I always thought that the house numbering scheme in Chicago was: Odd numbers on the East and South sides of the street, even numbers on the West and North sides of the street.
But recently I found myself traveling north on Clark Street on the #22 bus. We were in that section between Division Street and North Avenue commonly known as Sandburg Village. Looking out the window, what to my wondering eyes should appear but ODD numbers on the buildings on the WEST side of the street. I couldn’t see out the other window to be sure about the east side of the street, and haven’t had a chance to go back there to check it out.
Is this some sort of exception to the rule? Or was I duped about there ever being a rule in the first place?
PS - don’t need answer fast.
I also thought that was the convention. But there are always exceptions, aren’t there?
However, those might not be Clark St. addresses, but could be North Sandburg Terrace instead. That’s the access road that runs north-south between LaSalle and Clark, so all those buildings would actually be on the east side of the naming street.
I did some quick Google Streetviewing and see what you mean.
For example, Bryant House is 1455 but on the west side of the street. The Jewel at 1210 is on the ‘correct’ side of the street.
Another odd clue is that it appears that stretch of Clark appears to undergo a very brief name change to Sandburg Terrace.
WAG: Perhaps what is now Clark St frontage is/was the rear of these addresses?
Looking at this viewpoint, I wonder if the plaza between Clark & LaSalle south of Schiller is the front door on the buildings on the west side of Clark. And on the east side, maybe they use Sutton Place for the odd/even call?
Fake edit: Ya, this seems to be something unique to those couple blocks of Sandburg Terrace. By 1500N, the Natural Order of odd/even addresses is restored.
2nd fake edit: What xenophon41 said.
Just to be clear, Clark being labeled “Sandburg Terrace” on that map is an error on Google’s part. I’ve reported it to them; if the last report I made to them is any indication, they’ll fix it in about four months after sending me an email saying they can’t fix it because of “technical limitations”. (Seriously, I reported an error where a stretch of 34th Street in St. Petersburg had an “Interstate 34” shield on it. There is no Interstate 34, first of all, and secondly, if it did exist, it wouldn’t be no damn north-south surface street in Florida. The reply I received was, quote, “Unfortunately, for various reasons, the problem you reported isn’t easy for us to fix at this time”. Seems they’ve finally fixed it now, though.)
There were some problems around here like that before I moved here. Traditionally most of the mailboxes were grouped on one side of the road, and the numbers were distributed somewhat randomly. Eventually the post office allowed mailboxes on both sides of the street, and the addresses were renumbered. But occasionally someone will come looking for a house using the old number, and no one living around here now remembers which was which.
The numbers you are seeing are the back of the townhomes, not the front.
That seems to be the consensus. Thanks, everyone, for restoring my faith in the Good and Proper Functioning of the City. I’d hate to think that anarchy was busting out all over! We might have the worst schools in the nation, the highest murder rate, and more potholes per capita that Afghanistan, but at least our housing numbers are well regulated!