Inconsistent Street Names in NY

[DRT]

OK - so this is scraping the bottom of the barrel of MD but here goes...

• Colheitathon
  Julian, Eric, Jay, Jeff, Steph, Renée;
  6¾pm Thursday 3rd January 2008;
  The Palm, 250 West 50th Street at Eighth Avenue, NY 10019-6743.

Why not:

• 50th Street at 8th Avenue or
• Fiftieth Street at Eighth Avenue

The had a blank canvas to work with when they handed the beans over to the natives. Why the inconsistency?

Derek

PS: Apologies to Jdaw for the use of the wrong type of f in the word Fiftieth

[jdaw1]

OK - so this is scraping the bottom of the barrel of MD but here goes...

• Colheitathon
  Julian, Eric, Jay, Jeff, Steph, Renée;
  6¾pm Thursday 3rd January 2008;
  The Palm, 250 West 50th Street at Eighth Avenue, NY 10019-6743.

Why not:

• 50th Street at 8th Avenue or
• Fiftieth Street at Eighth Avenue

The had a blank canvas to work with when they handed the beans over to the natives. Why the inconsistency?

Streets go to much higher numbers, so are written with digits. Avenues go as high as Eleventh—I think—so can sensible be written with words. However, the Avenue words are often, and not obviously incorrectly, abbreviated to digits.

The postal address is properly written as just “250 West 50th Street†, but the extra “at Eighth Avenue† seems to be the convention for those needing directions.

The ZIP code is written by natives as only the five digits, but the nine-digit code goes well into online mapping programs, so I added the whole thing.

[jdaw1]

PS: Apologies to Jdaw for the use of the wrong type of f in the word Fiftieth

Wrong apology. Capital F then i is written “Fi†, as you had it. Lower case f then i causes the overhang of the f to collide with the dot of the i (“fi†), especially in compact seriphed typefaces such as Times and its new variants, so the combined character “fi† is correctly used.

[KillerB]

OK, what about Madison? Explain that one, Fifi.

[g-man]

Madison I believe stemmed from Madison Sq. Park on 23rd street, named after our 4th president James Madison according to wiki

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

What annoys me is the order of the avenues in mid town

1st avenue,
2nd avenue
3rd avenue,
Lexington Ave,
Madison Ave,
Park Ave,
5th Ave,
6th Ave, or now known as Avenue of the Americas,
Broadway,
7th Ave,
8th Ave,
9th Ave,
10th Ave,
11th Ave.

But I'm off track here. The reason why it's West 50th is because the restaurant sits towards the west end ON 50th street which happens to be AT 8th Avenue.

If you were to go east of 6th avenue, 50th street then becomes East 50th =).[/url]

[jdaw1]

Some errors in Jeff’s list:

• First Avenue
• Second Avenue
• Third Avenue
• Lexington Avenue
• Park Avenue
• Madison Avenue
• Fifth Avenue
• Sixth Avenue, aka Avenue of The Americas
• Seventh Avenue
• Eighth Avenue (becomes Central Park West above 59th Street)
• Ninth Avenue (becomes Columbus Avenue above 59th Street)
• Tenth Avenue (becomes Amsterdam Avenue above 59th Street)
• Eleventh Avenue (becomes West End Avenue above 59th Street)
• Twelfth Avenue (also has other names)

Broadway runs diagonally, so appears in different places in this list at different latitudes.

[DRT]

So at what point does the number become too high to express as a word?

...and what is the official version of each street name? i.e. how they appear on street signs and in the telephone directory?

Derek

PS: I knew this thread had legs

[jdaw1]

Avenues only go to twelve, so can be expressed as words. Streets go to the two-hundreds, so are expressed as digits.

[DRT]

Avenues only go to twelve, so can be expressed as words. Streets go to the two-hundreds, so are expressed as digits.

Even when the Street is <13?

[jdaw1]

Even when the Street is <13?

Yes. At least from 4 upwards: I think that streets below that are part of Greenwich, so have arty names.

[DRT]

Even when the Street is <13?

Yes. At least from 4 upwards: I think that streets below that are part of Greenwich, so have arty names.

Would that be

• Picasso Street
• Van Gough Street
• Post Modernist Street
• Still Life Street

...or something similar?

[jdaw1]

• Van Gough Street

You meant, of course, Van Gogh.

[g-man]

and the avenues begin to go into alphabets.

Avenue A
Avenue B
Avenue C

the area is lovingly called alphabet city.

[KillerB]

• Van Gough Street

You meant, of course, Van Gogh.

He's obviously thinking of Darren van Gough.

[DRT]

• Van Gough Street

You meant, of course, Van Gogh.

He's obviously thinking of Darren van Gough.

Precisely.