I think I have heard this before but can't find it searching. I know
even roads run e/w and odd roads run n/s. What I have not been able
to find is block numbers. If the building address numbers increase
you are going north?

How about e/w?

On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:27:00 -0500, metspitzer
wrote:

I think I have heard this before but can't find it searching. I know
even roads run e/w and odd roads run n/s. What I have not been able

That's for interstate highwasys and U.S highways. I don't think
states have such rules.

to find is block numbers. If the building address numbers increase
you are going north?

How about e/w?

Street numbers usually start at 1 at the heart of town, or the two
main intersecting streets. They increase in both directions.

In NYC, they increase going north, because the original heart of town
was the tip of Manhattan. For most of the city, east and west divide
at 5th Avenue.

Your post wasn't meant to be funny, was it?

metspitzer wrote:
I think I have heard this before but can't find it searching. I know
even roads run e/w and odd roads run n/s.

This is generally true of numbered routes, especially the Interstates
and US Highways. Not so true of State highways, County roads, etc


What I have not been able
to find is block numbers. If the building address numbers increase
you are going north?

Only if you are north of , and going away from, a baseline

If south of baseline, then numbers increase going south

How about e/w?

Similar to above

Of course some street systems do not have a baseline , so numbers can
any where they want to.


Block numbers in larger cities work from a baseline. For instance
Denver's n/s baseline is Ellsworth St, which runs e-w . e/w baseline
is Broadway, which runs n-s.

Don't even get into odd/even sides of streets as that varies locally
too much. Generally odds are W or N side. evens E or S side of street
(Now think about a circular street, as we have in my town !!)

Most of the towns in this area use 911 numbers. These start at the
beginning of a road and are 1/10 of the number of feet from the
beginning - odd on the left and even on the right. My house is number
80 - 800 feet on the right.


---MIKE---
In the White Mountains of New Hampshire
(44° 15' N - Elevation 1580')

Reed wrote:
....
This is generally true of numbered routes, especially the Interstates
and US Highways. Not so true of State highways, ...
....

Which, of course, is also not always so--some states also tend to follow
the same scheme for state roads as well--KS being one example.

Then there are the cities where much has no rhyme nor reason to it at
all...in Lynchburg, VA, we lived on a continuous street with no sharp
turns that changed its name five times and renumbered within about 15-20
blocks. And that was relatively easy to follow compared to some within
the older parts of town (which isn't all _that_ old compared to
Tidewater, even).

--

I think I have heard this before but can't find it searching. I know
even roads run e/w and odd roads run n/s. What I have not been able

That's for interstate highwasys and U.S highways. I don't think states
have such rules.


If I may expand from What I know.....

Your local government agency which controls the land records and building
code (City or County) will have set the rules for numbering buildings
along a street for your community. Behind the scenes, there is a formal
communications channel (read: red-tape bureaucratic form) where the
building inspectors and/or Land records office notifies the US Post
Office and the Federal Census Bureau of the street address of any new
buildings.

Your City (township, Village, whatever) gets its instructions from the
County, which in turn looks to your state Government. (Aside: Due to the
local trivial nature of this, the Federal Government is supposed to have
more important things to legislate, IT SHOULD be left up to each state--
but Oh, Well.)

In the 6 states I have lived in, the Deeds recorded in the land record
use description of the real land property that has nothing to do with
street address. The deed may, in passing refer to the street address,
but street numbers could change. Land records descriptions are not
supposed to change ever.

BTW, street names can also change.

"---MIKE---" wrote in message
...
Most of the towns in this area use 911 numbers. These start at the
beginning of a road and are 1/10 of the number of feet from the
beginning - odd on the left and even on the right. My house is number
80 - 800 feet on the right.


---MIKE---
In the White Mountains of New Hampshire
(44° 15' N - Elevation 1580')

That is the way it is in my area in North Carolina. About 25 years ago my
mailing address was a rual rout and box number . It was changed to a number
like 120 Road Number wehn the county started the 911 phone system. The 1520
ment it was about 1.5 miles from where the road started on one end. The
number was in 1/10 of a mile increments. Some driveways that went back to
two or 3 houses had to be given a road name and number for the houses.

On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:00:55 -0700, Reed wrote:



Of course some street systems do not have a baseline , so numbers can
any where they want to.

At the west end of Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, the next higher street
number across the street is two blocks farther west. You can find a
street number by looking on the wrong side of the street.

Block numbers in larger cities work from a baseline. For instance
Denver's n/s baseline is Ellsworth St, which runs e-w . e/w baseline
is Broadway, which runs n-s.

Don't even get into odd/even sides of streets as that varies locally
too much. Generally odds are W or N side. evens E or S side of street
(Now think about a circular street, as we have in my town !!)

But like you say it varies. in Indianappolis, the even numbers are
on the west side of the street. I don't know about E/W streets.

In Baltimore, because so many major streets are spokes of a wheel, I'm
not sure if they are bound by the E/W system or the N/S one. After 25
years here, I don't even know about my own house number, if it
represents my distance north of downtown, or west of downtown! It
wouldn't be that hard to figure it out. I should do it some day.

And like you say, my street is J shaped, or maybe G shaped, or O
shaped with extra arms, with consecutive numbering.

On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:51:59 GMT, (Doug Miller)
wrote:

In article , "Percival P. Cassidy" wrote:
Around here (W. Michigan) houses seem to be numbered as though the
street started at some specific baseline -- even if it didn't. E.g., one
could live on a street less than half a mile long, but the lowest house
number could be 3240.

Actually, that probably means that the street *does* have a specific baseline,
e.g. 3.240 miles north of the center of town.

Absolutely.

In Indianapolis, 1000 in street numbers, 10 blocks, equals one mile.
In Chicago, 800 and 8 blocks is a mile.

In NYC, I mentioned that 5th Avenue divided east and west most place.
(If you pay attention on Law & Order, you'll see that many of the
addresses given are in the middle of the Hudson or East Rivers.)

Going north and south, it's 20 blocks to a mile, like from 23 to 43rd
St. Each avenue starts its numbering where the avenue starts. If you
don't know the map by heart, there are wallet-size cards occasionally
given out by community organizations or advertisers. For example,
Take a street number on 5th Avenue. Say, the Guggenheim Museum whose
address is 1071. Divide the street number 1071 by 20 = 53 and add 6
because 5th Avenue starts at 6th St. and the sum is 59 and that will
be the cross street near the Guggenheim. Well it should have been.
The museum is actually near 90th St. I Must have done something
wrong.

2nd and 1st Avenues start at Houston St. which is one block south of
First St. Broadway starts at the tip of Manhattan which is 40 or 50
blocks south of Houston.

Brooklyn began as several separate towns and that is I think why there
are series of numbered streets, like 43rd st. etc. E 25th St. etc. W.
30th St. etc. These don't relate to where in Brooklyn the streets
are, and I think the prefixes were added later, when the towns merged
and they didn't want duplicate street names.

There is a newsgroup for the NYC subway where this kind of stuff is
discussed.

Doug Miller wrote:
In article , "Percival P. Cassidy" wrote:
Around here (W. Michigan) houses seem to be numbered as though the
street started at some specific baseline -- even if it didn't. E.g., one
could live on a street less than half a mile long, but the lowest house
number could be 3240.

Actually, that probably means that the street *does* have a specific baseline,
e.g. 3.240 miles north of the center of town.

Interesting thread. Lived here for years with street name and RR PO box
then county came in and numbered. Street with 10 houses and cul de sac,
they started numbering with 500 and skipped some numbers. Makes no
sense at all which is what you expect from morons in the county

Frank wrote:
Doug Miller wrote:
In article , "Percival P. Cassidy"
wrote:
Around here (W. Michigan) houses seem to be numbered as though the
street started at some specific baseline -- even if it didn't. E.g.,
one could live on a street less than half a mile long, but the lowest
house number could be 3240.

Actually, that probably means that the street *does* have a specific
baseline, e.g. 3.240 miles north of the center of town.

Interesting thread. Lived here for years with street name and RR PO box
then county came in and numbered. Street with 10 houses and cul de sac,
they started numbering with 500 and skipped some numbers. Makes no
sense at all which is what you expect from morons in the county

I remember living in Michigan, the road names made this expicit. e.g.
"baseline road," "seven mile road" etc. Lack of creativity or simple
pragmatism? you decide.

nate

--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

Ralph Mowery wrote:
"dpb" wrote in message ...
And, if it was anything at all like when they made the switchover while we
were in E TN, it didn't all go smoothly...

We were off 'Possum Hollow Rd, a very old well known by name in the county
by the locals but somewhat obscure to find if didn't know which little
opening on the hills actually had a road up it rather than just a drive or
turnout.

Anyway, the 911 dispatch system couldn't handle the contraction and in
their wisdom they renamed it to Hidden Hills Drive. Nobody could find it
for years and there was once incident where it did delay an ambulance
response quite some time until finally the dispatcher radio'ed the driver
the address was "off 'Possum Holler". "Oh, why didn't you say so?" was
the response I was told...

They changed here to the same mile numbering system some time ago w/ only
slightly better results. It works reasonably well in the areas that are
built up but if there's only 1 farm or ranch along several miles, it's far
simpler to just use the section line roads. Real rural just ain't city
despite how much they try to pretend in town.

--

Many times after the 911 change the volunteer firemen in the county would
ask for the person's name as they were beter known than the new road names.

As late as a few weeks ago the firemen road back and forth around my house
trying to find a fire. The road is about 1.8 miles long. As you pass my
house which is in a sharp curve to the left about 1.5 miles from one end,
there is a T intersection and you have to make a right turn to stay on the
same name of the road. If you continue on past my house and past the T
intersection, the name of the road changes, goes about 1/2 mile and then
ends into a major road. Seems they followed the road instead of making a
right turn to stay on the same named road where the fire was.

In rural PA, the vfd's commonly used desciptions like "next
to the old Shultz farm". That was back when folks knew
their neighbors ;-) Now, they have to check a map to see
which end of the road is closer to the house number.

Here in Dallas, it's not uncommon for a street to cross
itself, even several times. google map- "cedar springs",
"turtle creek".
Most streets that cross the trinity river change their name.
Disconcerting to go thru an intersection and be on a
different street.

-- larry/dallas

"Frank" wrote in message

Interesting thread. Lived here for years with street name and RR PO box
then county came in and numbered. Street with 10 houses and cul de sac,
they started numbering with 500 and skipped some numbers. Makes no sense
at all which is what you expect from morons in the county


Depends on the lots, not the houses, in most cases. If a lot can be
sub-divided in the future and a house plunked down in the middle, they
assign that number to the lot and go to the next house. The empty wooded
lot next to me has a number for just that reason.

In article , mm wrote:


But like you say it varies. in Indianappolis, the even numbers are
on the west side of the street. I don't know about E/W streets.

Evens on the north side of E/W streets.

Percival P. Cassidy wrote:
On 02/27/09 02:19 am wrote:

I think I have heard this before but can't find it searching. I know
even roads run e/w and odd roads run n/s. What I have not been able
to find is block numbers. If the building address numbers increase
you are going north?

How about e/w?

Thats not true in most cities. I have lived in several cities and all
of them had numbered streets starting with 1 and using both even and
odd numbers. One large city went all the way up to 160.

That city had house numbers increase in both directions. EX: 100 North
20th st, and 100 South 20th st.

Around here (W. Michigan) houses seem to be numbered as though the
street started at some specific baseline -- even if it didn't. E.g., one
could live on a street less than half a mile long, but the lowest house
number could be 3240.

Perce


Depends if you are city or country. I also live in SW MI. In the city,
numbers start where the first block of that street started, unless it
got renamed and renumbered sometime in the past, like if they added a
connector to another street a mile away that lined up with it. Several
of those in this town. (I got Real Bored one day, and went to the
library and looked it up, when I noticed some real old maps showed
different street names.) Sometimes there is an east and west, or a north
and south, using the artery road in that part of town as the baseline.
But not always, of course. Now outside the city limits, they base it on
the baseline and grid system, as others have described. Unless it is a
rural subdivision, with its own numbers on the street. Can't even find
the subdivision, unless you have a good recent map. And you can't trust
Google or Mapquest for house numbers around here- I have found them to
sometimes be off close to a mile. (I think they both use the same
defective source data.)

It can get REAL confusing in gerrymandered areas, where the same
straight road runs in and out of city limits, or through 2 abutting
cities and then out into the township. Sometimes they rationalize the
numbers, sometimes they don't.

At least we don't live in Japan. Don't know if it is still true, but in
the older parts of Tokyo, IIRC, they assigned house numbers based on
what order the houses were built in.

If GPS gets as endemic as cell phones, I see Lat/Long coordinates
becoming a part of commonly used addresses.

--
aem sends....

wrote:
On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:27:00 -0500, metspitzer
wrote:


I have lived in several cities and all
of them had numbered streets starting with 1 and using both even and
odd numbers. One large city went all the way up to 160.


Here in Tulsa we have street numbers going up to at least 280 in the
Southern direction. This is miles past the Tulsa City Limit. I have
no idea how they came to number streets for miles out into the
country, and into other counties, using the same street numbering
system.

Bill

wrote:
....
These are the kind of directions we seem to get around this rural
area. This drives me bonkers, since I only lived here about 8 years.

DIRECTIONS:

To get to the Swisher Farm, you better go early cuz he's usually in
the field by 8am. Do you know where Ben Houston lives? Ya, you
probably dont. OK.......

You go couple miles down the highway, maybe a little more. Watch for
the old Smith farm. Don't know who lives there now since Harold died
in the 40s and his wife took off with another man. That was the talk
of the town for months. Anyhow, turn left about a half mile or so
past there and go about 8 or 10 miles. Watch for a big red barn.
....entertaining rest elided for brevity...

And there's another kind??? Sounds 'bout right by me 'cept'in for the
tree; no trees here.

--

wrote:
....
I never understood the "HOLLOW" part on roads named xxxxxx hollow.
There are a few rural roads around my part of the country with
"hollow" at the end. I believe I heard of a Bear Hollow, and Orchard
Hollow. WHAT IS HOLLOW? Was there a hollow tree there, or was there
a big pot hole that the said was hollow? I always wondered how the
word HOLLOW got into road names?

A hollow (in the southeast particularly the locals will say "hollur",
maybe w/ about thu-ree or fuh-ore syllee-ubles as well) is the opening
between hills, often w/ a crick running down it at the bottom altho not
always. The roads named for the hollow will follow up it. Typically
the earliest settlements were along these bottom grounds, hence many of
them are also the earliest roads in those counties.
....

--

metspitzer wrote:
I think I have heard this before but can't find it searching. I know
even roads run e/w and odd roads run n/s. What I have not been able
to find is block numbers. If the building address numbers increase
you are going north?

How about e/w?

I 85 runs 509 miles E and 338 miles N. How come they call it a N/S road?

In England, the gentry named their houses. The common people followed
suit. Every house had a swinging board sign along the street, and these
signs could fall on people's heads.

In 1765, Parliament passed an act requiring houses in towns to be
numbered. The first house on the street, presumably coming from the
center of town, was #1. Odd numbers were normally on the left.

London didn't follow the law until 1805. Boston MA started numbering in
1821 and revised it about 1850.

About 1982, I helped my BIL make a one-lane 2100-foot dirt driveway from
the road to his house. Four years later the county put up a sign naming
his driveway for somebody we'd never heard of. They numbered his house 130.

E Z Peaces wrote:
metspitzer wrote:
I think I have heard this before but can't find it searching. I know
even roads run e/w and odd roads run n/s. What I have not been able
to find is block numbers. If the building address numbers increase
you are going north?

How about e/w?

I 85 runs 509 miles E and 338 miles N. How come they call it a N/S road?

'Cuz it runs generally SW to NE and it's either odd or even; there's no
other choice...

I suspect the primary reason it got the odd designation is that it
terminates (or orignates, depending on one's reference point) in I-95
rather than, say heading from Atlanta to Charlotte/Raleigh, say, from
whence it would likely have been even-numbered.

....

In 1765, Parliament passed an act requiring houses in towns to be
numbered. The first house on the street, presumably coming from the
center of town, was #1. Odd numbers were normally on the left.

Until you turned around, anyway...

--

For lo, BillGill hath proclaimed:

Here in Tulsa we have street numbers going up to at least 280 in the
Southern direction. This is miles past the Tulsa City Limit. I have
no idea how they came to number streets for miles out into the
country, and into other counties, using the same street numbering
system.

I remember seeing a section-line road in Bristow still tied to the
Tulsa grid: it was something like South 545th West Avenue.

On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 23:10:19 -0500, "Ed Pawlowski"
wrote:


"Frank" wrote in message

Interesting thread. Lived here for years with street name and RR PO box
then county came in and numbered. Street with 10 houses and cul de sac,
they started numbering with 500 and skipped some numbers. Makes no sense
at all which is what you expect from morons in the county


Depends on the lots, not the houses, in most cases. If a lot can be
sub-divided in the future and a house plunked down in the middle, they
assign that number to the lot and go to the next house. The empty wooded
lot next to me has a number for just that reason.

It depends on where. Some places measure the distance from the
corner and assign the house number. Other places even with big lots
just number by two's until some location where they go up to the next
hundred.

Frank wrote:
Doug Miller wrote:
In article , "Percival P. Cassidy"
wrote:
Around here (W. Michigan) houses seem to be numbered as though the
street started at some specific baseline -- even if it didn't. E.g.,
one could live on a street less than half a mile long, but the lowest
house number could be 3240.

Actually, that probably means that the street *does* have a specific
baseline, e.g. 3.240 miles north of the center of town.

Interesting thread. Lived here for years with street name and RR PO box
then county came in and numbered. Street with 10 houses and cul de sac,
they started numbering with 500 and skipped some numbers. Makes no
sense at all which is what you expect from morons in the county


RR and/or PO box worked fine because the mail carrier was the only guy
who needed to find you. Then along came ambulance service who can't
find you in a PO box. Of course, back in the day, they just had to know
your name )