What are your cities zero points? does anyone live in a city with bizarre ones? I used to live in indianapolis, and their's are straight forward, rockville and washington street for N/S and meridian for E/W. I live in carmel now and main st is the N/S and rangeline is E/W for it's downtown area, but outside of the 31 keystone wishbone (and south of 116th st), it changes to the indy system. What's interesting is that there's so such thing as south in hamilton county because of this. does anyone live in a city with weird zero points?
Bronx and Queens have no Zero points, not sure about Brooklyn or Staten Island. Houston St is N-S in Manhattan. E-W is 4 Ave.
XT1254
Central Ave is unusual in Phoenix given that it total breaks the 8 Streets/Avenues per mile up. The western Avenues jump from 7th, 19th, 27th, 35th, 43rd, ect to the 8 per mile format while east with Streets it is 7th, 16th, 24th, 32nd, 40th, ect. So not unusual in that the name point is logical for a start point but its weird how the grid has to bow out slightly for everything to fit in the expanded city. Even stranger the Avenue continue well into the 300s westward but they start over eastward in Mesa. The east/west roads seems to be Van Buren Street which makes sense given the previous status as four US Routes. The mile distance between the major named east/west roads is generally a mile from the get go.
Technically, the "zero point" for Minneapolis is where Hennepin Ave crosses the Mississippi.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on December 13, 2016, 07:45:26 AM
Central Ave is unusual in Phoenix given that it total breaks the 8 Streets/Avenues per mile up. The western Avenues jump from 7th, 19th, 27th, 35th, 43rd, ect to the 8 per mile format while east with Streets it is 7th, 16th, 24th, 32nd, 40th, ect. So not unusual in that the name point is logical for a start point but its weird how the grid has to bow out slightly for everything to fit in the expanded city. Even stranger the Avenue continue well into the 300s westward but they start over eastward in Mesa. The east/west roads seems to be Van Buren Street which makes sense given the previous status as four US Routes. The mile distance between the major named east/west roads is generally a mile from the get go.
Indy has a nice system for the numbered streets, 10 blocks per mile, so every 10 numbered streets should equal a mile. so you can do some simple math to estimate how many miles away you are. also, i thought NYC had just one zero point, interesting that they don't.
Chicago is easy--State and Madison...perhaps one of the most well-known zero points. This leaves hardly any addresses with "E" in them, since State is rather close to Lake Michigan. The zero point is in the heart of downtown, so it works rather well.
Aurora, Illinois's is rather interesting, so I'll share a bit about it. Aurora on a map looks like just your average landlocked river town. But the center of downtown is actually on an island! The island is Stolp Island, and it's home to a single north-south street, aptly named Stolp Ave. The zero point is located at the junction of Stolp Ave and Galena Blvd, one of the major east-west streets that used to carry US30 IIRC. The zero point is on the island, so if you go north and South of Stolp Island, the prime meridian of Aurora addresses is assumed to be the Fox River.
Map for reference:
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.7580946,-88.3148505,18z
Quote from: silverback1065 on December 13, 2016, 09:34:04 AM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on December 13, 2016, 07:45:26 AM
Central Ave is unusual in Phoenix given that it total breaks the 8 Streets/Avenues per mile up. The western Avenues jump from 7th, 19th, 27th, 35th, 43rd, ect to the 8 per mile format while east with Streets it is 7th, 16th, 24th, 32nd, 40th, ect. So not unusual in that the name point is logical for a start point but its weird how the grid has to bow out slightly for everything to fit in the expanded city. Even stranger the Avenue continue well into the 300s westward but they start over eastward in Mesa. The east/west roads seems to be Van Buren Street which makes sense given the previous status as four US Routes. The mile distance between the major named east/west roads is generally a mile from the get go.
Indy has a nice system for the numbered streets, 10 blocks per mile, so every 10 numbered streets should equal a mile. so you can do some simple math to estimate how many miles away you are. also, i thought NYC had just one zero point, interesting that they don't.
Manhattan has the only zero point I know, and it also applies to the Bronx, sort of. The street grid sort of continues, but it's skewed, and the streets don't match up: 149 st in the Bronx crosses the Harlem River and becomes 145 St in Manhattan, 161 turns into 155 St, etc. Queens zero point would be in The East River. The lowest streets are 20 Ave and 18 St in Astoria, and the grid expands east and south from there. Brooklyn is weird. Part of it has numbers corresponding to numbered streets. Staten Island is sort of random.
XT1254
Quote from: Otto Yamamoto on December 13, 2016, 09:59:37 AM
Quote from: silverback1065 on December 13, 2016, 09:34:04 AM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on December 13, 2016, 07:45:26 AM
Central Ave is unusual in Phoenix given that it total breaks the 8 Streets/Avenues per mile up. The western Avenues jump from 7th, 19th, 27th, 35th, 43rd, ect to the 8 per mile format while east with Streets it is 7th, 16th, 24th, 32nd, 40th, ect. So not unusual in that the name point is logical for a start point but its weird how the grid has to bow out slightly for everything to fit in the expanded city. Even stranger the Avenue continue well into the 300s westward but they start over eastward in Mesa. The east/west roads seems to be Van Buren Street which makes sense given the previous status as four US Routes. The mile distance between the major named east/west roads is generally a mile from the get go.
Indy has a nice system for the numbered streets, 10 blocks per mile, so every 10 numbered streets should equal a mile. so you can do some simple math to estimate how many miles away you are. also, i thought NYC had just one zero point, interesting that they don't.
Manhattan has the only zero point I know, and it also applies to the Bronx, sort of. The street grid sort of continues, but it's skewed, and the streets don't match up: 149 st in the Bronx crosses the Harlem River and becomes 145 St in Manhattan, 161 turns into 155 St, etc. Queens zero point would be in The East River. The lowest streets are 20 Ave and 18 St in Astoria, and the grid expands east and south from there. Brooklyn is weird. Part of it has numbers corresponding to numbered streets. Staten Island is sort of random.
XT1254
isn't jerome ave in the bronx a zero point? i thought i heard this somewhere.
Most of this area is the water, but there are variations and that's not always the case. For instance, the end of the two wharves in Monterey are the 0 points for their streets (Alvarado and Figueroa), even though the businesses on the wharves don't use the streets for their addresses.
Then there's Canyon del Rey, a state highway that shoots out almost directly perpendicular to the bay. However, its 0 point is actually past its inland terminus. At the terminus, at Highway 68, it's only at the 400 or 500 block.
For its streets parallel to the water, Pacific Grove uses its eastern boundary with Monterey, at David Avenue, for the 0 point. That makes sense, since most of the streets either begin, shift or change names there.
In Tucson, the 0 point is definitively at Stone and Broadway. The grid is supposed to be major streets every mile, but it doesn't measure to a mile closer to town, staying around 25' under at its half-mile points. The Tucson grid was also supposed to run in cardinal directions, but an early surveying error shifted this clockwise a couple of degrees, and the grid has just been built on that.
All of Louisville is a zero point! :-D
In Philadelphia, it's Market St at the Delaware River.
Isn't the zero point in Washington, DC the Capitol?
Davenport's is River Dr and Brady St, right in the heart of downtown. Further west, 1st St divides north and south.
For the other four Quad Cities, the "zero" point is the corner between the west boundary and the Mississippi River. In Rock Island, the river bends, so it looks like they just took a guess for where 1st St should go.
Quote from: paulthemapguy on December 13, 2016, 09:37:10 AM
Aurora, Illinois's is rather interesting, so I'll share a bit about it. Aurora on a map looks like just your average landlocked river town. But the center of downtown is actually on an island! The island is Stolp Island, and it's home to a single north-south street, aptly named Stolp Ave. The zero point is located at the junction of Stolp Ave and Galena Blvd, one of the major east-west streets that used to carry US30 IIRC. The zero point is on the island, so if you go north and South of Stolp Island, the prime meridian of Aurora addresses is assumed to be the Fox River.
That sounds a lot like Cedar Rapids. The "zero" point where 1st Ave crosses the island in the Cedar River.
Quote from: Rothman on December 13, 2016, 10:28:48 AM
Isn't the zero point in Washington, DC the Capitol?
Correct.
Columbus, Ohio is the intersection of Broad and High Streets.
Zero in Troy is an effed-up thing. A lot of streets have nothing defined, but here's a few:
- East-West streets are the Hudson River. That one's easy.
- 1st-4th Streets have zero at River Street and increase heading SOUTH.
- 5th-7th Avenues are undefined, but increase NORTH. 6th Avenue starts at 1520 at Ferry Street, for example.
- 8th-15th Streets have zero at Congress Street, increasing NORTH
- All north-south streets re-zero at 101st Street and increase heading NORTH
Quote from: odditude on December 13, 2016, 10:25:08 AM
In Philadelphia, it's Market St at the Delaware River.
Isn't it at Market and Front Streets?
Joliet is very straightforward. Washington & Jefferson Streets (US-52) for north/south, and Chicago Street (IL-53, US-6, US-52) for east/west.
Quote from: Chris19001 on December 13, 2016, 01:05:56 PM
Quote from: odditude on December 13, 2016, 10:25:08 AM
In Philadelphia, it's Market St at the Delaware River.
Isn't it at Market and Front Streets?
Yep. The Delaware River isn't a street, and the closest road to the river, Delaware Ave aka Columbus Blvd, isn't part of the 'numbered' grid. Front Street would be 1st Ave if it was numbered.
The zero point in New Albany is State Street and the Ohio River. State Street divides E/W addresses. There is no N/S. Everything just counts upwards from the river.
Similarly in Jeffersonville, the zero point is Spring Street and the river, with no N/S but rather addresses that count up from the river.
Dayton, Ohio's is Main St. & 3rd St. Looks like Vine St. is the east/west divider for Cincinnati, but no N/S divider. Everything goes upward starting at the river.
Quote from: silverback1065 on December 13, 2016, 10:04:34 AM
isn't jerome ave in the bronx a zero point? i thought i heard this somewhere.
Yes, Jerome Ave in The Bronx is the border between east and west and addresses on E-W streets count up from there. It continues the role of 5th Ave, which is the border between east and west in Manhattan.
Quote from: Otto Yamamoto on December 13, 2016, 09:59:37 AM
Queens zero point would be in The East River. The lowest streets are 20 Ave and 18 St in Astoria, and the grid expands east and south from there.
That's the intersection in the NW corner of Astoria, but lower numbered streets and avenues both exist. The lowest numbered street is 1st Street, which is in Hallets Point near Astoria Houses. The lowest numbered avenue is 2nd Ave, which runs for a few blocks in Whitestone. I don't know why there isn't a 1st Ave, there isn't a logical place for one.
The other quirk of this is that due to how numbers are assigned, there is no 6th St, 7th St, 15th, 16th, or 17th Streets in Queens. There probably are some numbers higher up that are skipped completely as well. Queens has grid numbering on what is not at all a consistent grid.
As for Staten Island, it's not "random", it follows the method of assigning addresses that is typical in the northeast: rather than picking a consistent baseline and referencing everything back to that, each individual street has address numbers which start at 0 at one end of the street, wherever it may be.
Quote from: cabiness42 on December 13, 2016, 02:26:37 PM
The zero point in New Albany is State Street and the Ohio River. State Street divides E/W addresses. There is no N/S. Everything just counts upwards from the river.
Similarly in Jeffersonville, the zero point is Spring Street and the river, with no N/S but rather addresses that count up from the river.
interesting, i never realized that.
indy is also weird because the numbered streets start at 7th st and end with (the county line and northern city boarder is 96th st, after that Hamilton county continues with the same grid) 296th, but i don't think there has ever been a 1st through 6th street in the city.
Duluth's is Lake Avenue and Michigan Street. The only unique thing about this is that those two streets don't intersect anymore. They were grade-separated as part of Lake's adjacent interchange with I-35.
Louisville's is pretty straightforward, at the intersection of Main and First. Main is pretty close to the river downtown, so you have to get away from downtown before you get much in the way of "North" streets.
Main Street ends on the east edge of downtown. From there the N/S 0 line follows Frankfort Avenue and Shelbyville Road.
Most around here are pretty straightforward with the possible exception of Parsons. It has a normal-enough north-south line, Main Street. But it's east-west zero point is skewed way off to the east because at the time First Street was the city limit. So addresses on Main Street itself are just "Main St." west of First but "East Main St." east of First. 18th St. is actually the street that would be a logical east-west line if Parsons' system was normal.
I think Iola's zero point is dead center of the town square, which would make it in the middle of the Allen County Courthouse.
Quote from: Rothman on December 13, 2016, 10:28:48 AM
Isn't the zero point in Washington, DC the Capitol?
No, for another five weeks, it's the White House. :-D :-D :-D :-D
Wichita has no zero point. The corner of Douglas and main separates N/S and E/W, but numbers start at 100 from that point. That is to say, by crossing Douglas you move from the 100 North block to the 100 South block. This has the interesting effect of making 1st Street the 200 line, 2nd Street the 300 line, and so forth.
When we say "zero point," are we talking about where addresses start at zero or where street numbers start at zero?
Quote from: dgolub on December 13, 2016, 06:57:57 PM
When we say "zero point," are we talking about where addresses start at zero or where street numbers start at zero?
east/west north/south dividing line of your city
Quote from: hbelkins on December 13, 2016, 04:22:45 PM
Quote from: Rothman on December 13, 2016, 10:28:48 AM
Isn't the zero point in Washington, DC the Capitol?
No, for another five weeks, it's the White House. :-D :-D :-D :-D
Sportsmanship, how does that work? I know I sure appreciate your boy clogging up 5 Ave.
XT1254
Quote from: silverback1065 on December 13, 2016, 06:59:38 PM
Quote from: dgolub on December 13, 2016, 06:57:57 PM
When we say "zero point," are we talking about where addresses start at zero or where street numbers start at zero?
east/west north/south dividing line of your city
Then why didn't you say that? At least in New England and eastern parts of New York excluding Manhattan and the Bronx, that's a pretty foreign concept. I can only think of a couple of places that have multiple N/S/E/W streets.
Baltimore is Baltimore and Charles Streets
Quote from: Rothman on December 13, 2016, 10:28:48 AM
Isn't the zero point in Washington, DC, the Capitol?
Yes. There is a "Zero Milestone" on the Ellipse that was intended to be the point from which distances across the country were calculated, I believe based on something similar in ancient Rome. Obviously that didn't work out too well, but the marker is still easy to visit if you're willing to walk to it (it's next to the part of E Street the Secret Service blocked off in 2001).
^ The "Zero Milestone" does exist in DC, but that isn't the point of the OP's post, which appears to be where street numbers and/or address numbers begin at zero in a given city. For DC, that is very much the U.S. Capitol building.
Huntsville, AL's North/South and East/West dividing lines intersect at Clinton Avenue & Jefferson Street, but I don't believe it's quite a "true zero point", as the block numbers start in the 100s from the dividing lines:
https://www.google.com/maps/@34.7312617,-86.5865515,3a,60y,56.64h,90.36t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sy0AQ83shAaQ0iiYGNbZEBQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en&authuser=0
Elkhart's N/S line is Jackson Blvd (east side/downtown) and Strong Ave (west side), and its E/W line is Main St (north side/downtown) and Prairie St (south side), but the addresses start at 100 (e.g. Johnson St is eight blocks east of N Main St, but is 900 E, or W Beardsley Ave is 7 blocks north of Strong Ave, but is 800 N.) W Indiana Ave. is 14 blocks south of Strong Ave, but is 1500 S, S Nappanee St is 20 blocks west of Prairie St, but is 2100 W, etc.) So CR 17 is 52 blocks east of the dividing line, but is 5300 E. Ok, enough examples. I think you get the point.
Quote from: froggie on December 13, 2016, 09:45:33 PM
^ The "Zero Milestone" does exist in DC, but that isn't the point of the OP's post, which appears to be where street numbers and/or address numbers begin at zero in a given city. For DC, that is very much the U.S. Capitol building.
I am well aware of that.
o wow, i didn't know about the dc 0 point!
Harrisburg is easy yet not easy. Since the city is divided by the Susquehanna River, there is two N-S zero points and no E-W zero points (if there was a perfect zero point, it would be in the Susquehanna River). The grid on both shores end at Front Street.
But here's the harder part: there's only four crossings that completely cross the Susquehanna (I'm excluding the Walnut Street Bridge, because it's cut in half at City Island). It's hard to tell which one is the correct one (Harvey Taylor, Market Street, I-81, and I-83).
I'd say the zero point for E-W would be the Harvey Taylor Bridge, as it gives a straight shot to Downtown and is close to the PA Capitol and the Whittaker Center.
Quote from: jp the roadgeek on December 13, 2016, 07:30:19 PM
Baltimore is Baltimore and Charles Streets
I'd actually place it at West Franklin/Mulberry Streets, and North Calvert/Saint Paul Streets. Looks like it's smack dab in the center.
Richmond, Va oddly enough has TWO zero points and I run into non-locals all the time who gets confused about this:
North of the James River it's at the intersection of Main and Foushee, which even though is downtown, it's actually more towards the western part of downtown.
South of the James River it's a lot more confusing... there is no N-S dividing line, only E-W. The zero point is Hull Street at the James River itself, and Hull (travelling, of all directions, westbound from here) creates the line of E-W until the junction will Midlothian Tpk, which takes over the dividing duties. The block numbers on these streets and the few that actually parallel them increases as one drives further away from the James. The most confusing part of all is the fact that both roads run East-West themselves, even though the cross streets are divided as East and West... in other words, if one was on Southside's 30th street, E. 30th would be actually south of Midlothian while W. 30th is north of Midlothian.
Adding to the madness is the fact that the city has two completely unrelated sets of numbered streets.. north of the James they are labeled N-S while south of the James they are labeled E-W.
Confused yet? :-D
Quote from: plain on December 13, 2016, 11:33:03 PM
Richmond, Va oddly enough has TWO zero points and I run into non-locals all the time who gets confused about this:
North of the James River it's at the intersection of Main and Foushee, which even though is downtown, it's actually more towards the western part of downtown.
South of the James River it's a lot more confusing... there is no N-S dividing line, only E-W. The zero point is Hull Street at the James River itself, and Hull (travelling, of all directions, westbound from here) creates the line of E-W until the junction will Midlothian Tpk, which takes over the dividing duties. The block numbers on these streets and the few that actually parallel them increases as one drives further away from the James. The most confusing part of all is the fact that both roads run East-West themselves, even though the cross streets are divided as East and West... in other words, if one was on Southside's 30th street, E. 30th would be actually south of Midlothian while W. 30th is north of Midlothian.
Adding to the madness is the fact that the city has two completely unrelated sets of numbered streets.. north of the James they are labeled N-S while south of the James they are labeled E-W.
Confused yet? :-D
Seattle has like 10 different zero points.
XT1254
Green Bay, WI: Walnut St and the Fox River
Appleton, WI: College Ave and Oneida St
Milwaukee, WI: Confluence of the Milwaukee and Menomonee Rivers.
Sheboygan, WI: East of where Pennsylvania Ave ends and Lake Michigan
Brillion, WI: Main St and the abandoned rail line
Quote from: Tschiezberger123 on December 13, 2016, 10:04:30 PM
Elkhart's N/S line is Jackson Blvd (east side/downtown) and Strong Ave (west side), and its E/W line is Main St (north side/downtown) and Prairie St (south side), but the addresses start at 100 (e.g. Johnson St is eight blocks east of N Main St, but is 900 E, or W Beardsley Ave is 7 blocks north of Strong Ave, but is 800 N.) W Indiana Ave. is 14 blocks south of Strong Ave, but is 1500 S, S Nappanee St is 20 blocks west of Prairie St, but is 2100 W, etc.) So CR 17 is 52 blocks east of the dividing line, but is 5300 E. Ok, enough examples. I think you get the point.
Lots of cities start their addresses at 100 instead of 1.
Quote from: froggie on December 13, 2016, 09:45:33 PM
^ The "Zero Milestone" does exist in DC, but that isn't the point of the OP's post, which appears to be where street numbers and/or address numbers begin at zero in a given city. For DC, that is very much the U.S. Capitol building.
Heh. Took a picture of my kids leaning against it. People were busy looking at the South Lawn and most did not realize that the block of granite meant anything special.
In the glorious city of Trenton, NJ, State Street at Warren Street is the 0 point.
Quote from: silverback1065 on December 13, 2016, 06:59:38 PM
Quote from: dgolub on December 13, 2016, 06:57:57 PM
When we say "zero point," are we talking about where addresses start at zero or where street numbers start at zero?
east/west north/south dividing line of your city
OK, then for Manhattan it would be 5 Avenue, since that's where all the streets change from east to west. The exception is south of where 5 Avenue ends. There, the streets changes from east to west at Broadway. In the Bronx, it's Jerome Avenue. The other boroughs don't have east/west distinctions in that sense.
Madison, WI: The Capitol
Kenosha, WI: Doesn't have a zero point. There are no north/south east/west indicators. Numbering starts at Lake Michigan and the Racine County Line and increases as you go south and west from there, but I'm not sure that that is really what is meant by a zero point.
Lake Forest, IL: Green Bay Road and Route 60 extended (if Route 60 continued east and intersected Green Bay Road).
Racine, WI: I'd like someone to explain this one to me. It seems like the zero point is Lake Michigan and the Root River but then the north/south numbering seems to follow the Root River (which meanders in different direction through the city) but only in certain places. And some streets get tagged with a direction and some don't: for example, north of the Root River is North Main St. but south of the Root River is Main St. (not South Main St), and when you are south of the river the numbers on Main St start with 1, but on North Main St they start around 1000. Another example: you could be near 300 North Memorial Drive (just north of 6th St and north of the Root River) and take 6th St east over the Root River about 1/4 mile to Marquette St and the first address on Marquette St just north of 6th street but now south of the Root River is 600 South Marquette St. I'm sure people that live there get it but I'm glad for GPS when I'm in Racine.
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/300+N+Memorial+Dr,+Racine,+WI+53404/626-698+S+Marquette+St,+Racine,+WI+53403/@42.7224756,-87.8020778,15z/data=!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x880543a084c3ea3d:0x1393327b67933a8b!2m2!1d-87.7990249!2d42.7259771!1m5!1m1!1s0x8805439e390247ab:0xf2a80364a4049afd!2m2!1d-87.79277!2d42.7261371?hl=en
Quote from: Rothman on December 14, 2016, 07:44:33 AM
Quote from: froggie on December 13, 2016, 09:45:33 PM
^ The "Zero Milestone" does exist in DC, but that isn't the point of the OP's post, which appears to be where street numbers and/or address numbers begin at zero in a given city. For DC, that is very much the U.S. Capitol building.
Heh. Took a picture of my kids leaning against it. People were busy looking at the South Lawn and most did not realize that the block of granite meant anything special.
See, I knew that marker would be the sort of thing members of this forum are likely to find interesting, even if it might be a mild threadjack.
Quote from: kphoger on December 13, 2016, 05:51:05 PMWichita has no zero point. The corner of Douglas and main separates N/S and E/W, but numbers start at 100 from that point. That is to say, by crossing Douglas you move from the 100 North block to the 100 South block. This has the interesting effect of making 1st Street the 200 line, 2nd Street the 300 line, and so forth.
Just to make things interesting, there is a subdivision way east (near Beech, I think) that is just north of Douglas and has sub-100 addresses in the first block.
Goshen, Indiana is Lincoln Ave (N/S divider) and Main St (E/W divider). The grid is messed up (1st-3rd Streets are west of Main St, making 16th street 1300 E) center is 100, not 0.
Quote from: Tschiezberger123 on December 14, 2016, 05:33:55 PM
Goshen, Indiana is Lincoln Ave (N/S divider) and Main St (E/W divider). The grid is messed up (1st-3rd Streets are west of Main St, making 16th street 1300 E) center is 100, not 0.
I don't think you need to have OCD, in order to agree with me that that's garbage.
Bloomington, Indiana's street grid doesn't care much about it's numbered streets either, at least in making sense. The zero point for that city is Walnut Street and Kirkwood Avenue. Located at the southeast corner of the courthouse square that's logical enough. Walnut Street divides E-W throughout the town and Kirkwood divides N-S. The problem is Kirkwood Avenue is essentially 5th Street. So going north the addresses are about 400 off what the numbered street is. The grid is even more messed going south from Kirkwood. From 1st Street in Bloomington you pass six blocks before you reach 3rd Street, and then the blocks are numbered in order north of there with the exception of Kirkwood.
Quote from: busman_49 on December 13, 2016, 02:32:49 PM
Dayton, Ohio's is Main St. & 3rd St. Looks like Vine St. is the east/west divider for Cincinnati, but no N/S divider. Everything goes upward starting at the river.
Correct for Cincinnati. Vine is the East/West dividing line. There is technically not a street where anything north of it is labeled North ____ Street and anything south is labeled South ____ Street. However, the central point of downtown has always been considered to be Fountain Square, which is at Fifth and Vine -- which makes sense because downtown's northern boundary is considered to be Central Parkway, with the river being the south boundary.
In San Jose, zero point (at least as regards block numbers) is the intersection of 1st Street and Santa Clara Avenue. At that point, the streets are canted about 30 degrees left/counterclockwise from a true N-S/E-W axis; while 1st Street maintains that angle all the way out to Alviso (ending in the marshland at the south end of SF Bay), once outside of downtown virtually everything turns into relative chaos, with streets going pretty much in every direction. Only downtown SJ maintains any resemblance of a traditional grid pattern.
what is LA's?
Quote from: Otto Yamamoto on December 14, 2016, 01:23:56 AM
Quote from: plain on December 13, 2016, 11:33:03 PM
Richmond, Va oddly enough has TWO zero points and I run into non-locals all the time who gets confused about this:
North of the James River it's at the intersection of Main and Foushee, which even though is downtown, it's actually more towards the western part of downtown.
South of the James River it's a lot more confusing... there is no N-S dividing line, only E-W. The zero point is Hull Street at the James River itself, and Hull (travelling, of all directions, westbound from here) creates the line of E-W until the junction will Midlothian Tpk, which takes over the dividing duties. The block numbers on these streets and the few that actually parallel them increases as one drives further away from the James. The most confusing part of all is the fact that both roads run East-West themselves, even though the cross streets are divided as East and West... in other words, if one was on Southside's 30th street, E. 30th would be actually south of Midlothian while W. 30th is north of Midlothian.
Adding to the madness is the fact that the city has two completely unrelated sets of numbered streets.. north of the James they are labeled N-S while south of the James they are labeled E-W.
Confused yet? :-D
Seattle has like 10 different zero points.
XT1254
Seattle has TEN zero points??? That's just all out excessive. Talk about confusion!
Quote from: silverback1065 on December 15, 2016, 08:12:40 AM
what is LA's?
It looks like the intersection of 1st Street and Main Street in Downtown LA.
Quote from: paulthemapguy on December 13, 2016, 09:37:10 AM
Chicago is easy--State and Madison...perhaps one of the most well-known zero points. This leaves hardly any addresses with "E" in them, since State is rather close to Lake Michigan. The zero point is in the heart of downtown, so it works rather well.
There are plenty of East addresses south of downtown, just not north. Addresses actually get as high as 4000E when you get down to where the city borders Hammond.
Another weird thing about Chicago's numbering is that there are 800 worth of addresses per mile, EXCEPT for the first three miles south of State Street, where State->Roosevelt is 1200, Roosevelt->Cermack is 1000 and Cermack->31st is 900. This allows the address numbers to match up with the numbered streets.
Nashville's N/S divider on the west bank of the Cumberland River (downtown side) is Broadway/West End Ave, which bisect numbered Avenues, and the directional notation is at the end of the name (ex. 21st Ave. S), and numbered avenues exist up into the 60's. On the east bank of the river (East Nashville/Nissan Stadium side), the N/S divider is Main St., which bisects numbered streets, and the directional notation is at the beginning of the name (ex. N 1st St.), and numbered streets exist only up into the 20's. The E/W divider is the downtown stretch of the Cumberland River.
Quote from: cabiness42 on December 15, 2016, 09:38:11 AM
Quote from: paulthemapguy on December 13, 2016, 09:37:10 AM
Chicago is easy--State and Madison...perhaps one of the most well-known zero points. This leaves hardly any addresses with "E" in them, since State is rather close to Lake Michigan. The zero point is in the heart of downtown, so it works rather well.
There are plenty of East addresses south of downtown, just not north. Addresses actually get as high as 4000E when you get down to where the city borders Hammond.
Another weird thing about Chicago's numbering is that there are 800 worth of addresses per mile, EXCEPT for the first three miles south of State Street, where State->Roosevelt is 1200, Roosevelt->Cermack is 1000 and Cermack->31st is 900. This allows the address numbers to match up with the numbered streets.
Actually, it's done because there are twelve blocks to the first mile, ten to the second mile, nine to the third mile, and eight thereafter. Chicago addresses go up 100 every block. On the north side, and heading west, the river makes up the gap as the Loop is surveyed for 12 blocks to the mile, but most of the rest of the city is eight blocks to the mile.
Tucson, Az is weird, while the zero point is at Stone and Broadway, this is 10 or so blocks south of what should be the logical point; and the blocks don't match the street number s.
XT1254
Quote from: Otto Yamamoto on December 15, 2016, 12:42:19 PM
Tucson, Az is weird, while the zero point is at Stone and Broadway, this is 10 or so blocks south of what should be the logical point; and the blocks don't match the street number s.
Tucson was originally platted after the Gadsden Purchase with the grid that's still in use today. However, for whatever reason, they chose to start the numbering scheme for streets at the northeast corner of the grid, though since addresses have existed in the city, the 0 point was always roughly where it is today, at Stone and Broadway. At that time, they weren't thinking about addresses.
In the middle of the last century, there was a proposal to renumber everyone based on a 0 point at Speedway/Euclid, where it is if you look at the numbered streets. I just assume that they determined this to be too costly. It's a pretty arbitrary point at which to start an address system, so I don't think it would make sense.
Cherry Hill, NJ's E-W zero point is NJ 41, though it doesn't universally apply, especially to smaller streets. One major road that does not respect it is Church Road (CR 616), whose zero point is at its western terminus in Merchantville. The N-S zero point is NJ 70 west of I-295. It's a strange zero point because while addresses south of it do start at zero and go up, addresses north of it start with 1200 and go up. East of 295, there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the house numbers, and the few suffixed routes change their suffixes and different locations.
Over near where I work, Shore Road (CR 585) is an E-W zero point through Somers Point, Linwood, Northfield, Pleasantville, and Absecon. The N-S zero point is the Black Horse Pike (US 40/322) in Pleasantville.
East Baton Rouge Parish's zero point is the intersection of North Boulevard and River Road. The N-S dividing line is North Blvd. to Foster Drive and then Florida Blvd. to the parish line. The E-W dividing line is more complicated. In the downtown area it is obviously the Mississippi River. This extends southward to Terrace Street where Highland Road assumes the E-W dividing point. North of downtown, the river and the BR Barge Canal serve as the E-W divider until Thomas Road where Scenic Highway, then Samuels Road (both US 61) becomes the divider north to the parish line.
Because of the angles of streets, sometimes the divisions are not strictly followed. For instance, Bluebonnet Blvd. and Siegen Lane continue their address numbering south of Perkins Road where the north-south and east-west streets meet. Also the addressing can be messy in the south part of the parish since Highland Road itself turns eastward.
The cities of Baker and Zachary have their own N-S zero point at Lavey Lane and the south city limit of Zachary respectively, but they use the parish wide grid for E-W numbers.
can someone explain Las Vegas's? I think its Las Vegas Blvd and Fremont St. but that doesn't seem to fit the whole city.
Quote from: silverback1065 on December 15, 2016, 07:05:12 PM
can someone explain Las Vegas's? I think its Las Vegas Blvd and Fremont St. but that doesn't seem to fit the whole city.
Correct. West of I-15, it runs along US 95. When Fremont Street turns toward the south, it shifts to Charleston Blvd.
In Santa Barbara, it's State Street at the ocean. State Street theoretically runs north-south, with East and West streets branching off of it. Even numbers are located on the right side of the street as the numbers increase, which is very handy for navigation. However, the whole grid is off by 48 degrees, which puts East streets closer to actual north than actual east. Then, outside the downtown area, the directions of the streets switch again and the East and West streets run north and south.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on December 13, 2016, 07:45:26 AM
Central Ave is unusual in Phoenix given that it total breaks the 8 Streets/Avenues per mile up. The western Avenues jump from 7th, 19th, 27th, 35th, 43rd, ect to the 8 per mile format while east with Streets it is 7th, 16th, 24th, 32nd, 40th, ect. So not unusual in that the name point is logical for a start point but its weird how the grid has to bow out slightly for everything to fit in the expanded city. Even stranger the Avenue continue well into the 300s westward but they start over eastward in Mesa. The east/west roads seems to be Van Buren Street which makes sense given the previous status as four US Routes. The mile distance between the major named east/west roads is generally a mile from the get go.
Mesa 0 Main Street & Center Street
Mesa Has there own Numbered Streets In 3 different Patterns:
West Of Gilbert Road to the Tempe City Line
E/W Avenues 1 to 11 South of Main St To Southern Avenue, E/W Streets 1 - 19 North of Main Street to McKellips Road
East of Gilbert Road N/S Streets Starting at 21 - 115 (No Avenues)
And A odd Section of E Numbered Streets 4th, 5th, 6th E of Signal Butte Road between Main Street/Apache Trail and Broadway Road continuing Into Pinal County and Apache Junction.
There are also out of Pattern S. numbered Streets In county islands that Pop Up in Mesa E of Val Vista Road and also in North part of Mesa N of Mckellips Road Between Loop 202 And Meridian Road.
Quote from: plain on December 15, 2016, 08:57:36 AM
Quote from: Otto Yamamoto on December 14, 2016, 01:23:56 AM
Quote from: plain on December 13, 2016, 11:33:03 PM
Richmond, Va oddly enough has TWO zero points and I run into non-locals all the time who gets confused about this:
North of the James River it's at the intersection of Main and Foushee, which even though is downtown, it's actually more towards the western part of downtown.
South of the James River it's a lot more confusing... there is no N-S dividing line, only E-W. The zero point is Hull Street at the James River itself, and Hull (travelling, of all directions, westbound from here) creates the line of E-W until the junction will Midlothian Tpk, which takes over the dividing duties. The block numbers on these streets and the few that actually parallel them increases as one drives further away from the James. The most confusing part of all is the fact that both roads run East-West themselves, even though the cross streets are divided as East and West... in other words, if one was on Southside's 30th street, E. 30th would be actually south of Midlothian while W. 30th is north of Midlothian.
Adding to the madness is the fact that the city has two completely unrelated sets of numbered streets.. north of the James they are labeled N-S while south of the James they are labeled E-W.
Confused yet? :-D
Seattle has like 10 different zero points.
XT1254
Seattle has TEN zero points??? That's just all out excessive. Talk about confusion!
It's really not. As long as you're in downtown (south of Denny, north of Yesler, west of I-5 generally...), there are no directionals on streets...outside there are. Here's a Wikipedia article on the street layout (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_layout_of_Seattle) and a diagram:
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/Seattle_WA_Directional_Zones_v10-14-16.svg/800px-Seattle_WA_Directional_Zones_v10-14-16.svg.png)
Ahhh I see....I think lol
The zero point for Des Moines would be where Vine St hypothetically crosses the Des Moines River. In reality, it's where the Iowa Interstate Railroad, which runs in the same space as Vine St (where the street still exists), crosses the Des Moines River.
The zero point for Kitchener, ON is King St W/E and Queen St S/N, while Waterloo's is King St S/N and Erb St W/E. Interestingly, the King Streets above are the same street!
Quote from: mapman1071 on December 17, 2016, 01:56:53 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on December 13, 2016, 07:45:26 AM
Central Ave is unusual in Phoenix given that it total breaks the 8 Streets/Avenues per mile up. The western Avenues jump from 7th, 19th, 27th, 35th, 43rd, ect to the 8 per mile format while east with Streets it is 7th, 16th, 24th, 32nd, 40th, ect. So not unusual in that the name point is logical for a start point but its weird how the grid has to bow out slightly for everything to fit in the expanded city. Even stranger the Avenue continue well into the 300s westward but they start over eastward in Mesa. The east/west roads seems to be Van Buren Street which makes sense given the previous status as four US Routes. The mile distance between the major named east/west roads is generally a mile from the get go.
Mesa 0 Main Street & Center Street
Mesa Has there own Numbered Streets In 3 different Patterns:
West Of Gilbert Road to the Tempe City Line
E/W Avenues 1 to 11 South of Main St To Southern Avenue, E/W Streets 1 - 19 North of Main Street to McKellips Road
East of Gilbert Road N/S Streets Starting at 21 - 115 (No Avenues)
And A odd Section of E Numbered Streets 4th, 5th, 6th E of Signal Butte Road between Main Street/Apache Trail and Broadway Road continuing Into Pinal County and Apache Junction.
There are also out of Pattern S. numbered Streets In county islands that Pop Up in Mesa E of Val Vista Road and also in North part of Mesa N of Mckellips Road Between Loop 202 And Meridian Road.
Phoenix, AZ & Maricopa County, N/S Central Avenue E/W Washington Street
Exceptions to Above
Tempe, N/S Mill Avenue E/W Salt River
Mesa, N/S Center Street E/W Main St
Gilbert, N/S Gilbert Road E/W Elliot Road
Chandler N/S Arizona Avenue - AZ 87 E/W Commonwealth Avenue
For Spearfish, the zero point is Main St. (which takes the place of 6th St.) and Colorado Blvd. (or below-left of center in this map)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cityofspearfish.com%2Fimages%2FMap%2520Images%2FCity%2520Map.jpg&hash=2f2f212f2571223a055613878aeb6e666256e389)
While that looks centered, in actuality most of the old town is north of Colorado while the newer commercial area is all east of Main. If you divided that map into NW NE SW and SE blocks, the SW block would have a lot of pine trees and not much else.
Here in Atlanta, the core is supposed to be just southwest of the original Five Points intersection (Peachtree/Marietta/Decatur/Edgewood), over the rail tracks that ran at that point. (Everything here was based on the railroads...)
These days, it's accepted that it's Five Points, with Peachtree, Pryor, Decatur and MLK being the dividers once you get away from the mess of streets in the downtown core...
Portland: Burnside St over the Willamette River
My street's block number (it's a short cul-de-sac with only nine houses on it) is based on the distance from the center of Bel Air, Maryland, a Baltimore suburb and the seat of Harford County. Bel Air's zero points are the intersections of the northbound-only Main Street and Pennsylvania Avenue and the southbound-only Bond Street and Pennsylvania. Address numbers start counting up on Main north of Pennsylvania and Bond south of Pennsylvania. Main and Bond streets carry U.S. Route 1 Business and Maryland Route 924 through downtown Bel Air.
Quote from: epzik8 on December 21, 2016, 12:49:05 PM
My street's block number (it's a short cul-de-sac with only nine houses on it) is based on the distance from the center of Bel Air, Maryland, a Baltimore suburb and the seat of Harford County. Bel Air's zero points are the intersections of the northbound-only Main Street and Pennsylvania Avenue and the southbound-only Bond Street and Pennsylvania. Address numbers start counting up on Main north of Pennsylvania and Bond south of Pennsylvania. Main and Bond streets carry U.S. Route 1 Business and Maryland Route 924 through downtown Bel Air.
Ah, you've reminded me of Utah. Salt Lake City's zero point is Main Street and South Temple (
not at Eagle Gate, I do not believe). However, its grid extends very far south into other incorporated communities, (e.g., Draper, where you have 14000 "140th" South; looks like it goes out to 150th South on the other side of I-15), but not as far north (2300 "23rd" North?). I believe Salt Lake City's zero point is the zero point for many of its suburbs in the Salt Lake Valley on the grid (at least it works out where my relatives live, including the stubbornly independent White City).
Quote from: Rothman on December 21, 2016, 01:40:12 PM
Quote from: epzik8 on December 21, 2016, 12:49:05 PM
My street's block number (it's a short cul-de-sac with only nine houses on it) is based on the distance from the center of Bel Air, Maryland, a Baltimore suburb and the seat of Harford County. Bel Air's zero points are the intersections of the northbound-only Main Street and Pennsylvania Avenue and the southbound-only Bond Street and Pennsylvania. Address numbers start counting up on Main north of Pennsylvania and Bond south of Pennsylvania. Main and Bond streets carry U.S. Route 1 Business and Maryland Route 924 through downtown Bel Air.
Ah, you've reminded me of Utah. Salt Lake City's zero point is Main Street and South Temple (not at Eagle Gate, I do not believe). However, its grid extends very far south into other incorporated communities, (e.g., Draper, where you have 14000 "140th" South; looks like it goes out to 150th South on the other side of I-15), but not as far north (2300 "23rd" North?). I believe Salt Lake City's zero point is the zero point for many of its suburbs in the Salt Lake Valley on the grid (at least it works out where my relatives live, including the stubbornly independent White City).
Wow i thought state st was the e/w divider
For my town, it's Main Street at the Lincoln Highway. Yup.
Quote from: plain on December 13, 2016, 11:33:03 PM
Richmond, Va oddly enough has TWO zero points and I run into non-locals all the time who gets confused about this:
North of the James River it's at the intersection of Main and Foushee, which even though is downtown, it's actually more towards the western part of downtown.
South of the James River it's a lot more confusing... there is no N-S dividing line, only E-W. The zero point is Hull Street at the James River itself, and Hull (travelling, of all directions, westbound from here) creates the line of E-W until the junction will Midlothian Tpk, which takes over the dividing duties. The block numbers on these streets and the few that actually parallel them increases as one drives further away from the James. The most confusing part of all is the fact that both roads run East-West themselves, even though the cross streets are divided as East and West... in other words, if one was on Southside's 30th street, E. 30th would be actually south of Midlothian while W. 30th is north of Midlothian.
Adding to the madness is the fact that the city has two completely unrelated sets of numbered streets.. north of the James they are labeled N-S while south of the James they are labeled E-W.
Confused yet? :-D
The street grid used in Richmond south of the river is actually the old Manchester street grid, whose zero point is indeed Hull Street at the south end of the Mayo Bridge. What gives away the zero point's location is that there are businesses on Mayo Island, but they have South 14th Street addresses and are therefore on North Richmond's grid.
Rahway and Linden in NJ both use the former PRR (now the Amtrak NE Corridor) for the E-W in the former and N-S in the latter. However, Linden has Wood Avenue as the E-W changing point.
So interesting that both cities are neighbors yet where Rahway streets that use E-W are parallel with Linden's N-S.
Then what always fascinated me was Hillside, NJ used North Broad Street and never had a South Broad Street. They used neighboring Elizabeth that has a North, a South, an East, and plain Broad Street as North Broad in Elizabeth ends at Hillside's border, so they just used it for continuity purposes.
Also Fanwood, NJ uses the NJ Transit Raritan Valley Line to divide North Martine from South Martine Avenues that is the only road there that uses a N-S identifier.
Quote from: silverback1065 on December 21, 2016, 02:29:17 PM
Quote from: Rothman on December 21, 2016, 01:40:12 PM
Quote from: epzik8 on December 21, 2016, 12:49:05 PM
My street's block number (it's a short cul-de-sac with only nine houses on it) is based on the distance from the center of Bel Air, Maryland, a Baltimore suburb and the seat of Harford County. Bel Air's zero points are the intersections of the northbound-only Main Street and Pennsylvania Avenue and the southbound-only Bond Street and Pennsylvania. Address numbers start counting up on Main north of Pennsylvania and Bond south of Pennsylvania. Main and Bond streets carry U.S. Route 1 Business and Maryland Route 924 through downtown Bel Air.
Ah, you've reminded me of Utah. Salt Lake City's zero point is Main Street and South Temple (not at Eagle Gate, I do not believe). However, its grid extends very far south into other incorporated communities, (e.g., Draper, where you have 14000 "140th" South; looks like it goes out to 150th South on the other side of I-15), but not as far north (2300 "23rd" North?). I believe Salt Lake City's zero point is the zero point for many of its suburbs in the Salt Lake Valley on the grid (at least it works out where my relatives live, including the stubbornly independent White City).
Wow i thought state st was the e/w divider
Just rechecked and it is indeed Main St.
Houston has no set zero point for the whole city. The closest thing for N/S streets in and near downtown would be Buffalo Bayou. That's where Main St. turns into N. Main; at the top of the bridge over the confluence of Buffalo Bayou and White Oak Bayou where the University of Houston-Downtown is. Further west outside 610, Westheimer Rd. is used as the zero point for many N/S streets. In the East End, streets like Rusk, Commerce, and Harrisburg as used as the zero point for those N/S streets. Around the Downtown/Midtown area, the E/W streets have varying zero points; typically located where the street grid alignment changes. North of Downtown, Yale St. is the clearest zero point, as you can see the streets switch from E. xxxx to W. xxxx as they cross Yale. South of Downtown, E/W streets typically use Main St. as the dividing point from Alabama St. down through the Texas Medical Center to Holcombe/W. Holcombe. Further south, Almeda Rd. and even 288 are zero points from some E/W streets like Bellfort and Anderson Rd.
Quote from: busman_49 on December 13, 2016, 02:32:49 PM
Dayton, Ohio's is Main St. & 3rd St. Looks like Vine St. is the east/west divider for Cincinnati, but no N/S divider. Everything goes upward starting at the river.
Correct about Cincinnati. What makes it weird is that, of course, the river is not straight, so some north-south streets have odd things happen to them to make the "grid" work. For example in Hyde Park, streets like Paxton and Grace jump from the 1300 block to the 3400 hundred block when they cross Observatory. In Finneytown, Daly Rd jumps from the 6700 block to the 7900 block, just south of Galbraith Rd.
Because certain streets in Buffalo have been cut off by poorly planned buildings (Genesee, Niagara, etc.), I don't know what the "zero point" is. I assume it is where an imaginary Niagara St extension meets Main St and Erie St, or Niagara Square.
Mason City IA is easy, State St. for N/S and Federal Ave. for E/W. I believe at one point in the distant past, the intersection of State and Federal was where US 18 and US 65 met.
Omaha's is where Dodge St. meets the Missouri River, which allows for streets that end in East up by the airport.
One interesting zero point I have read about is the one for both Dakota and Washington County in Minnesota. It's the state capitol, which is in St. Paul, which is in Ramsey County.
I thought City Hall was the dividing point for Philadelphia? It seems to be in Center City, especially with Broad Street/PA Route 611 running N/S and then Market Street/PA Route 3 (west of City Hall) running E/W?
Quote from: KEVIN_224 on January 01, 2017, 08:56:42 AM
I thought City Hall was the dividing point for Philadelphia? It seems to be in Center City, especially with Broad Street/PA Route 611 running N/S and then Market Street/PA Route 3 (west of City Hall) running E/W?
City Hall is basically the center of Center City (or City Center, as Google Maps like to say and thus causes a lot of visitors to think Philly has an area called City Center, which wouldn't make sense to locals). And addresses North and South of Market do have North 293 5th Street, South 290 Broad Street, etc., as the base street is Market Street.
However, going East and West, there is no East 756 Samson Street, or West 2794 Shunk Street. It would simply be 756 Samson or 2794 Shunk, as the base street is Front Street near the Delaware River.
There is a small district in the city called East Market east of City Hall, but think of it as a marketing term and nothing more. It's not the address for Market Street.
For Kansas City, MO (at least, the Jackson County portion), the zero point appears to be where Main Street would intersect the Missouri River - if it made it that far. Main's definitely the divider for east and west, where it runs. (Like a lot of KC's street grid, it's discontinuous in places.)
South of I-435/US 50, Wornall Road takes over as the east-west divider for pretty much the remainder of what's within city limits.
Quote from: Darkchylde on January 01, 2017, 10:30:36 AM
For Kansas City, MO (at least, the Jackson County portion), the zero point appears to be where Main Street would intersect the Missouri River - if it made it that far. Main's definitely the divider for east and west, where it runs. (Like a lot of KC's street grid, it's discontinuous in places.)
South of I-435/US 50, Wornall Road takes over as the east-west divider for pretty much the remainder of what's within city limits.
that's a weird one, it's not even downtown
Quote from: silverback1065 on December 13, 2016, 07:35:19 AM
What are your cities zero points? does anyone live in a city with bizarre ones? I used to live in indianapolis, and their's are straight forward, rockville and washington street for N/S and meridian for E/W. I live in carmel now and main st is the N/S and rangeline is E/W for it's downtown area, but outside of the 31 keystone wishbone (and south of 116th st), it changes to the indy system. What's interesting is that there's so such thing as south in hamilton county because of this. does anyone live in a city with weird zero points?
San Jose: Santa Clara and San Pedro
Campbell: 1st and Campbell
Milpitas: Milpitas and Main
Fremont: In downtown OAKLAND (Embarcadero, I think)! The North-South adresses are basically the number of meters from that point.
Toledo, OH has an unusual grid setup.
Downtown Toledo is on a diagonal grid. The southeast zero is the Maumee River. The southwest zero is Washington St. (first in a series named for presidents, followed by Monroe, Jefferson, Madison, Adams, and Jackson -- in that order.) There are also streets numbered from the river, but only from 10th St. to 23rd St. The only other numbered streets in town are in Point Place, a peninsula on the Maumee Bay (Lake Erie); they start at 101 going northward and 282 going eastward, and have no rhyme or reason with regard to addresses.
The rest of Toledo uses a regular gridiron, mostly. The north-south zero is Hill Ave., a road interrupted by a large railroad yard while the numbering remains consistent. But the east-west zero is Franklin Ave., which is not only discontinuous, but part of it is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it residential street. Most Toledoans have probably never heard of that road.
Note that Monroe St. (SR-51, formerly US-223) maintains its downtown angle while running straight as an arrow through the rest of the city. It also retains its address scheme the whole way. Many older (and not-so-older) maps depict the intersection of Monroe and Detroit Ave. (US-24) as being a sort of main crossroads in town, but it's neither downtown nor any kind of "zero" address.
Additionally, there's East Toledo on the east side of the Maumee River. Despite there being an actual Main St. there, the zero for both directions appears to be the river, since it runs at an angle.
Confused yet?
Quote from: silverback1065 on January 01, 2017, 06:12:21 PM
Quote from: Darkchylde on January 01, 2017, 10:30:36 AM
For Kansas City, MO (at least, the Jackson County portion), the zero point appears to be where Main Street would intersect the Missouri River - if it made it that far. Main's definitely the divider for east and west, where it runs. (Like a lot of KC's street grid, it's discontinuous in places.)
South of I-435/US 50, Wornall Road takes over as the east-west divider for pretty much the remainder of what's within city limits.
that's a weird one, it's not even downtown
I like to think of KCMO as having two downtowns–the modern one and the historic one Modern downtown KCMO was not within the boundaries of the city when it was first founded. Below is a map showing the boundaries of KCMO in 1850, the year of its incorporation. The green star represents the location
Darkchylde identified as the zero point for KCMO addresses. I can't think of a
more reasonable location for the zero point to be in a newly founded river city than where Main Street hits the river, right in the heart of town.
A mile or so south of that is where your mind takes you when you think of "downtown KCMO"–and is represented on the map by the cluster of tall buildings. But that was not part of the city till the railroad arrived a couple of decades later and the city enjoyed its subsequent cow town boom.
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1092.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fi410%2Fkphoger%2FKC_zpsg0drqllb.png&hash=0b245dd9aa81da2a2f99c817fca7de48c084bdd6)
Quote from: Bickendan on December 20, 2016, 07:34:48 PM
Portland: Burnside St over the Willamette River
Not to mention the negative addresses on both the east and west side, and the 5th Quadrant.
My city has no 0 point, it has a 100 point. The Intersection of First St., Second St., and Cascade Ave..
Quote from: kphoger on January 02, 2017, 12:39:03 PM
Quote from: silverback1065 on January 01, 2017, 06:12:21 PM
Quote from: Darkchylde on January 01, 2017, 10:30:36 AM
For Kansas City, MO (at least, the Jackson County portion), the zero point appears to be where Main Street would intersect the Missouri River - if it made it that far. Main's definitely the divider for east and west, where it runs. (Like a lot of KC's street grid, it's discontinuous in places.)
South of I-435/US 50, Wornall Road takes over as the east-west divider for pretty much the remainder of what's within city limits.
that's a weird one, it's not even downtown
I like to think of KCMO as having two downtowns–the modern one and the historic one Modern downtown KCMO was not within the boundaries of the city when it was first founded. Below is a map showing the boundaries of KCMO in 1850, the year of its incorporation. The green star represents the location Darkchylde identified as the zero point for KCMO addresses. I can't think of a more reasonable location for the zero point to be in a newly founded river city than where Main Street hits the river, right in the heart of town.
A mile or so south of that is where your mind takes you when you think of "downtown KCMO"–and is represented on the map by the cluster of tall buildings. But that was not part of the city till the railroad arrived a couple of decades later and the city enjoyed its subsequent cow town boom.
(image snipped)
There's also the fact that Kansas City itself covers parts of four different counties. North of the river, from what I can extrapolate from Google Maps, the street grid is the reverse of the Jackson County portion, using the river as the zero point for N/S again but counting upward as you go north instead of south, again using Main as a E/W (or in this case, NE/NW) divider for the most part where it either runs or would run. In that sense, it still makes sense to be using the river as the zero point even though it's not in downtown.
Looks like Cleveland's is Public Square/Ontario St in the immediate downtown area, and then goes by whether it's east or west of the Cuyahoga River starting a little bit south of downtown.
There is one spot where an extension of E. 9th Street comes within a block of the southern portion of W. 3rd Street down in the low lying area under the I-90 bridge.
Quote from: TEG24601 on January 02, 2017, 06:25:46 PM
Quote from: Bickendan on December 20, 2016, 07:34:48 PM
Portland: Burnside St over the Willamette River
Not to mention the negative addresses on both the east and west side, and the 5th Quadrant.
My city has no 0 point, it has a 100 point. The Intersection of First St., Second St., and Cascade Ave..
Not very many negative addresses on the East side; they're very much a feature of the West side though :lol:
North Portland shares its zero with the Burnside and river point. The grid warping and bending in St Johns is pretty cool, and a similar instance happens as the grid warps in NW making Yeon Ave/St Helens Rd a pivot axis.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on January 01, 2017, 09:07:26 AM
Quote from: KEVIN_224 on January 01, 2017, 08:56:42 AM
I thought City Hall was the dividing point for Philadelphia? It seems to be in Center City, especially with Broad Street/PA Route 611 running N/S and then Market Street/PA Route 3 (west of City Hall) running E/W?
City Hall is basically the center of Center City (or City Center, as Google Maps like to say and thus causes a lot of visitors to think Philly has an area called City Center, which wouldn't make sense to locals). And addresses North and South of Market do have North 293 5th Street, South 290 Broad Street, etc., as the base street is Market Street.
However, going East and West, there is no East 756 Samson Street, or West 2794 Shunk Street. It would simply be 756 Samson or 2794 Shunk, as the base street is Front Street near the Delaware River.
There is a small district in the city called East Market east of City Hall, but think of it as a marketing term and nothing more. It's not the address for Market Street.
Correct on all counts. Front Street's E/W axis really only comes into effect once you get north of Center City. Follow Front Street to Lehigh Ave and you will notice the West and East designations appear on all blocks to the Montgomery County border. The neighborhood names are another story though. West and East Oak Lane in terms of where you are in relation to of Oak Lane. "Northeast" Philly generally follows Tacony Creek as a western border, but it is relatively close to Front St. Market East is just a urban renewal term for a section of formerly depressed buildings east of City Hall that was redeveloped with a new tagline.
By all means, City Hall is the heart of Center City and is a great central location for orientation, but it isn't what the address structure is based off (unlike something like Temple Square in SLC).
Quote from: Chris19001 on January 03, 2017, 01:02:39 PM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on January 01, 2017, 09:07:26 AM
Quote from: KEVIN_224 on January 01, 2017, 08:56:42 AM
I thought City Hall was the dividing point for Philadelphia? It seems to be in Center City, especially with Broad Street/PA Route 611 running N/S and then Market Street/PA Route 3 (west of City Hall) running E/W?
City Hall is basically the center of Center City (or City Center, as Google Maps like to say and thus causes a lot of visitors to think Philly has an area called City Center, which wouldn't make sense to locals). And addresses North and South of Market do have North 293 5th Street, South 290 Broad Street, etc., as the base street is Market Street.
However, going East and West, there is no East 756 Samson Street, or West 2794 Shunk Street. It would simply be 756 Samson or 2794 Shunk, as the base street is Front Street near the Delaware River.
There is a small district in the city called East Market east of City Hall, but think of it as a marketing term and nothing more. It's not the address for Market Street.
Correct on all counts. Front Street's E/W axis really only comes into effect once you get north of Center City. Follow Front Street to Lehigh Ave and you will notice the West and East designations appear on all blocks to the Montgomery County border. The neighborhood names are another story though. West and East Oak Lane in terms of where you are in relation to of Oak Lane. "Northeast" Philly generally follows Tacony Creek as a western border, but it is relatively close to Front St. Market East is just a urban renewal term for a section of formerly depressed buildings east of City Hall that was redeveloped with a new tagline.
By all means, City Hall is the heart of Center City and is a great central location for orientation, but it isn't what the address structure is based off (unlike something like Temple Square in SLC).
I guess I should point out also, if Broad Street was a numbered street, it would simply be 14th Street.
Quote from: Rothman on December 21, 2016, 07:26:18 PM
Quote from: silverback1065 on December 21, 2016, 02:29:17 PM
Quote from: Rothman on December 21, 2016, 01:40:12 PM
Quote from: epzik8 on December 21, 2016, 12:49:05 PM
My street's block number (it's a short cul-de-sac with only nine houses on it) is based on the distance from the center of Bel Air, Maryland, a Baltimore suburb and the seat of Harford County. Bel Air's zero points are the intersections of the northbound-only Main Street and Pennsylvania Avenue and the southbound-only Bond Street and Pennsylvania. Address numbers start counting up on Main north of Pennsylvania and Bond south of Pennsylvania. Main and Bond streets carry U.S. Route 1 Business and Maryland Route 924 through downtown Bel Air.
Ah, you've reminded me of Utah. Salt Lake City's zero point is Main Street and South Temple (not at Eagle Gate, I do not believe). However, its grid extends very far south into other incorporated communities, (e.g., Draper, where you have 14000 "140th" South; looks like it goes out to 150th South on the other side of I-15), but not as far north (2300 "23rd" North?). I believe Salt Lake City's zero point is the zero point for many of its suburbs in the Salt Lake Valley on the grid (at least it works out where my relatives live, including the stubbornly independent White City).
Wow i thought state st was the e/w divider
Just rechecked and it is indeed Main St.
At some point south, State Street jogs over to follow the range/township line and becomes the east-west divider.
In Bolingbrook, IL it is Briarcliff Rd for N-S and Bolingbrook Dr (Route 53) for E-W.
In Naperville, it is Benton St for N-S and Washington St for E-W including the arc bend along the DuPage River south of Downtown.
In Wheaton, IL it is Front St for N-S and Main St for E-W.
In my Grandmother's tiny town of Princeton, WI, it it Main St for N-S (which makes a ton of sense since it is the only street that crosses the Fox River) and Fulton St for E-W (which makes little sense because all but 3 streets then have a west address as Fulton is on the far east side of town).
I attempted to find a zero point for Brooklyn, NY. Of course, having lots of varied street grids in town, I could not find any. But here's what I did find.
There is one main numbered grid (angled) to the west, modified, interrupted, and with exceptions. North-south, numbers go as high as 101st Street. East-west, it goes as high as 21st Avenue. The addresses on the e-w streets seem to use the harbor as a zero, and more-or-less match the avenues in increments of 100. But on the avenues, addresses only match the cross streets starting at 39th St. Below (north of) that, the address numbers seem to be zero from where the street begins. This seems to be the rule all over town. An address on one avenue can vary greatly from that of the avenue a block away, and it is not uncommon for address numbers to increment steadily, with multiples of 100 (or their position) to be in the middle of a block!
To the east is another grid, but this one has the numbered "Streets" go (approximately) N-S and the "Avenues" are E-W -- which are named by letter, starting from Avenue C and going all the way to Avenue Z, albeit with a few letters missing. But there are also some N-S Avenues in place of some of the Streets, such as Coney Island Ave. and Nostrand Ave. What's more, these numbered streets have an "East" prefix. So, for instance, 4th St. and East 4th St. are not the same road. The "East" streets go as high as 108th, all the way to the Queens border, but at some points the numbering continues when the grid shifts angles, or even assumes smaller sub-grids. (There is also a numbered grid with a "West" prefix between the two grids, but it only goes up to 13th and has a much smaller N-S footprint than the others.) Address numbering appears to be largely based on where the road begin, with the zero to the north or west, though there are some cross-streets that honor the numbered streets.
Did I mention there's also a "Bay nth Street", a "Brighton nth Street" and a "Flatlands nth Street" grid?
Quote from: lepidopteran on January 14, 2017, 10:48:44 PM
I attempted to find a zero point for Brooklyn, NY. Of course, having lots of varied street grids in town, I could not find any. But here's what I did find.
There is one main numbered grid (angled) to the west, modified, interrupted, and with exceptions. North-south, numbers go as high as 101st Street. East-west, it goes as high as 21st Avenue. The addresses on the e-w streets seem to use the harbor as a zero, and more-or-less match the avenues in increments of 100. But on the avenues, addresses only match the cross streets starting at 39th St. Below (north of) that, the address numbers seem to be zero from where the street begins. This seems to be the rule all over town. An address on one avenue can vary greatly from that of the avenue a block away, and it is not uncommon for address numbers to increment steadily, with multiples of 100 (or their position) to be in the middle of a block!
To the east is another grid, but this one has the numbered "Streets" go (approximately) N-S and the "Avenues" are E-W -- which are named by letter, starting from Avenue C and going all the way to Avenue Z, albeit with a few letters missing. But there are also some N-S Avenues in place of some of the Streets, such as Coney Island Ave. and Nostrand Ave. What's more, these numbered streets have an "East" prefix. So, for instance, 4th St. and East 4th St. are not the same road. The "East" streets go as high as 108th, all the way to the Queens border, but at some points the numbering continues when the grid shifts angles, or even assumes smaller sub-grids. (There is also a numbered grid with a "West" prefix between the two grids, but it only goes up to 13th and has a much smaller N-S footprint than the others.) Address numbering appears to be largely based on where the road begin, with the zero to the north or west, though there are some cross-streets that honor the numbered streets.
Did I mention there's also a "Bay nth Street", a "Brighton nth Street" and a "Flatlands nth Street" grid?
The main grid
generally uses Flatbush as a zero for the avenues, increasing as one heads south. 1st and 2nd are the exception here. Numbers even out south of Green-Wood Cemetery.
Manhattan's grid is less of a nightmare. Streets generally run East-West, and Avenues run North-South. Houston Street is special, and that it ends the numbered street grid. South of Houston, streets are not numbered, and date back to New Amsterdam, meaning they have a pretty strange grid, like THIS. (https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7206032,-73.9961148,15z)
North of Houston, the numbered street grid is slightly skewed, but evens out at 14th Street. It becomes pretty linear from there. There's also East and West prefixes for streets, but unlike Brooklyn, they are the same road. 5th Avenue is the dividing line for the prefixes. The only real oddity is that there's places like Inwood and Washington Heights that just have West prefixes, while The Bronx (it's always The Bronx, not the Bronx. It's just too special) has the East prefixes.
The only strange road north of 14th is Broadway, and I have no idea why it's a diagonal.
Now...don't get me started on Queens.
Quote from: noelbotevera on January 15, 2017, 01:31:17 AM
The only strange road north of 14th is Broadway, and I have no idea why it's a diagonal.
The history of Broadway dates back to before the original Dutch colonists, so what happened was merely that the rest of the grid just popped up around Broadway as the Dutch, then the British, and then the Americans continued to use it.
Quote from: TheHighwayMan394 on January 17, 2017, 12:19:06 AM
Quote from: noelbotevera on January 15, 2017, 01:31:17 AM
The only strange road north of 14th is Broadway, and I have no idea why it's a diagonal.
The history of Broadway dates back to before the original Dutch colonists, so what happened was merely that the rest of the grid just popped up around Broadway as the Dutch, then the British, and then the Americans continued to use it.
Broadway and US 9/NY 9H from Lower Manhattan to Albany generally trace an old Native American trail. The route greatly predates independence and was the main non-rail land route Upstate until construction of the Thruway.
anyone know jacksonvilles?
Quote from: noelbotevera on January 15, 2017, 01:31:17 AM
Manhattan's grid is less of a nightmare. Streets generally run East-West, and Avenues run North-South. Houston Street is special, and that it ends the numbered street grid. South of Houston, streets are not numbered, and date back to New Amsterdam, meaning they have a pretty strange grid, like THIS. (https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7206032,-73.9961148,15z)
North of Houston, the numbered street grid is slightly skewed, but evens out at 14th Street. It becomes pretty linear from there. There's also East and West prefixes for streets, but unlike Brooklyn, they are the same road. 5th Avenue is the dividing line for the prefixes. The only real oddity is that there's places like Inwood and Washington Heights that just have West prefixes, while The Bronx (it's always The Bronx, not the Bronx. It's just too special) has the East prefixes.
The only strange road north of 14th is Broadway, and I have no idea why it's a diagonal.
Now...don't get me started on Queens.
Jerome Avenue In the Bronx Is the E/W Divider, before 1914 Bronx county was part of New York County. 5th Avenue and Jerome Avenue are on the same alignment.
In Denver it would be the intersection of Ellsworth and Broadway, at least the main N-S and E-W grids. We have a weird diagonal downtown grid where you have numbered "streets" that go NW-SE inside the main grid which has numbered "avenues" that run E-W; 1st Ave is one block north of Ellsworth. A lot of people think it is Alameda because of its status as a very major artery, but Alameda is actually three blocks south of the zero line. Ellsworth is a comparatively minor street that is mostly residential and is frequently interrupted and cut off from itself.
North of the I-270/US36 interchange, I-25 more or less supercedes Broadway and is the de facto E/W dividing point.
In San Francisco the zero points would be at San Francisco City Hall. I remember US-101 James Lick Freeway at one point had a control cities sign for "Civic Center" and it was pointing towards the Central Freeway.
Bakersfield, CA! My hometown. The intersection of Brundage Lane and Union Ave (CA-204, former US 99). All of the street numbers within the city limits, and many outside the city limits but in the Bakoplex, radiate outwards from that intersection.
Numbered streets and some named streets east of Union use the 'E' directional (E 19 St, E Truxtun Ave); numbered streets west of Union use no directional (19 St) but a smattering of named streets use a 'W' directional west of Union (W Columbus St) and no directional east of Union.
Several streets south of Brundage (or its western successor, Stockdale Hwy) use an 'S' directional (S Real Rd, S Union Ave) while north of Brundage/Stockdale no directional is used (Real Rd, Union Ave). Many others, particularly in the western half of the city, simply change names when they cross Stockdale (Old River to Calloway, Gosford to Coffee, California to New Stine). Like the 'W' directional noted above, a precious few use an 'N' directional (N Stine Rd north of Stockdale, Stine Rd south of it, not to be confused with the aforementioned New Stine Rd). Chester Ave, the main N/S drag through downtown Bakersfield has the distinction of having both 'S' and 'N' directionals, though the 'N' comes when it crosses the Kern River (an actual river now, thanks to a very wet January) and leaves the city limits, entering the adjoining unincorporated town of Oildale.
If you have made it this far, congratulations! While nominally a grid, Bakersfield's street system is a clusterduck.
Sorry to bump this thread, but I never responded and wanted to expand on Las Vegas.
Quote from: cl94 on December 15, 2016, 08:05:23 PM
Quote from: silverback1065 on December 15, 2016, 07:05:12 PM
can someone explain Las Vegas's? I think its Las Vegas Blvd and Fremont St. but that doesn't seem to fit the whole city.
Correct. West of I-15, it runs along US 95. When Fremont Street turns toward the south, it shifts to Charleston Blvd.
The addressing origin point for Las Vegas is actually the intersection of Main St & Fremont St. The specific north/south and east/west boundaries are somewhat complex (I found the specific boundaries in the Las Vegas Municipal Code a long time ago, but can't find them currently), and results in numbering oddities. The complication comes from the original downtown Las Vegas townsite streets being aligned parallel and perpendicular to the railroad tracks (skewed about 30° from true north), but the vast majority of the Las Vegas valley's major streets later being laid out along PLSS survey lines.
The east/west boundary, from the south: It follows Las Vegas Blvd (the Strip) from the southern reaches of the unincorporated Las Vegas Valley northward, then turns north along Main Street until it reaches the Las Vegas/North Las Vegas city limits at Owens Avenue. From points north of here, the east/west boundary shifts over to the Goldfield Street alignment (a minor collector road halfway between Commerce St & N 5th St that starts and stops). Due to the northeastward trajectories of Las Vegas Blvd & Main St, this results in the east/west dividing line shifting about 1.5 miles eastward from south to north.
The north/south boundary, from the west: It follows the westward extension of the Westcliff Drive alignment eastward until the road passes Rainbow Blvd and it's alignment intersects US 95, then follows US 95 eastward until about Valley View Blvd. The boundary then heads east along a westward extension of the Mesquite Ave alignment (a minor neighborhood street) eastward to the point where the alignments of Mesquite Ave and Fremont St would intersect. Then the north/south boundary follows Fremont St through downtown until it intersects Charleston Blvd. The boundary follows Charleston Blvd to the eastern edge of the valley. Due to the southeastward trajectory of Fremont St, this results in the north/south dividing line shifting about 1 mile southward from west to east.
As a result of the odd boundary divisions (as well as slight differences in numbers per block downtown and in other areas), street address numbering oddities have resulted. An arterial on the same alignment can be the divider between 3400/3500 blocks at one location and the divider between 3700/3800 just a couple miles south. The progression of western block numbers near Las Vegas Blvd seems incredibly compressed, in order to get the overall numbering in line due to the angled dividing lines. The most egregious numbering oddity is the north/south progression in certain areas: on the west side of the valley, driving north across Charleston Blvd takes you from the S 1100 block to S 1000; whereas the same trip on the east side of the valley will take you from S 1100 to N 00. (I recall there was a further complex part of the city street numbering code that elaborated on how the numbers N 00 to N 200 were assigned, but I can't recall what that was.)
The City of Las Vegas, the City of North Las Vegas, and the unincorporated areas of Clark County within the Las Valley Valley, all use the same address system–the City of Henderson uses a separate addressing system (although parts of Henderson that were annexed from unincorporated county townships may use the valley-wide system). Since major streets retain their name crossing from unincorporated Las Vegas into Henderson, it's especially important to have the direction prefix and city name with your address–an address like "800 Warm Springs Road" could put you in any of three or four different locations...
In Detroit, the zero point is Woodward and Jefferson Ave. The east-west line runs on Woodward to 6 Mile, then runs up John R in Oakland County.