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#152795 12/29/05 07:57 PM
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Logwood Offline OP
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Sorry for delaying in reply: But if didn't already knew, or just have to see it on print, then naturally you guys made it clear; like you always do. Gramercy!
And I'm glad to know there are New Yorkers here. But that's no surprise since nearly all of you are Uncle Sam's folks AFAIK.

Hmm, I wish I knew you guys IRL, of course I'd need an extended ultra-advanced dictionary to properly converse with some...

Edit: you know, I love the awake the debating-monster in you. Sometimes I have to avoid my own threads since you Carpal tunnels dig so deep into things I know nothing about! in a way it makes me feel kinda important to have that effect...

Last edited by Logwood; 12/29/05 08:06 PM.
#152796 12/29/05 07:57 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
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well the old street light/street signs --the white letters on navy (both enamal)ones, not silk screened green/white on aluminum) had the full word East or West (but it was much smaller letters)--you know the kind of signs found on bishops crook's lamp poles.

queens (been living here 25 years) is very difficult to navigate. house numbers have 2 sets of digits.

my old house was at 249-36 -- the first digits(249) indicated that it was close to 249th street.
the second set of digits (36) designated the lot number.

Not a bad system (10-63 Jackson Avenue is near 10th street/63rd lot... )

problem is: Queens has both STREETS and AVENUES that are numbered 10. (so there could be 10-63 Ditmars Blvd, (and the #10 would refer 10th avenue)--so you have to KNOW what is being references (and there is no real clue!) Unless you knew were Jackson avenue in queens was (and where Ditmars blvd was too!)--the 2 'similar numbers' could be 4 miles apart!

Second problem-- While 99% of the time streets are nominal NORTH/SOUTH in oriention --(Nominally means: the streets are more or less parallel to the island of manhattan (which is not quite north/south, but we all pretend it is) and Avenues are more or less (often, a lot less!) cross the streets at right angles (ie, nominally the run east/west,
Queens if full of roads, places, courts, drives, and lanes,blvds, and parkways as well avenues. (and these can and do replace streets!)

its not uncommon for you to find 67th Avenue to be followed by 67th Drive, 67th Road, followed by Jewel Avenue--
and then followed by 71st STREET (68th, 69th and 70th totally missing!)

Nor is it uncommon for streets to change names as they cross intersections.. (stand on one side of Queens Blvd, and you're at 63 Drive (a 2 way street) cross the Blvd, and you are on 63rd Road, (a 1 way street) and 63rd Drive is a block away (200 or so feet!) (well at least the subway stairs are right--on both sides of the street, the 63rd Drive subway stop exits are at 63rd Drive--

(meanwhile, try to exit the #1/9/3/4, (or the A, E, D, F) trains to West 4th street from the West 4th street station--Dare you to!)

Manhattan is by far, the easiest borough to navigate. the bronx, is almost as easy, (it follows the same plan, but its avenues are all named (only Park Avenue continues with its name unchanged from Manhattan to the bronx)

Queens is bad, and the rule in brooklyn is: NEVER GET OFF THE HIGHWAY. but even Brooklyn is easy compared to Staten Island.

ALL of queens resembles the twisted confusing streets of lower manhattan (a 3 square mile area)--but queens is 100 square mile area!

Near were i used to live, there is an interesting intersection. Its pretty much a true + (vs a X shaped intersection)
the Road, (little neck parkway) runs North/South. travel on it 1 block south of Grand Centeral Parkway, and the cross street is labeled 273rd Street (on the East side of Little Neck parkway) On the WEST side of Little Neck Parkway, the street is 268th Street.

Its enough to drive you crazy!

#152797 12/29/05 08:57 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
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Quote:


Its enough to drive you crazy!




Case in point.

#152798 12/29/05 09:20 PM
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Pooh-Bah
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Signage be damned, I maintain that here, as in OZ, the street is named the number, the cardinal is an encumbrance of need. The DOT may paint or print, stencil or silk screen, but yet lost! lost! we are all lost!

Last edited by inselpeter; 12/29/05 09:22 PM.
#152799 12/29/05 11:09 PM
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Logwood Offline OP
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Dear god, of troy, that's so much than what I bargained for!

I am so not touring in New York ever never ever. I do wonder how's R'lyeh this time-a-year... zmjezhd?

#152800 12/30/05 12:34 AM
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Carpal Tunnel
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I do wonder how's R'lyeh this time-a-year

Rather wet. No street signage, though.


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
#152801 12/30/05 12:37 AM
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Carpal Tunnel
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My favorite street signage was in Budapest and Beograd in December of 1990. All the major streets had been renamed (usually to their pre-Communist names) and the old signage had been torn down or defaced. Most available maps still had the older Communist names


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
#152802 12/30/05 12:56 AM
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Carpal Tunnel
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Then there was the street sign in someplace in inner Boston. Not sure of the details so the street names are probably off and the date is uncertain but it was something like:

Oak St. (Front St, 1732)

I allus figgered somebody had his great to the 9th granddaddy's address book and it had an address on Front St. and he wasn't going to change it for nobody.

#152803 12/30/05 02:21 AM
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Pooh-Bah
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two fronts, no oaks (scroll down, or search for "front street")

While I'm here, it is subway talk: the A train stops at "West 4th Street," but at "23rd Street," "125th Street," etc. And the A train has it right.

Last edited by inselpeter; 12/30/05 02:24 AM.
#152804 12/30/05 11:53 AM
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Carpal Tunnel
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IP:

You missed the opportunity to title your post:

Take the A Train for example.


TEd
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