|
|
|
|
|
by galago
81 days ago
|
|
In Northwest Portlnd, Oregon the East-west streets were originally letters. A st, B st, C st, etc. They were renamed after people but they kept the first letter, so now its Ankeny, Burnside, Couch, Davis, Everett, Flanders, Gleason, Hoyt, Irving, Johnson... They get to have it both ways, and they could be renamed if there was a desire to do so without impeding the general purpose. (One of my joking tests to see if someone is a True Portlander is if they can get up to Marshall, Northrup, Overton, etc.) |
|
(Interestingly, Avenue Q was renamed Quentin Road to avoid confusion with Avenue O.)
Either way, lettered or named in alphabetical order, I appreciate the lettered/numbered combination. It's a good mix of character and practicality, and it sounds good when you say it out loud ("It's at E 14th and K"). The doubly numbered intersections of Queens always drive me nuts.
A final sidenote: some real estate developers in the early 20th century decided to rename sections of E 11th through 16th from Prospect Park South down through West Midwood to fancy-sounding anglicized names like Stratford, Westminster, Argyle, Rugby, and Marlborough (the SWARM backronym here is useful) so they could make more money selling homes on those streets. It worked. Yet another example of nefarious street naming...