About four or five years ago, at the behest of the police department, fire department and private ambulance company, the city council here in Appleton, WI decreed that all of the public alleys in the city be given proper street names. The impetus was to make life easier for those agencies when they are responding to calls and identify where they were while rendering their services. They are marked with regular city-issued blade signs and there are about 22 or 23 such alleys in the city. They carry names such as Adkins Alley, Fisk Alley, Buck Alley, Kimball Alley, Murch Alley, Koester Alley and so on. Are there any other cities in the USA that have done this and what are your thoughts on it?
Mike
The Back Bay in Boston just numbers them, so you get things like Public Alley 420. (There aren't that many.)
Many alleys in Pennsylvania towns have names.
I wouldn't think it's that common in Appleton-sized places, but in big cities it is. Downtown San Francisco comes to mind. Example: https://goo.gl/maps/apAukj9rwF6gVjEf7 (https://goo.gl/maps/apAukj9rwF6gVjEf7)
Crackerbarrell Alley in Northampton, MA.
Philadelphia. That is all.
In that city, every alley, it seems, has a street name, and even houses with addresses along it. That was the place that came to mind for me when I saw this thread - I'm surprised that no one had mentioned that city yet (aside from one post that referred to Pennsylvania more broadly).
China Alley in Hanford, California:
https://www.gribblenation.org/2018/08/china-alley-hanford-ca.html?m=1
There's two here in Mason City, Commercial Alley and Enterprise Alley. I personally think it's silly, but I believe there are businesses downtown officially on those roadways.
Sacramento does, and the names starts with the letter as the prior street.
Example: The alley south of J st is Jazz alley.
Very interesting. :nod: I agree that doing that definitely makes life easier for the emergency services agencies, but I would think that finding enough names for them all might be a bit difficult for a bigger city like Chicago, Milwaukee or NYC. Appleton did recycle some older obsolete street names for some of them.
Mike
Quote from: KCRoadFan on August 26, 2023, 12:23:27 AM
Philadelphia. That is all.
In that city, every alley, it seems, has a street name, and even houses with addresses along it. That was the place that came to mind for me when I saw this thread - I'm surprised that no one had mentioned that city yet (aside from one post that referred to Pennsylvania more broadly).
Yeah Elfreth's Alley is perhaps the most famous alley in Philadelphia.
Stefano Way in Ocean City, NJ
I rode past Christ Church Alley in Baltimore once.
Google Maps shows some of my local alleyways as just the name of the street the houses are officially on, but replaces "Street" with "Alley." However I don't think this is official.
Reno, NV has three public alleys in downtown with names that I am aware of: Douglas Alley, Fulton Alley, and Lincoln Alley. These are not marked with street name signs, but do have some fancy signage (https://goo.gl/maps/gTSbH5NzsUh5ZbpBA). There are other alleys (and historically, Reno had many more), but these are the only ones I know of with names and that are marked as such.
Marquette, Michigan, has at least one signed/named alley: Jackson Cut (https://www.google.com/maps/@46.5431441,-87.395532,3a,75y,65.93h,78.16t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1smOrnOCYuMIGXhbf7qcdlfw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu). There are a few situations where there are roadways I would consider an alley that have street names, like Piqua Street (https://www.google.com/maps/@46.5485679,-87.3990711,551m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu).
Some of the alleys in Downtown LA are named, but not in other parts of the city generally.
Probably not what the OP had in mind, but a lot of the streets in Ogden, KS (https://maps.app.goo.gl/PrtrQXzS5jVJMRvq9), are named Alley. Some of them function as typical alleys, but not all: there are street addresses like 512 Ashwood Alley.
Post Alley in Seattle has its own Wikipage. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_Alley)
Parkersburg, West Virginia has a bunch of them. Most of these do not have any associated building addresses. Here are the ones that I could still find:
- Dawson Alley
- Franklin Alley
- Phillips Court Alley
- St. James Court Alley
- William Court Alley
- Wilson Alley
Plus, there's one that doesn't seem to fit the OP intentions: Broadway Alley. This runs behind (north side) of Broadway Avenue, but continues westward as Broadway Avenue Ext.
But perhaps my favorite is the unposted 7-1/2 Street. There's no building addresses that use this street name, so it technically is an alley. (There are "vacant" properties such as parking lots that have this as a street address). But there are also a handful of non-alleys with similar names: 9-1/2 Street; 13-1/2 Street; 17-1/2 Street; and 29-1/2 Street.
17-1/2 Street has been renamed as Bidwell Street, but the old street sign (https://www.google.com/maps/@39.274708,-81.5462073,3a,15.5y,1.01h,87.07t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1swr78epBdDbQThPKjmGbYhg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu) might still be up. Most of this certainly qualifies as an alley.
All of the alleys in my small town of Groveport Ohio have names and signs. Suffix is always "Alley" though some streets that have always been "Streets" should have been called "Alleys" when I was a kid and they were much narrower and finished with tar chip at the time.
Downtown Los Angeles has a handful of alleys with street names. Werdin Pl, St Joseph's Pl, Lebanon St
Atlantic City names some allies but they are avenues if they are thru, and places if they dead end.
Almost all of the alleys within the Mile Square in downtown Indianapolis have always had official names.
Most of Cincinnati's alleys are named, and it's not a recent thing. Whether they do or don't have names is more of a neighborhood-by-neighborhood thing. Madisonville, an outlying neighborhood that was once an independent village and early railroad suburb, has almost no named alleys. On the other hand, nearly every one in downtown, Over-the-Rhine, Mt. Auburn, West End, and Walnut Hills is named. Some neighborhoods have few alleys at all, named or unnamed, like Clifton, College Hill, Hyde Park, and Oakley. It all depends on when they were platted/developed and to what sort of design standards. There's a fascinatingly thorough inventory of alleys, including their pavement type, directionality, and width (most are painfully narrow, just 10' from building to building) at https://springinoursteps.com/alleyinventory/
Yeah living in Oakley was weird not having alleys. It too was a separate village initially. It makes it slow to get around on foot. I would see stuff that was RIGHT THERE but I couldn't get to it efficiently. Goes to show even old streetcar suburbs can have anti-pedestrian design.
At least three of Huntsville's alleys in the neighborhoods immediately around downtown (but not in downtown, IIRC) are named, but, once you get further out from there, the older neighborhoods with alleys don't have them named.
Admittedly, one of the alleys (Cruise Alley) is more of a street than an alley in both width and the fact that there are houses actually along it. Strangely, the house numbers there are all very low (less than 100) and aren't fit into Huntsville incremental 100, 200, 300, etc. numbering system for house numbers across blocks.
Madison, AL, also has exactly one named alley in their downtown (if not the whole city): Buttermilk Alley. In fact, most of the alleys here in Alabama aren't named, and, if they are, they typically aren't signed. Apparently some of the alleys in Sheffield are named as 1/2 Avenues due to being between numbered roads that are things like 12th Avenue, 13th Avenue, 14th Avenue, etc. The ones that are more like streets than alleys, like 11 1/2 Avenue (https://www.google.com/maps/@34.7462705,-87.7039167,3a,15y,163.58h,89.48t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sRToHJRAg9WVcPQw5zW1IUw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu), 14 1/2 Street (https://www.google.com/maps/@34.7474689,-87.6954179,3a,15y,146.19h,92.4t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sRAhyQPIbEDfOkYEApCM27Q!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu), and 15 1/2 Street (https://www.google.com/maps/@34.7480018,-87.6939165,3a,15y,11.53h,90.99t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sLVNgJT5ileWmed1InhpE8Q!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu) seem to only be signed due to being more like streets (and having building/lot addresses along them) than alleys.
Elsmere, DE names most of its alleys like lettered streets. The one behind my house was G Street. They go as high as Y Street.
Fan Tan Alley in Victoria, BC (https://maps.app.goo.gl/A163zxovxX5WyTgw8) was used in the movie Bird On a Wire (1990). They even helpfully have the characters ride a ferry from Detroit to (er) Racine to stand in for the change in filming location from Vancouver to Victoria. The alley is still named Fan Tan Alley in the film.
Philadelphia and environs has tons of named alleys.