have some neglected history on our streets ready to use for a good branding. Wabash Avenue south of Roosevelt was once overrun by movie studio outposts that sold everything movie operators around the city needed to run a theater from popcorn to tickets to the movie reels themselves. Movie Row, anyone?

Although we have no ethnic identity in the South Loop upon which to build a rebrand, we do have plenty to recommend us: Grant Park, proximity to the Loop, lots of academic institutions and the original St. Luke’s Hospital (now a condo).

So ultimately, will we be like Boystown on the north side with its rainbow pillars defining the neighborhood geographically along Halsted? Or more like Greek Town with its Greek columns doing the same? Will we be like Little Village on the southwest side with its Mexican-inspired terra cotta archway on 26th Street? Or will we be like The Villas, a conclave of distinctive streets full of architecturally historic homes defined by stone markers off Addison Street near the expressway? We have plenty of role models.

For starters, how about “South Town: a place that plays down its sordid past while making the most of its wholesome history and its present glory?” Its symbol? A sculpted mound of who we are: a railroad track, some green grass, a recording studio, a Pierce Arrow, a mansion, a printing press, a loft building, a new townhouse, a park, a school and lots of shopping.

But most certainly missing? Women coming across state lines for immoral purposes.

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By Anonymous
Posted: 11/30/2011 11:23 AM

Will the South Loop even be in the 2nd ward once the remap is done -- we\'ll see -- hello Dowell & / or Burns!

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By Anon
Posted: 11/28/2011 1:19 PM

Who gave GSLA the charter to brand anything? This sounds like a classroom project. Are TIF funds going to be spent on this? Have other community organizations in Printer's Row, (SLN?), South Loop the Dearborn Parks, Museum campus and PDNA been brought into this effort? Judging from the block party this year maybe GSLA shouldn't be taking on something of this magnitude.

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By Anonymous
Posted: 11/28/2011 12:29 PM

I think Detroit City is the TRUE home of cars and music. Maybe it's time for the South Loopers to show innovation and be known for something different and unique. Give the neighborhood time to come into it's own rather than giving it a false perception of something that it's really not. The Alderman does have too much time on his hands.

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By Drop South Loop from Chicago
Posted: 11/23/2011 11:36 PM

"Alderman Fioretti, whose office will also be involved in the rebranding,"...perhaps our Alderman and govt in general has too much time and our money on their hands. This is not the role of Government. Ironic that a group called the Greater south loop association will then ineffectively try and homoginize everything under a south loop umbrella, when most of it is distinct as you point out, and actually not part of the south loop.