Queens NY: Returning Numbered Streets To Their Original Names

[SidS1045]

The New York Times published a story today about reverting some numbered streets in the Queens neighborhood known as Douglaston back to their original names.  Cliff's Notes:  A City Council resolution restored about half a dozen numbered streets to their original names in a portion of Douglaston which is a historic district.  For those of you who don't know NYC, Douglaston doesn't resemble the "big city" at all.  It's an area of northeastern Queens, abutting Nassau County, with single-family homes on quiet streets with lots of trees.

Apparently, in this one area, the traditional Queens house-numbering scheme will also vary from the norm.  "For example, 240-34 43rd Avenue will become 34 Pine Street."

Link:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/nyregion/in-douglaston-queens-turning-away-from-numbered-streets.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion

[1995hoo]

I suppose I could try looking it up, but perhaps someone familiar with it could give a clear and concise explanation: How did the house-numbering system in Queens originate? I recall my father's mother (who died in the mid-1990s) lived in an apartment in Far Rockaway at 20-46 Seagirt Boulevard. I always wondered what the significance of "20-46" was because I assumed the hyphen must have denoted something, although I also noted that the apartment management company sometimes listed the address as "2046" (a number more of the style we have here in Virginia). Your post suggests to me that the "46" is the building number and the "20" denotes something else. I assume from looking at the picture in the article linked in the original post that in some parts of Queens the number before the hyphen may denote the nearest cross street, but I think I recall the cross streets near where my grandmother lived being Crest Road, Fernside Place, and Watjean Court (I have not been back to Far Rockaway since she died to confirm whether they changed anything).

[Kacie Jane]

20-46 is exactly the same as 2046 anywhere else; I have no idea why Queens uses hyphens. 20 denotes the block number, 46 denotes the house on that block.

The reason the example in the article -- 240-34 43rd Avenue -- just gets truncated to 34 is that, if you look at a map, that section of 43rd Avenue begins at/near 240th Street.  So the building in question is now just the 34th house on the new/old Pine Street rather than the 34th house on the 240th block of 43rd Avenue.

[realjd]

20-46 is exactly the same as 2046 anywhere else; I have no idea why Queens uses hyphens. 20 denotes the block number, 46 denotes the house on that block.

The reason the example in the article -- 240-34 43rd Avenue -- just gets truncated to 34 is that, if you look at a map, that section of 43rd Avenue begins at/near 240th Street.  So the building in question is now just the 34th house on the new/old Pine Street rather than the 34th house on the 240th block of 43rd Avenue.

So the house numbers are incremental and not geocoded? Everywhere I've lived the house numbers have been based on distance from a geographic zero address point with 1 mile = 1000 address units. My neighbor's house number is 14 higher than mine for instance. What do they do if a new address is needed between two existing ones? 1/2 addresses?

[NE2]

The Northeast in general measures from the beginning of the street. This is even true in Manhattan, where the avenues differ based on where each one begins.

The Queens method is closer to a grid, with the block number in front. I don't know if the sub-block numbers skip any.

[Duke87]

Addresses in Queens are not incremental (after all, over the years lots combine and subdivide). As in most urban areas, they are distance based. In order for all numbers to be used the lots would have to be the standard minimum lot width (which I believe is 20 feet, but I'm not 100% certain).

The thing is that since Queens was not laid out as a uniform grid, the blocks are not of uniform width. So they are geocoded, but the reference point resets at every numerical cross street. In fact, the street numbers themselves are geocoded, which can lead to numbers being skipped or extras being stuck in between - extras between Avenues (east-west) are Road and then Drive, extras between Streets (north-south) are Place and then Lane.
So you might end up with something like:

(1st Avenue) 1-1, 1-5, 1-9 (1st Road) 1-11, 1-15 (2nd Avenue) 2-1, 2-3, 2-7, 2-9, 2-15, 2-19, 2-21 (4th Avenue) 4-1, 4-7, 4-11, etc.

It's actually a very simple and easy to follow system but it does tend to confuse the shit out of people who are unfamiliar with it.


As for why the hyphen, well, it differentiates 10-13 from 101-3 and such. You could also do that with zeroes (1013 versus 10103), but the hyphen more clearly emphasizes what the cross street is. I like it that way.

[Kacie Jane]

Apologies to everyone, I misspoke, and didn't necessarily mean literally the 34th house.  They are geocoded in a sense, as Duke explained, but not over a cumulative distance.  (In most urban areas I'm familiar with, you'll rarely see the house numbers on a block get past the 40s -- although I did once live at a 5252... just shy of 55th Street, on a long block where there was no 53rd or 54th.)

Although I think you're mistaken about the hyphen, Duke, as Queens appears to use zeroes anyway.  That is, in the example you gave, it would actually be 1-01, 1-05, 1-09...  So why couldn't it just be 101, 105, 109?

[Alps]

Apologies to everyone, I misspoke, and didn't necessarily mean literally the 34th house.  They are geocoded in a sense, as Duke explained, but not over a cumulative distance.  (In most urban areas I'm familiar with, you'll rarely see the house numbers on a block get past the 40s -- although I did once live at a 5252... just shy of 55th Street, on a long block where there was no 53rd or 54th.)

Although I think you're mistaken about the hyphen, Duke, as Queens appears to use zeroes anyway.  That is, in the example you gave, it would actually be 1-01, 1-05, 1-09...  So why couldn't it just be 101, 105, 109?

It could, but you run into the situation I saw where you have 13-15 42nd Ave. (hypothetical). That would be a 3-block long housing development that goes from 13th to 16th Sts. It would end up going to 1300-1500 by that system - not a huge problem, to be sure, but 1315 would be inaccurate.

[SidS1045]

In areas of Brooklyn where there are numbered street grids, the same rule applies, only without the hyphen.  For example, my late grandparents lived at 1825 Foster Avenue, between E 18th and E 19th Streets.  Before that they were at 1611 Foster Avenue, between E 16th and E 17th Streets.

[1995hoo]

In areas of Brooklyn where there are numbered street grids, the same rule applies, only without the hyphen.  For example, my late grandparents lived at 1825 Foster Avenue, between E 18th and E 19th Streets.  Before that they were at 1611 Foster Avenue, between E 16th and E 17th Streets.

Small world: My father grew up on Foster Avenue, although I don't know the address.

My mother grew up in Bay Ridge and I recall people there used a hyphen or dash to separate the house number from the street number when writing the address to avoid confusion. For example, "123—93 Street" or something similar.

On an urban grid the idea of using the block numbers has always made sense, but I've always found the "geocoding" idea annoying in the suburbs when you get four or five streets in the same subdivision that all use the same or very similar house numbers. Every street in my subdivision has numbers in the form "xxyz" and so we're all constantly receiving mail addressed to a house on another street with the same number. My parents' neighborhood out near Fairfax City is similar in that you have "89xx," "88xx," "39xx," etc., and the mailmen routinely mix up "89xx" and "39xx." In both cases our house numbers go in sequence, however–for example, if 1101 were the first number on the other side of the street, 1103 would be next to it, then 1105, etc. In my parents' neighborhood the number next to theirs is skipped because the space where the lot would be is a creek.

I suppose the same thing with mail mixups and similar annoyances can easily happen in a city, but for some reason it never did when my relatives lived in Bay Ridge.

The District of Columbia puts the block number either on or below the street sign to help people find addresses. 1301 K Street, for example, will be at the corner of 13th and K and the sign will have "1300 block" denoted somewhere. For the first block (less than 100) there's a plaque saying "UNIT," meaning "Unit Block"–1, 2, 3, etc.

[Duke87]

Although I think you're mistaken about the hyphen, Duke, as Queens appears to use zeroes anyway.

I was going to say "I've seen it done both ways", then I realized that there is one sole entity responsible for the fact that I keep seeing the zero omitted: Google Maps. Figures...

[jwolfer]

The New York Times published a story today about reverting some numbered streets in the Queens neighborhood known as Douglaston back to their original names.  Cliff's Notes:  A City Council resolution restored about half a dozen numbered streets to their original names in a portion of Douglaston which is a historic district.  For those of you who don't know NYC, Douglaston doesn't resemble the "big city" at all.  It's an area of northeastern Queens, abutting Nassau County, with single-family homes on quiet streets with lots of trees.

Apparently, in this one area, the traditional Queens house-numbering scheme will also vary from the norm.  "For example, 240-34 43rd Avenue will become 34 Pine Street."

Link:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/nyregion/in-douglaston-queens-turning-away-from-numbered-streets.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion

Gainesville Florida has a grid pattern now but the streets used to be named.. SE 2nd Ave or St ( I am not sure which) was Roper St.  That is where my mom lived as a child.  The street blades in the "historic district" have the historic street names listed as well as the numbered street

[realjd]

On an urban grid the idea of using the block numbers has always made sense, but I've always found the "geocoding" idea annoying in the suburbs when you get four or five streets in the same subdivision that all use the same or very similar house numbers. Every street in my subdivision has numbers in the form "xxyz" and so we're all constantly receiving mail addressed to a house on another street with the same number. My parents' neighborhood out near Fairfax City is similar in that you have "89xx," "88xx," "39xx," etc., and the mailmen routinely mix up "89xx" and "39xx." In both cases our house numbers go in sequence, however–for example, if 1101 were the first number on the other side of the street, 1103 would be next to it, then 1105, etc. In my parents' neighborhood the number next to theirs is skipped because the space where the lot would be is a creek.

They originally started allocating addresses like that in suburban and rural areas to aid emergency services in the time before computerized mapping and GPS. It makes it much easier to look on a map and figure out where a particular address is.