He, or she, may go downtown but not up.

Uptown nearly always means something distasteful and boring to the Village; they see to it that they have as few occasions for going there as possible.
Anyway, uptown, for them, ends very far downtown! The fifties, forties, thirties, even the twenties, are to them the veritable wilderness, the variously repugnant sections of relatively outer darkness.
Do you remember Colonel Turnbull who had so much trouble in selling his house at Eighth Street because it was so far out of town?
Here is a modern and quite surprisingly neat analogy: Two Village women of my acquaintance met the other day.

Said one tragically: "My dear, isn't it awful?
We've had to move uptown! Since the baby came, we need a larger house, but it almost breaks my heart!" "I should think so!" gasped the second woman in consternation.

"You've always been such regular Villagers.

What shall we do without you?
It's terrible! Where are you moving to, dear ?" "-- West Eleventh Street!" sobbed the sad, prospective exile.
There are Villagers who while scarcely celebrities are characters so well known, locally, as to stand out in bizarre relief even against that variegated background of personalities.