What should street names without a street be called?

[roadman65]

We all have either seen or heard about street names given out to allow an apartment complex or office park to have a valid address as well as a better way for emergency responders to locate a given place during a call.

Instead of using the actual road the development is on to give it a valid address, a made up name is given to the place for an address both the the post office and first responders.

A good example is the Westgate Lakes Resort on Turkey Lake Road in Orlando.  Part of it was the former Sonesta Resort that used 10,000 Turkey Lake Road as its mailing address, but when the mogul David Segal decided to make more of his timeshare units and transform the nice villa resort into his complex of rent a week buildings, street names were made up (most likely by Segal himself, but that is another thread on a non road forum) that do not have an actual linear line of pavement, but registered on paper instead such as Westgate Lakes Lakes Boulevard and Orange Gate Drive.

True Google shows the parking lots of the resort in its maps and satellite views for the parking lots in between his cluster of buildings, but in reality they are just his parking lot for the units.

Now this is not to debate the validity of the pavements or whether its a road or not, but to ask what should they be called in our own road geek world. 

[roadman]

A common example of this practice is giving a shopping mall their own street name (Independence Mall Way, Solomon Pond Mall Road to name two examples in MA).  This is typically used to circumvent FHWA and DOT restrictions on signing for shopping malls from freeways.

[kurumi]

Vanity addressing ("One Pioneer Place" when the real address would be something like 162 Johnson Street) has been a practice for years:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-12-29/vanity-addresses-like-432-park-avenue-add-confusion-to-city-navigation

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/22/realestate/how-builders-invent-vanity-addresses.html

[jwolfer]

Where i did my undergrad.. University of North Florida... Adress was 4567 St. Johns Bluff Rd S. Jax FL 32224.. On campus apartments address was 11800 UNF Dr apt #... In the jacksonville address grid

The campus is surrounded by nature preserve

St. Johns Bluff Rd was upgraded to i295 by the campus ... So now mailing adress for college is
1 UNF Dr



LGMS428

[mapman1071]

Walk, Mall, Path, Trail, Steps

[empirestate]

Yes, "vanity addressing" is the name for this practice. So I guess, when it involves creating a fictitious thoroughfare of some kind, we can call those "vanity paths" (similar to "desire paths" that get trodden into the dirt between official trails and walkways). Or "vanity ways", maybe.

[sparker]

Yes, "vanity addressing" is the name for this practice. So I guess, when it involves creating a fictitious thoroughfare of some kind, we can call those "vanity paths" (similar to "desire paths" that get trodden into the dirt between official trails and walkways). Or "vanity ways", maybe.

When I was working for a warehousing/logistics company, one of their functions was to deliver client product and/or paperwork to various sites -- and (this was pre-widespread GPS usage) the coordinators (myself included), dispatchers, and drivers uniformly despised vanity addresses -- primarily because they broke the grid(s) so faithfully followed by the Thomas Guides; it was not only problematic to locate the complexes with such addresses, but once in them, numbering of buildings and even individual offices was often random.  The company ended up budgeting an extra 20 minutes for delivery to any vanity address! 

[kphoger]

Yes, "vanity addressing" is the name for this practice. So I guess, when it involves creating a fictitious thoroughfare of some kind, we can call those "vanity paths" (similar to "desire paths" that get trodden into the dirt between official trails and walkways). Or "vanity ways", maybe.

When I was working for a warehousing/logistics company, one of their functions was to deliver client product and/or paperwork to various sites -- and (this was pre-widespread GPS usage) the coordinators (myself included), dispatchers, and drivers uniformly despised vanity addresses -- primarily because they broke the grid(s) so faithfully followed by the Thomas Guides; it was not only problematic to locate the complexes with such addresses, but once in them, numbering of buildings and even individual offices was often random.  The company ended up budgeting an extra 20 minutes for delivery to any vanity address! 

The town becomes one huge trailer park!

[MNHighwayMan]

Yes, "vanity addressing" is the name for this practice. So I guess, when it involves creating a fictitious thoroughfare of some kind, we can call those "vanity paths" (similar to "desire paths" that get trodden into the dirt between official trails and walkways). Or "vanity ways", maybe.

When I was working for a warehousing/logistics company, one of their functions was to deliver client product and/or paperwork to various sites -- and (this was pre-widespread GPS usage) the coordinators (myself included), dispatchers, and drivers uniformly despised vanity addresses -- primarily because they broke the grid(s) so faithfully followed by the Thomas Guides; it was not only problematic to locate the complexes with such addresses, but once in them, numbering of buildings and even individual offices was often random.  The company ended up budgeting an extra 20 minutes for delivery to any vanity address! 

The town becomes one huge trailer park!

Sometimes the whole town actually is one giant trailer park!

[bing101]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Loop_(street)

The most famous vanity street in the world is One Infinite Loop. It's the Apple Complex in Cupertino.

[jeffandnicole]

The Atlantic City Boardwalk is officially a street.  Addresses simply use Boardwalk. 

[empirestate]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Loop_(street)

The most famous vanity street in the world is One Infinite Loop. It's the Apple Complex in Cupertino.

Oh, but there's an actual street there, even if it's privately built or maintained. The OP's example was similarly debatable, by his own admission, but I think the spirit here is looking for "street" names that don't have an obvious matching physical entity. One of the examples given upthread is Penn Plaza in New York: there's no actual plaza by that name, it's just a group of buildings across several city blocks. Yet at least a couple of the buildings there have Penn Plaza as their official address, and several others unofficially so. (There's an open public space within the complex called Penn Plaza Park, but it's a component of the larger "plaza" and is not unto itself Penn Plaza.)

A similar, better-known case is Rockefeller Plaza, although in that case there is an actual (pedestrian-only) street by that name. Still, several of the buildings with addresses on it, such as 30 Rock[efeller Plaza], also have more official addresses on adjoining streets. (One of which is Avenue of the Americas, leading to a different discussion as to whether such a street actually exists...)

[slorydn1]

We usually use Drive or Place as a suffix for situations that the OP is talking about here in New Bern.

[michravera]

Walk, Mall, Path, Trail, Steps

I would vote for "Walk" for anything remotely flat and maybe "Steps" for something that is seriously inclined. "Path", "Trail", and "Mall" are all often used for routes that carry vehicular traffic.

"Gate", "Suite", "Lot", "Plaza" and "Square" can be used to distinguish addresses within a larger development. "218 Complex Back Gate", "1912 Grason Lot",

[DandyDan]

The Omaha area has many apartment addresses which follow the Omaha street grid, only instead of being on x Street, it's on x Plaza.

[mapman1071]

Walk, Mall, Path, Trail, Steps

I would vote for "Walk" for anything remotely flat and maybe "Steps" for something that is seriously inclined. "Path", "Trail", and "Mall" are all often used for routes that carry vehicular traffic.

"Gate", "Suite", "Lot", "Plaza" and "Square" can be used to distinguish addresses within a larger development. "218 Complex Back Gate", "1912 Grason Lot",

Walk & Mall are used for Ped Walkways on 2 of the 4 Arizona State University Campuses and use the names of streets in alignment Example: College Avenue/College Walk on the Tempe Campus

[SP Cook]

The oldest part of Charleston, WV has several things designated as "Walk" which are just that.  Public "streets" too narrow to actually drive upon which have houses abuting them on both sides, which thus makes a valid address.   

[Rothman]

Aren't the stair streets in San Francisco just called "[Name] Street"?