SANTA CRUZ >> Efforts to clearly define and promote Santa Cruz’s eastern half are, at times, cause for lengthy conversation, high passions and even resistance.

In recent years, the city’s Economic Development Department has looked to support its business community and better promote the city’s various districts by implementing a plan for “wayfinding” and neighborhood banner signage. When it comes to defining all or part of the Eastside of the city with a designation as “Midtown,” however, city Economic Development Director Bonnie Lipscomb said she is taking a step back, for now.

“What we found through our outreach is that though a lot of people really would like Midtown, there is some confusion over what that means, both on a city versus Eastside and that there are some long-term residents who feel really strongly that that’s not what this area is called and were really opposed to it,” Lipscomb said.

That differing of opinions has not stopped semi-retired graphic designer Peter Fink, however, from recently creating his “Midtown Santa Cruz” website to highlight the business hub he defines as “a new entity, a new destination” at midtownsantacruz.com. Tourist-oriented Visit Santa Cruz County’s website also generally defines Midtown as Soquel Avenue from Ocean Street to Morrissey Boulevard.

“I don’t know how many years it’s been that way. The reason I was calling it ‘a new destination’ is because it’s becoming more popular, that phrase,” Fink, 67, said of his effort to make more people conscious of his neighborhood.

Fink loosely defines Midtown as running along Soquel Avenue and Water Street, from Ocean to Park Way. Historically, that same area also has been known as the Eastside, demarcating all of the city from the San Lorenzo River east, versus the Westside on the other side of the river. (Santa Cruz’s coastal geography can confuse visitors, who incorrectly might see the Eastside of the city as “south” and the Westside as “north”) Midtown Cafe, launched in January 2014, appears to have started a naming trend, continuing with Midtown Optometry, Midtown Montessori, Midtown Guitar and Lulu’s Midtown.

For some, the name Midtown means a loss of identity for their “Eastside” community. For others, mostly of a younger generation, “Midtown” is all they have known.

John Balawejder, 66, of Live Oak, raised his son in the neighborhood in question. When he moved to the area, he knew it as the Eastside, and eventually found himself in the midst of arguments with his then-teenage son Josh and Josh’s surfer friends about the area’s so-called Midtown designation. Two decades later, Balawejder said he has conceded the point to the next generation, though he said he wonders “Where’s the Eastside?” They answer that it is east of city lines, near Live Oak and Pleasure Point, down to Capitola.

“The kids, I call them the kids, they call it Midtown. It’s their community as well,” Balawejder said on a recent weekday on South Branciforte Avenue. “I think there’s a real sense of people want it to be called Eastside because it’s their Eastside community. But I’m saying that there’s really no difference. The name doesn’t matter. The community’s still here.”

Balawejder pointed to Shane Skelton as one of the surfers who his son mingled. Skelton, now an O’Neill’s marketing manager, enthusiastically embraces the Midtown name. In fact, his license plate reads “MID TWNR” and Skelton has long gone by the moniker “Midtown Shane,” due to his devotion to his home neighborhood.

Skelton, 34, said the Midtown neighborhood stretches from the San Lorenzo River east to the Santa Cruz Small Craft Harbor and includes the Seabright area. The name is particularly relevant as a surfing turf designation originating with his surfing heroes, he said. Skelton remembers scrawling “Midtown” on his junior high school binders and speaks highly of a surf video posted on Vimeo, titled “Santa Cruz Midtown Cowboys.”

Skelton recalled that unhappy critics’ response to a sign welcoming visitors to Eastside, Santa Cruz near the intersection of Soquel Avenue, Water Street and Morrissey Boulevard in the mid- to late- 1990s was to burn it.

“With so many people coming in, there’s room for a midtown now. Ever since I can remember, there’s been a Midtown, and now it’s kind of caught on as a trend,” Skelton said. “It’s not even just surfers. A lot of non-surfers who we grew up with caught it. It’s not gang thing, there’s nothing gang-related about it. It’s just pride for your neighborhood, just kind of having a sense of belong.”

Singer and ukulele player Mick Marlar, 65, who has lived on Branciforte Drive for the past 25 years, said he was unaware of the “Midtown” designation. He calls it the Eastside or just “my hood.” During a discussion about the neighborhood’s changing nature inside anchor business The Buttery Cafe and Bakery, Marlar said he wondered if the Midtown name is part of the larger shift he sees in the neighborhood from “sleepy village” toward heavy traffic, less parking and higher-density development.

“Is the name going to bring more people here, bring the property values up too high for the people who have children here until they can’t afford to live here?” Marlar said.

Midtown Optometry owner Craig Fellers, who opened his business at 550 Water St. in January 2015, with his Santa Cruz-native fiancee’s guidance, said he feels a sense of camaraderie from sharing the Midtown name with others.

“I think the more places that incorporate that designation into their name and description are going to, hopefully, bring Midtown to be a bit more of a commerce center,” Fellers, 34, said.

Local historian Ross Eric Gibson said the east side of Santa Cruz changed from “East Santa Cruz” to the “Eastside” by the 1960s, about the same time as UC Santa Cruz arrived. Gibson, 61, said he took part in city efforts to promote and define Santa Cruz neighborhoods and their history in the 1990s. Often times throughout Santa Cruz’s history, there have been both successful and unsuccessful movements to change a neighborhood’s name, he said. Many appellations have changed due to growing popularity of private surfing spot nicknames that were “not chamber of commerce names,” such as the Toilet Bowl or Its Beach, Gibson said.

“Santa Cruz is constantly renewing itself and always pretending that there was never anybody there before them,” Gibson said. “They’re taking over a neighborhood without any identity, as far as they’re concerned. We have a tough time in Santa Cruz, on the historic end, trying to pass down from one generation to the next the things that are of value to us and identity that made the community what a wonderful place it is today.”