I like what I see on maps of Lower Manhattan. Besides the obviously famous streets like Wall and the Bowery, many of the others seem rather oddly to bear what seem like first names–like John, Henry, Ann, Leonard, Thomas, and William. One assumes that some of those could have been named after English royalty back in colonial times–but surely not Henry, Leonard, and John? Also, I wonder who Great Jones was and if there was also a Little or Not Quite So Great Jones. I do know there was once a Little Walter, but that street is long gone.
I don’t think L.A.'s street names are anything to brag about, but then they’re too familiar to me since I live here.
The actual names may not be interesting, but the acronym for Seattle streets is “Jesus Christ Made Seattle Under Protest”, which I think ought to count for something.
I humbly insist that Margaret Ct. and Della St. be added at the earliest possible convenience.
I was directed to Leanders St. once. I was working with a children’s entertainment company way back before Googlemaps or Mapquest. We’d get directions to the party over the phone when booked. The host of the party gave the address on Leanders St.(Lee-ANN-ders), so that’s what we wrote down. We followed directions well enough to get into the general vicinity of the party but couldn’t find Leanders St. Finally, we realized that “Lee-ANN-ders” was the neighborhood pronounciation of “Leonidas”.
:smack:
Some of my favorites have been mentioned, Calliope, Tchoupitoulas, Carondelet, I’ll add some of my other favorites:
Prytania
Freret
Fontainebleau
Gentilly
Elysian Fields
Ursulines
Poydras
Calliope and Clio, mentioned above, are actually filled out with the other seven of the Nine Muses. Heading downtown on Prytania or Coliseum, you’ll pass (in order):
Urania
Polymnia (variant of Polyhymnia)
Euterpe
Terpsichore
Melpomene
Thalia
Erato
Clio
Calliope
Vegas has Paradise, Rainbow, Tropicana, Flamingo, Warm Springs, Spring Mountain and lots more.
I will admit that I always got a laugh at the one near campus Buttles because when people said it, it usually sounded like Buttholes. Ahhh the cheap and easy laughs of the immature.
Middle River, Maryland, just outside the former Martin Aircraft factory - an entire neighborhood with streets named for airplane parts. Left Aileron Drive, Fuselage Avenue, Yawmeter Drive, Cockpit Street …
I drove around Honolulu a few months ago. The street names sounded exotic but boy, talk about vowel overload. I stopped looking at street names after a while because they all blurred together. One street had something like a 12 letter name and 10 of them were vowels (I don’t know the exact number but it was impressively unpronounceable).
This is a bit off-subject, but a good story - the city council of Brisbane Australia had a good idea, in naming the first new bridge over the Brisbane River for 50 years - the Go-Between Bridge, named after a local indie rock band made good, but also a description of what the structure is there for…
As you can see here, the Ohio city of Lorain has a series of avenues named for states. Obviously the grid was laid out while Hawaii was still a territory.
