Folklore: Street names

Subject: Folklore: Street names
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 08:56 PM

Folklore: Street names

In the thread Lyr Req: Take Me Back to New Orleans (Chris Barber) PoppaGator informed us that New Orleans has streets named after all nine of the Greek muses. Those would be Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia, and Urania.

(You can see nearly all of them in this Google map. You might have to pan up a bit to see Clio or down to see Urania.)

I'm impressed.

Here and I thought Minneapolis was sophisticated for having a series of streets that run alphabetically!

They go: Aldrich, Bryant, Colfax, Dupont, Emerson, Fremont, Girard, Humboldt, Irving, James, Knox, Logan, Morgan, Newton, Oliver, Penn, Queen, Russell, Sheridan, Thomas, Upton, Vincent, Washburn, Xerxes, York, and Zenith. Then the series starts over with Abbott, Beard, Chowen, Drew, Ewing, France, Glenhurst, Huntington, Inglewood, Joppa, Kipling, Lynn, Monterey, Natchez, Ottawa, Princeton, Quentin, Raleigh, Salem, Toledo, Utica, Vernon, Webster, Xenwood, Yosemite, and Zarthan. Then—would you believe it?—Alabama, Brunswick, Colorado, Dakota, Edgewood, Florida, Georgia, Hampshire, Idaho, Jersey, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Quebec, Rhode Island, Sumter, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wyoming, Xylon, Yukon, Zinran. Then—can you stand it?—Aquila, Boone, Cavell, Decatur, Ensign, Flag, Gettysburg, Hillsboro, Independence, Jordan, Kilmer, Lancaster, Melrose, Nathan, Orleans, Pilgrim, Quaker, Revere, Saratoga, Trenton, Union—and I think the system sort of breaks down there. By then, you're pretty far out in the suburbs and the streets don't follow much of a grid any more.

I don't want to give the impression the system is all-encompassing. It isn't. Where the grid is interrupted by lakes, parks, industrial areas, and so on, you sometimes find that they have squeezed in a street that doesn't fit the pattern. Yet the pattern exists.

What's even weirder, in the town of Ramsey, which is one of the northwestern suburbs of Minneapolis, they have a bunch of streets named after chemical elements, also arranged more or less alphabetically, even though the streets mostly don't follow a grid: Argon, Barium, Cobalt, Dysprosium, Erkium (a mistake for Erbium?), Fluorine, Germanium, Helium, Iodine, Junkite (I don't know where they came up with that, but it's really a street, and there is no element that starts with J), Krypton, Lithium, Magnesium, Neon, Osmium (why not Oxygen?), Potassium, Quicksilver (they needed a Q, I guess, so they used an old name for mercury), Radium, Sodium, Tungsten, Uranium, Vanadium, Wolfram (they needed a W, so they used the old name for tungsten), Xenon, Yttrium, Zirconium. After that, there seems to be a series based on minerals or rocks.

OK, here's my question: what cool or weird street names exist in a city you're familiar with?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 11:02 PM

The N-S streets in the older section of Lawrence, Kansas are named for the states of the Union, in order by the date of accession. The system breaks down at Iowa, where the modern way of building looping streets to keep traffic from residential areas takes over.

Driving through Lawrence and making my way through the 13 colonies, the Louisiana territory and the Northwest territories takes me back to fifth grade every time.

(I once met someone who was baffled that there were so many businesses named "Northwest" in Wisconsin. Thought the businesses had no right to the name when they were not in Washington or Oregon. This was obviously a person who did not pay attention in class during the fifth grade.)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Joe Offer
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 11:42 PM

I was under the impression that a number of cities used Euclid Avenue instead of 13th Street for superstitious reasons, but now I can't find any.
Anybody know if this is true?
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 02:44 AM

Bonnet Bay, a suburb of Sydney, Australia, has a bunch of streets named after US presidents; Washington, McKinley, Harrison, Buchanan, Hayes, Harding, Eisenhower, Wilson, Johnson, Lincoln, Taft, Hoover, Pierce, Madison, Jefferson, Tyler, Fillmore, Garfield, Coolidge, Arthur, Nixon, Cleveland, Truman, Grant, Van Buren, and Kennedy are all there. There's no grid structure to the streets, and no particular ordering of the names so far as I can see.

There's also a suburb called Castlecrag where the streets have names like The Parapet, The Rampart, The Barbette, The Bastion, The Battlement, The Bulwark, The Scarp, The High Tor, The Tor Walk, The Citadel, The Barbican, The Redoubt, The Postern, and The Outpost.

In yet another suburb, Marsfield (Field of Mars, God of War), most of the big streets are named after big battles in British history; Culloden, Agincourt, Crimea, Khartoum, Waterloo, Trafalgar, probably a few others.

And in one of the western suburbs, you can stand at the intersection of Abbott and Costello.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Paul Burke
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 02:57 AM

I remember my Dad coming home one Saturday afternoon, flopping down in a chair, and telling us he'd walked down every street in Manchester that day. We were of course highly impressed and a little sceptical, but he wasn't lying- there is an Every Street in Manchester.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 03:07 AM

London has many streets that are named for a local landmark or the activity that went on there - hence 'Ropemakers Walk', 'Whalebone Lane', 'Spitalfields' (Hospital Fields), Boundary Road - on a parish boundary. Also, around the various cathedrals and former monasteries we find names for the various parts of the service that were recited whilst traversing said highway = 'Paternoster Row ('Our Father'), 'Ave Maria Lane' and 'Blackfriars', named for its black habited monks nearby.

Rumours of one 'Gropec**t Lane' being extant in the 1500's is unfounded but you can probably guess what went on there. Most search engines won't allow you to search for it...

Everything you never wanted to know about London street names!

LTS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: JennieG
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 03:22 AM

In Anchorage, Alaska, some streets are just letters - A Street, B Street, C....etc.....and are crossed by numbers, First, Second etc.

Cheers
JennieG who has been to Anchorage - all the way from Oz

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 03:28 AM

First published in 1917 and almost certainly out of print - a little book entitled 'City Street Names' (London) by Louis Zettersten.
Well worth looking out for, for the commentary and background information.
Nice example
"LA BELLE SAUVAGE YARD (entered through a passage on the west side of Ludgate Hill, Ludgate Circus end).—Here stood for several hundred years the most famous coaching inn of the City of London, La Belle Sauvage. Many guesses have been made as to the origin of this pretty name. There are proofs that in 1453 an inn called " Savage Inn or the Bell " was here established. The sign was a savage standing by a bell. The first alternative may have originated from the name of the landlord, as a man named William Savage lived in this neighbourhood in 1380. From being used alternatively the two names were later on linked together as The Bell Savage and the present spelling appears in 1676. Other derivations are current, but the above is undoubtedly the correct one.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 04:01 AM

In Rostov-na-Donu, in the south of Russia, there is a street which translates to the Greek City of Hairs (Ulitza Grecheskovo Goroda Volos). Nobody knows why, or what it means.In one neighbourhood, the streets are 1-st Ring street, all the way down to 6th, and they really are circular.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 04:06 AM

I'll confess to a fondness for completely made-up street name etymologies. Years ago in Cambridge...

"Ah, Short Street. Nathaniel Short."
"Really?"
"Yes, it's named after Nathaniel Short - you know, the Roundhead. He was a general in the New Model Army. Quite a story, really - he was originally a farm labourer..."

All this while walking past a built-up urban thoroughfare with a total length of about 50 yards. Keeping it up is the challenge.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: greg stephens
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 04:07 AM

The myth(or otherwise) of what LtS calls Gropec***t Lane is interesting. The story was given wide currency by Bill Bryson, but can anybody recall seeing a reference to it before him? I doubt if he invented it, so where does the story start? And more to the point, is it true?
At the other end of the spectrum, there is the endearing Bashful Alley in Lancaster(England).

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Joseph P
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 04:14 AM

'Land of Green Ginger' in Hull is a pretty unusual name ....

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 04:17 AM

It's in wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gropecunt_Lane

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 04:24 AM

And there was me trying to be polite....

In Whitstable, there is a very narrow alley going up from the main shopping street to the beach road called 'Squeezegut Lane'. It starts off being wide enough for two people walking side by side but ends up being just wide enough for one not so large person to pass through. Anyone bigger than average would have to squeeze through it sideways, hence the name of 'squeezegut'.

It's said that Peter Cushing used it regularly on his way up to his favourite bench.

LTS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Terry McDonald
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 04:32 AM

In Poole we have a street called 'Barber's Piles.' Neighbouring Bournemouth ('cos it's posh) has only one street - all the others are roads, avenues, drives, crescents etc etc.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Newport Boy
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 05:30 AM

Near Charing Cross in London, there used to be 'Of Alley'. It was near the Gyre & Gimble coffee bar. It was there in the 50s, but I think it has now disappeared.

I was intrigued enough to find out how the name arose - it took me weeks. Now, the wonders of the internet give the answer in 2 seconds.

From Wikipedia:

In the 1620s, Villiers acquired York House, Strand, which, apart from an interlude during the English Civil War, remained in the family until George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham sold it to developers for £30,000 in 1672. He made it a condition of the sale that his name and title be commemorated by George Street, Villiers Street, Duke Street, Of Alley, and Buckingham Street, some of which have survived into the twenty-first century.

Phil

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: semi-submersible
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 05:54 AM

Street names grow haphazardly unless someone early on decrees that there will be system to it, usually at the start of a spurt of building, such as when troops come home from a war.

Logical though it be, a fully numbered grid system like Edmonton, AB makes a navigator's head ache. Judging by the street address, 23456 1234 St. must be between 234 Ave. and 235 Ave., where they intersect 1234th (St., of course). If you mistake street for avenue you may search fruitlessly far away.

It's common to number the avenues (which run E-W in Vancouver, BC, Canada) but name the streets (which run N-S there). This helps a lot in navigating. Where the long side of the block lies along the named co-ordinate then most addresses will be more pleasant sounding and easier to remember (e.g. 1234 Castlegar instead of 1234 32 St.). Vancouver, Canada has blocks of themed street names (provinces, trees, battles) but unfortunately the planner for that area didn't mention to his assistant the alphabetical order he'd envisioned, so they got all jumbled. Click here for an interesting article about Vancouver street naming.

Alphabetic streets are better if they're themed. When the alphabet just repeats like Jim Dixon described, you still need a map to figure out in which part of town to find your "E..." street, but if you can see your address is a mineral or a general or whatever street, you can find the area quickly and then tell when you're getting close or have passed your target. It saves fuel as well as time, and the grouped names prove educational to boot.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: greg stephens
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 05:59 AM

Most High Streets in England are what you expect, the main street with Barclays Bank and Boots and Woolie's etc, but there is one endearing one in the Lake District which is the track over the top of a fell(and the name of the fell, come to that).

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 08:27 AM

There are a series of streets in Liverpool (backing on to Everton fottball ground - but we can't choose our neighbours) whose initial letters spell out the Victorian building firm (something and Williamson, if I remember correctly). Unfortunately, the builder miscalculated the number, so the last two letters are missing.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: PoppaGator
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 11:33 AM

There are any number of different neighborhoods in New Orleans where the street-names constitute a "set" of some kind. John Chase's book Frenchmen Desire Good Children is a sort of history of the city, tracing the development of one area and then the next in terms of the street names. (I provided a link to Amazon's description of the book back in that other thread yesterday.)

My own neighborhood, where most of the homes were built in 1927, is too "new" to be featured in Chase's book, but has its own quirky little set of related street names: the various screets running east-to-west across Franklin Avenue are named for plants, mostly flowering shrubs: Sage, Elder, Myrtle, Acacia, Clover, Lavender, Jonquil, Gladiolus, Verbena, Jasmine, Wisteria. Another neasrby neighborhood features Arts, Music, and Painters, all parallel to each other.

One of favorite sequences of New Orleans street names occurs up in the Carrollton neighborhood, where every other street is named for a tree, and the alternate streetnames in-between are mostly surnames: Hampson, Maple, Burthe, Freret (a major crosstown thoroughfare that interrupts the pattern), then Zimple, Oak, Plum, Willow, Jeannete, Birch, Green, Hickory, Cohn, Spruce, Panola, Sycamore, Neron, Claiborne Avenue (another inerruption for a major boulevard), Nelson, Apple, Belfast, Apricot, Pritchard, Fig, Earhart, Oleander, Forshey, Olive...

If I remember correctly, I think that Chase tells us that the family names memorialize the owners of large plots of land, or plantations, that were each two blocks wide and indeterminably long. Back in the old days, these properties were laid out with relatively narrow frontages on the Mississippi River (that's the two-block width) and would extend indefinitely back into the swamps. In later times, as the city spread into formerly rural areas, the street grid was laid out to cover two blocks per plantation. The street dividing each former property in half took on the former owners' name, and the streets marking the former property lines were given the tree names.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 06:41 PM

In the Pacific Beach community of San Diego, there are streets named for gemstones, named alphabetically. Some of them get butchered regularly, even by locals; i.e., Beryl, Chalcedony and even Garnet, which is locally pronounced GarNET. In my area of town, a group of north/south streets are named for birds, beginning with Albatross, Brant, Curlew, etc. East/west streets in the same area are named for shrubs or trees; Ash, Beech, Cedar, etc. Another section, Point Loma, has famous writers and poets' names appended. The ones I loathe are the new neighborhoods where streets are named for the developer's daughter or a family pet, etc., ad nauseum, or simply fabricated from whole cloth.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Jack Campin
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 07:06 PM

Most countries have streets named after politically significant dates. I wonder if you could fill the entire calendar with them, or of any country was daft enough to declare its independence on 29 February and name a plaza after it.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 07:29 PM

In the little town of Webster, Wisconsin, all the north-south streets are named for game fish: Crappie, Perch, Walleye, Trout—then Highway 35, also known as Lakeland Ave., breaks the pattern—then Muskey (people nowadays spell the fish name "muskie," which is short for muskellunge), Sturgeon, Pike, Minnow(!), Bluegill, and Bass.

The east-west streets are named for trees: Apple, Alder, Birch, Cedar, Main (The central commercial street breaks the pattern. I wonder if it once had a different name that started with a D?), Elm, Fir, (There is no G, but the double-length blocks here suggest that they left room for a G street but never built it.) Hickory, (no I either) Juniper, Kola (I bet there are no Kola trees in Wisconsin!), Locust, Maple, (from here on they are no longer in alphabetical order—I wonder why?) Poplar, Oak, Industrial (another pattern breaker), and Willow.

There is a residential neighborhood in Edinburgh, Scotland, where, in a small area, there is Stenhouse Avenue, Stenhouse Crescent, Stenhouse Drive, Stenhouse Gardens, Stenhouse Grove, Stenhouse Place, Stenhouse Street, Stenhouse Terrace, and Stenhouse Mill Wynd. Then, adjoining this district, there is Saughton Mains Street, Saughton Mains Gardens, Saughton Mains Drive, and Saughton Mains Place. Then, a little further, there is Carrick Knowe Road, Carrick Knowe Hill, Carrick Knowe Parkway, Carrick Knowe Gardens, Carrick Knowe Drive, Carrick Knowe Avenue—it keeps going like that.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Rowan
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 08:01 PM

When Melbourne had become named as the city for the 1956 Olympics there was the usual frenzy of building; a large empty paddock in West Heidelberg was subdivided and the athletes' residences and facilities were built as the Olympic Village. This was not long after the end of WWII and it was noticed, very late in the piece and by only an astute journalist, that all the street names were battles and campaigns famous in Australia's history.

"Foine, Foine!" as was said in the Goons, but, to get from their residences to the mess hall, the German team had to walk along Bardia Crescent and the Japanese team had to walk along Kokoda Street; I forget the name of the thoroughfare the Italians had to negotiate.

The journalist protested to various authorities that this was hardly in the spirit of the Olympics and the signs were replaced with others that used the mundane "First", "Second" Streets for the duration of the Games. But, within an hour of the ending of the Closing Ceremony, the original names were back in their original places. And they're still there.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Jack Campin
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 08:39 PM

Edinburgh placenames are more confusing than that for Americans (most British cities have similar clusters so leftpondians find it easy). Americans tend to leave the qualifier off the street name (grammatically obligatory in all varieties of British English), hence the Stenhouse issue, but at least all the street called Stenhouse something-or-other are near each other.

The problem comes with a small bunch of streets called Mayfield this-or-that, which contain a lot of bed and breakfast places. The buses that go in that general direction from the city centre quite often have "Mayfield" on the destination board. But that Mayfield is a council estate 7 miles out of town with no accommodation and which no ordinary tourist would ever want to visit (despite its unique attraction as the obesity capital of Europe). I live a bit further out the other side of it, and see American tourists getting it wrong on almost every homeward bus trip at this time of year, the Edinburgh Festival season. The Mayfield they want is walking distance from the centre while the bus round trip back to the right part of town can take 3 hours.

There are others. Melville Drive and Melville Terrace are close together, but Melville Place, Melville Street and Melville Street Lane form another group a mile away, with Melville Castle (as in the song) 7 miles out of town. Other streets have multiple names. Leith Walk is the road linking Edinburgh city centre with the formerly separate town of Leith. It starts (at the end farthest from Leith) by being called Leith Street (formerly Leith Wynd, as in the song), but a few hundred yards down the hill the west side is called Haddington Place and the east side Elm Row. For about half a mile the sides of the street have different names from the street as a whole, and the points where the sides change names aren't always even opposite each other. (Leith Roads is the deep shipping channel in the Firth of Forth, a mile out to sea).

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 03:45 AM

Slightly off topic;
At the time of the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, a friend and I were hitching east and we ended up in Prague on the day the border was re-opened.
The residents had ripped down many of the street names to confuse the unwelcome guests, and left them lying around unattached.
The night before we were leaving we had a wonderful session of singing, music and Piva with some Czech students and my somewhat over-indulged friend decided to take one of the signs home as a souvenir (3 foot in length of solid cast iron).
He changed his mind when we both sobered up and tried to get it in the rucksack.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 04:17 AM

For about half a mile the sides of the street have different names from the street as a whole, and the points where the sides change names aren't always even opposite each other. (Leith Roads is the deep shipping channel in the Firth of Forth, a mile out to sea).

I felt a quiet glow of folkloric national pride as I read this - and I'm not even Scottish.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: MikeofNorthumbria
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 04:33 AM

Here in Newcastle upon Tyne we have a Percy Street (the Percy family were the original Earls of Northumberland) and a Grainger Street (Richard Grainger was a 19th century property developer who rebuilt much of central Newcastle). They are close neighbours, but they don't quite intersect. That's a pity, because if they did meet there might have been a music shop on the corner of Percy and Grainger...

Wassail!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Splott Man
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 04:46 AM

Slightly off topic (I've gone rural).

Looking on Google Earth at the area of Exmoor (SW UK) where I'm gigging tomorrow, I found these names within a mile of my destination:

Galloping Bottom Lane which leads into Windwhistle Lane. Then across the main road is Battin's Knap leading into Cording's Ball (both lanes too).
Nearby is Glassing's Rock Lane.

It's worth noting that they still retain their apostrophes - but that's a different issue.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: GUEST,Chris_Brownbridge
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 04:58 AM

Back to an earlier track - we did havea 'Gropec**t Alley" here in York, but it was bowdlerised in the 19th century to "Grape Lane" which it still is. Billy Bryson lived near here for a while and may have picked up his story from us - most of our city centre streets were given posh names in Victorian Times. We do at least still have Whipmawhopmagate though!

Floreat Eboracum!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 05:57 AM

I used to live in a street called Duke's Meadow. Meadow was about right - the land was low-lying and damp - but this was rural Wales, so there were no dukes for miles around.

Now, 'Duck' is a good old English surname, going back to the Norman Conquest on some accounts. Bear in mind also that 'bottom' meaning 'bum' or 'posterior' is a relatively recent euphemism - 'bottom' used to mean no more than the lowest part of something, & often referred to a low-lying field.

And so it came to pass that a row of houses was built on a plot of land called Duck's Bottom...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: PoppaGator
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 02:19 PM

Atlanta, Georgia, has WAY too many thoroughfares named "Peachtree" something-or-other. Just as bad as all those "Stenhouses" in Edinbugh ~ probably worse, since the various Peachtrees are not restricted to a particular neighborhood; they're all over the map.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 02:40 PM

Cardiff (Wales) has many diverse sections each with their own naming conventions.
The main thouroughfares got their names early, and usually relate to their main destination, so the main road out of Cardiff to the East is Newport Road, to the West is Cowbridge Road, to the North (from Cowbridge Road) is Llandaff Road, to the South is a bit wet as Cardiff's a port!
In Canton, beyond Llandaff Road, the side roads to the South take their names from English counties, to the North, from Welsh counties.
In Splott (yes, there really is such a place) you get:
Metals, Metal St. Gold St. Silver St. Tin Street. etc
Precious stones, Pearl St, Ruby St, Topaz St, Sapphire St.
In Riverside (From Cardiff General station to the marshalling yards in Canton) you have famous engineers:
Trevithick St, Stephenson St. Wells St Brunel St etc.
Off Cathedral Road (a newer main thoroughfare leading from the city centre to ... the Cathedral) the streets on the side nearest the river take their names from Welsh saints, Teilo, Dogo, Berthwyn, Dyfrig,
Even a new estate from the end of the 20th century (Danescourt) takes its street names from the past Bishops of Llandaff

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 02:55 PM

I would think the hardest place to navigate would be Honolulu. How'd you like to follow directions like this?

"If you're coming from the south on Kalakaua, take a left on Kapiolani and then a right Kalauokalani, then a left on Makaloa….On the other hand, if you're coming from the north on Kalakaua, take a right on Kanunu…."

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: PoppaGator
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 03:01 PM

If I had the good fortune to be in Hawaii, I'd learn to adjust to the language difficulties...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 03:17 PM

There is a road near Ruislip, far west of London, called 'Fine Bush Lane'.. I've often wondered, if I won the lottery, would I be given planning permission to build my house there.... and call it 'Beaver's Dam'....?

LTS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Joe_F
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 08:25 PM

The Back Bay section of Boston, MA, also has an alphabetical scheme: Arlington, Berkeley, Clarendon, Dartmouth, Exeter, Fairfield, Gloucester, Hereford, Mass. Av. (well, that's the end of it). What is more, they are parallel -- a thing to be wondered at in Boston.

Bare letters are also used in Washington, except that I Street is usually respelled Eye.

In Hell -- well, I had better not record my speculations here.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Escapee
Date: 09 Aug 08 - 02:22 AM

Perrysburg, Ohio, USA has three streets named Boundary. We have East, West and South Boundaries. South Boundary is further clarified by East Boundary and West Boundary. All the streets in the old section of town are designated East or West of the main drag. This is needed because all the East-West streets are numbered both ways from Louisiana Avenue, the aforementioned main drag, and so we have a 100 block of East Third Street and a 100 block of West Third Street. This puzzled me when I moved here until I learned that Perrysburg is the only city besides Washington DC that was laid out by the Federal government.
Nearby Toledo is frequently said to have the highest numbered street in the country. I think it's 235th or so, but I don't get out to that neighborhood much.
Fair winds and plain sailing,
SKP

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Rowan
Date: 09 Aug 08 - 02:34 AM

In the urban-rural interface outside the wilds of Adelaide was an unsealed road that went by the name of "Bogaduck Rd"; the rationale for the name seemed obvious. It became famous as the name of one of Adelaide's first bush bands; the Bogaduck Bush Band.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Jon Bartlett
Date: 09 Aug 08 - 02:45 AM

Does anyone know where Green Dolphin Street is?

Jon Bartlett

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: greg stephens
Date: 09 Aug 08 - 06:53 AM

I fancy it was fictitious, but I expewct someone will prove me wrong. Anyway, I first sighted it as a book by Elizabeth Goudge, and it was subsequently a movie and a jazz tune. I think it recently became a book again by some famous modern novelist whose name escapes me.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: greg stephens
Date: 09 Aug 08 - 07:00 AM

I did a little googling. Actually, it must be fictitious. The original novel was actually called Green Dolphin County, and the movie was renamed Green Dolphin Street. The famous Miles Davis record was of the title song of the movie. So there you go.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 10 Aug 08 - 11:49 PM

Escapee, Toledo may have the highest numbered street in the country, but if it does, it has to be considerably higher than 235. The nearest subway stop to my parents' place in the Bronx was 238th Street, and there are other stops in the system up to 261st. The numbers might even continue into Yonkers, I'm not sure.

Some more Sydney suburbs: Raby has streets named Kittyhawk, Liberator, Beechcraft, Sopwith, Spitfire, Lockheed, DeHaviland, etc. Also Cinnabar, Saltpetre, Pyrite, Gypsum, Lodestone, Granite, Feldspar, Graphite, Fluorite, Bauxite, Lignite, Zeolite, Tourmaline, Chalcedony, Malachite, Silica, etc., etc. A small development in Hinchinbrook has Antares, Capella, Centaurus, Carina, Pegasus, Altair, Vega, and more. Similarly, Erskine Park has Aquarius, Spica, Taurus, Regulus, Leo, Canopus, Pisces, Hydra, Capella, Cepheus, Aries and more.

There are a couple of Sydney suburbs where the streets are named after composers.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 12:37 AM

Well, I lived off 244th Street in Los Angeles County, and I thought that was pretty high. It goes up to at least 266th Street in that area, before it goes down to small numbers in San Pedro.
I thought I'd see what Google could find for me. I gave up on this one, 2075th Avenue, near the town of West York, Illinois.
This map will show you some of those high-roller locations...

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 02:35 AM

We have an estate near us known at 'The Poet's Estate' as the streets are named for Wordsworth, Shelley, Byron, Shakespeare, Keats and Coleridge. Most of the people in them wouldn't know a Wordsworth poem if it ate their daffodils.

LTS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 09:33 AM

Is anyone here familiar with the street naming system they use in Salt Lake City (and perhaps some other Utah cities)?

I've encountered weird addresses in SLC, and I could probably figure it out by looking at a map, but someone who has actually lived there might do a better job of explaining it.

(A large part of my career has been working with mailing lists.)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 07:46 PM

Concerning Salt Lake City, I found this:

The highest numbered street almost has to be in metro Salt Lake City,
where addresses take the form "2800 West 30800 North" (and 30800 North
is the street name). In any other place, that street would be called
308th St. if it were numbered at all. That numbering system extends
into most (all?) of SLC's suburbs, but I don't know what the highest
numbered street is, only that it's at least five digits.

It's in a discussion of high numbered streets which you may be able to find at http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Misc/misc.transport.road/2005-08/msg02352.html

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 04:16 AM

So if the streets are numbered, how the hell are the individual houses indicated? Us geographically challenged and numerically dsylexic people have enough trouble finding houses as it is!

LTS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 04:27 AM

and don't forget the extra trouble caused by missing street names. It's chronic here in Sydney, as is also lack of numbers on houses & gates.

This means we sometimes get stories or letters to the editor about the difficulties delivery folks, or emergency services have in finding addresses.

sandra

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 04:43 AM

Bunker's Hill from the American Revolutionary wars is a fairly common name for C18th building in the UK. The battle was an empty victory for the British as so many lives were lost. Folklore has it that flushed with success builders named their current project after the battle before the true price of it became known. I lived in a Bunker's Hill row in the 80's for a time without a single foot of elevated ground worth the name.

The Zulu wars also provided inspiration for street names with staid, middle class rows of English semis entitled after exotic African locales. There's a Kaffir Road not far away, a word every bit as derogatory as the N word today.

My favourite local road names are 'Solid' (not Solid Road, Lane or Ave., just Solid) and 'Hill' (likewise).

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: Newport Boy
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 01:30 PM

I'd forgotten one-syllable names - my favourite is "Cher" in Minehead.

Phil

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: lady penelope
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 04:11 AM

I've been tickled by the group of roads on an estate that I reckon was built post WWII, in Hornchurch, in Essex. They are all names of horse racing tracks.

Ascot
Goodwood
Chepstow
Newmarket
Kempton
Haydock
Epsom
Derby
Newbury
Doncaster

I often wonder how these choices are arrived at....

Subject: RE: Folklore: Street names
From: sian, west wales
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 05:22 AM

I live in Carmarthen which some believe is the oldest town in Wales (Cardiff = wet-behind-the-ears upstart) so, although I live in quite a new building (1785 ish) there's a lot of 'built heritage' about. Street names are ... interesting, often because there was a drive to rename all the streets in Welsh some decades ago. The compromise was to have bilingual street signs, with the names being straight translations UNLESS there was historic evidence to show that there were different English and Welsh names previously in use.

So ...

I live one block over from one of the main streets which is Heol Awst in Welsh and Lammas Street in English; rather than do a lot of cut-and-paste I direct my learned friends to look up Lammas in Wikipedia. (I can't believe I just said that! Wikipedia!)

My own street has two completely different names: St Catherine Street and Heol y Gwyddau. The English refers to a medieval chapel and mill which used to be just behind my property. The Welsh is curious. People - including town councillors - get confused between gw^ydd (goose) and gwy^dd (loom). Unfortunately they used the former when they should have used the latter. This should be the Street of the Looms because the terrace houses on my side of the street used to all be weavers' cottages; my own house, a mill, grew from one cottager's ambitions and was a weaving mill rather than a grain mill. The Town Fathers can be somewhat excused for the mistake because there IS a small lane at the end of this street called Goose Lane, being the lane in which they used to 'shoe' geese.

In the block between me and Goose Lane there is an old cemetary where, rumour has it, they dumped all the bodies during The Plague.

Although I can be quite vitriolic about local town planners I will give them some credit for encouraging SOME developers to keep local heritage in mind when naming things. A small section of the town centre was developed a few years ago resulting in a new pedestrianized street running down towards the old site of a monastery; the developers called it Greyfriars Court / Cwrt y Brodyr Llwydion. Of course, those same town planners allowed Tesco to build a supermarket on the actual site of the monastery so ...

Nigel, isn't there a section of streets in Cardiff - sort of above the Univ. campus - named after The Colonies? I seem to recall a Newfoundland street???

And speaking of the Colonies, in my home town of Port Colborne they decided to give names to the back lanes in the old part of town - the shared lanes that run along the back of properties facing two different streets. As Port C is divided by the Welland Canal, they've named them all with names reflecting the port/canal heritage. One of them is Top Hat Lane, referring to the practice of giving a top hat to the first captain to take his ship through the canal in the spring. Nice.

sian