Silicon Alley Pioneer Late to 'Silicon Alley' Burial

Fred Wilson helped pioneer the techie industry in New York City. He was around when some wags birthed the nickname "Silicon Alley" for that stretch of squat, rather undesirable office buildings running down and around Broadway, roughly from the Flatiron District through Lower Manhattan.

On Wednesday, he pleaded for a permanent name change. "I've hated it since it came out," he told the crowd at the Web 2.0 Expo at the Javits Center. He suggested calling the area "Broadway" or simply New York City "because that's what we are." (More here from The Observer's Gillian Reagan.)

I wrote in February about how the term was disappearing anyway. Here's what one young techie told me:

“None of us consider the area we’re in Silicon Alley,” said Alex Schmelkin, the president of Alexander Interactive, a Web design and engineering firm with offices at 149 Fifth Avenue. “It’s rare you even say the term. It feels much more common to say ‘Flatiron.’ People just say ‘Soho area’ instead of ‘I’m running a Web business in Silicon Alley.’”