Which cities use (don’t use) N, S, E, W with street designation? (cul-de-sac, house)

[Tom Lennox 70]

Baton Rouge has a small number of North and South streets like South Sherwood Forest and South Acadian Thruway and North Foster Street I don't know of any east west. But even the north south is rare.

[Borntoolate85]

Baltimore is N, S, E, W, but this only applies for streets that intersect either Baltimore (the N-S divider) or Charles (the E-W) divider streets. A few streets change names when they cross either one of those and lack the designation, especially Baltimore downtown (Light/St. Paul, South/Guilford, Commerce/Holiday). Frederick also uses something similar, with Market the E-W divider and Patrick the N-S divider. Hagerstown as well with Potomac and Washington being its "Point Zero".

Philadelphia is a little less clear cut. The obvious one is Market Street being the north-south divider, but east-west only applies to certain parts of the city, especially North Philly. In Center City and just north/south of them (Northern Liberties, Queen Village, Pennsport) addresses for east-west running streets simply start at zero at the river and work their way up, with Front Street being the 100 block. In Fishtown, Frankford Ave. serves as the E-W divide, but starting with Montgomery Street, Front street serves this purpose, with the unit block being eliminated altogether. But this only applies to North Philly in general and not adjacent NE and NW Philly. Speaking of NW Philly, Germantown Ave provides an E-W divide even if the streets are more NE-SW oriented. Finally, in far south Philly, Swanson St. serves as the E-W divide there, even if it applies to just a few streets. That said, street signs usually indicate the directional guide in most of the city, including those that don't really have an "east" equivalent. Smaller PA cities like Lancaster (King & Queen), York (Market & George), and West Chester (Market & High) do have a more traditional NSEW system, while Reading is like Philly in that there's a clear N-S dividing street (Penn St.), while E-W also has that Front Street divide north of downtown, though in this case, only the west streets carry that designation.

In many smaller towns, Main street is often the divider for one of those directions as well.

[FirebirdCamaro1220]

Originally Posted by Count David

The interesting thing about Phoenix is that many of the suburbs have their own grids, so there can be the same address on the same street in different cities.

Yes, Apache Junction, downtown Avondale, downtown Buckeye, Casa Grande, Chandler, Gilbert, downtown Goodyear, Mesa, and Tempe all have their own grids. And of course, Casa Grande and Apache Junction are in Pinal County, which has it's main grid based in Florence

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by That_One_Guy

You are correct about The Bronx. The Bronx was essentially developed as an extension of Manhattan back when NYC used to only be made up of Manhattan and The BX, so The Manhattan street grid and numbering + directional system continues from Upper Manhattan into The Bronx.

I can think of 2 different parts of NYC where separate NEWS systems are used. One is N/S and the other is E/W. Both are in Brooklyn — and both are also separate/unrelated street systems as well.

The first is my neighborhood, Williamsburg, BK. Williamsburg has its own individual unique street numbering system. I’m not really sure why and I honestly never wondered until now... I’ll have to look it up later.

But anyway, Williamsburg is divided into a North Side and a South side. The street layout is not an exact grid, but is close enough. The N/S streets have general names, and the E/W streets are numbered.
Starting at the South Side and moving North, the streets that run E/W are as follows:
S. 11th st, S. 10th st, S. 9th st... and so on, until S. 1st.
After that it continues onto the Northside and changes to N. 1st, N. 2nd, N 3rd... etc. All the way to N. 15th, which is where Williamsburg ends. Pretty simple but also unique for the city.

The E/W system is used all the way in the opposite end of Brooklyn. I’m not really sure how to explain the streets of South Brooklyn, but basically it’s a separate grid from Manhattan/BX since Brooklyn was developed as an individual, separate city from NYC originally so it developed its own street system. I’ll try to keep it simple.

So it starts out working in pretty much the same way as Manhattan, but reversed (avenues numbered from West —> East, streets numbered from North —> South) but then it gets to a point where the angles of the streets and the whole grid changes, numbers turn into letters, and a few smaller separate grids/numbering systems branch off of it. One of these branches in far South BK kind of follows a similar pattern to Williamsburg, but instead of N/S it’s E/W. I never really saw an easy pattern for it, but generally speaking it’s the beach neighborhoods and other somewhat nearby neighborhoods to those too. The rest of NYC is not as simple as Manhattan and The Bronx...

When I asked for help from New Yorkers on this one, I had no idea I'd get something so complete and informative. Thank you.

I was pretty sure that the western Bronx did continue the Manhattan grid and name system because, as you noted, only the western Bronx was part of NYC before the turn-of-the-century consolidation of Greater New York.

[edsg25]

only slightly off topic......are there other cities other than New York and San Francisco that have both numbered streets and avenues?

Of course, those two do it differently. In New York, the avenues and streets are intertwined into the Manhattan grid. In San Francisco, they aren't even in the same place: streets run east-west in areas east of Twin Peaks/Mt. Davidson/Mt. Sutro. Avenues run north-south on the west side of the mid-city "mountains".

Chicago has an unusual set up....and again not sure if any other city follows this one:

we have numbered streets, but they all run south of the downtown baseline, Madison St. Thus the vast majority of South Side east-west streets are numbered (although a few had changed over the years....like 12th Street becoming Roosevelt Rd); the North Side has no numbered streets.

[FirebirdCamaro1220]

Originally Posted by edsg25

only slightly off topic......are there other cities other than New York and San Francisco that have both numbered streets and avenues?

Of course, those two do it differently. In New York, the avenues and streets are intertwined into the Manhattan grid. In San Francisco, they aren't even in the same place: streets run east-west in areas east of Twin Peaks/Mt. Davidson/Mt. Sutro. Avenues run north-south on the west side of the mid-city "mountains".

Chicago has an unusual set up....and again not sure if any other city follows this one:

we have numbered streets, but they all run south of the downtown baseline, Madison St. Thus the vast majority of South Side east-west streets are numbered (although a few had changed over the years....like 12th Street becoming Roosevelt Rd); the North Side has no numbered streets.

Phoenix has numbered Avenue's, Street's, Drive's, Lane's, Place's and Way's.

Eg: 1st St, 2nd Pl, 3rd Wy, 4th Ave, 5th Dr, 6th Ln

It's Ave, Dr, Ln on the West side for each number (1st Ave, 1st Dr, 1st Ln, 2nd Ave...) and St, Pl, Wy on the East side (1st St, 1st Pl, 1st Wy, 2nd St....)

[FirebirdCamaro1220]

Originally Posted by Count David

Denver uses N/S/E/W, but ignores the N on the north streets. Thus, there is a Vine St, and a S Vine St. Nobody would ever say 1460 N Vine St, but people would know what you mean if you did. The center of the grid is at Broadway and Ellsworth, and covers the entire metro area proper (it doesn't include far out exurbs like Louisville, Lafayette, Castle Rock, nor anywhere in the mountains). Golden proper has its own grid, but the unincorporated area south and east of Golden proper (also called "Golden") is on the Denver grid.

Spokane uses it as prescribed, the center is at Division/Sprague, and the grid extends east to the Idaho border, and west to Airway Heights.

Seattle uses all directions, and it can be confusing. Snohomish County does too. I can't explain it.

Ridgecrest, CA uses it as prescribed, and the center is at Ridgecrest Blvd/China Lake Blvd. I delivered pizza here and knowing it and the divisions was quite handy.

Riverside, CA doesn't use it at all. I love Riverside's planning in that regard. The suburb of Rancho Cucamonga doesn't use it either.

Los Angeles doesn't use it in many areas.

Corona, CA has its own grid, center is at Main/6th.

LA city has numbered Streets on the south side, and I think Beverly Blvd is the north south divider

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by firebirdcamaro1220

phoenix has numbered avenue's, street's, drive's, lane's, place's and way's.

Eg: 1st st, 2nd pl, 3rd wy, 4th ave, 5th dr, 6th ln

it's ave, dr, ln on the west side for each number (1st ave, 1st dr, 1st ln, 2nd ave...) and st, pl, wy on the east side (1st st, 1st pl, 1st wy, 2nd st....)

omg!

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by LakeOntarioLiving

Boston does a letter system in a few places

South Boston goes A Street, D Street, B Street, C Street, D Street, E Street, etc..
The Back Bay does an Alphabetical order Street naming system in order: Arlington Street, Berkley Street, Clarendon Street, Dartmouth Street, Exeter Street, Fairfield Street, Gloucester Street, Hereford Street.

Also an area of the South End divides its streets names up after local towns (Canton, Wareham, Plympton, Dedham, Malden Sts, etc)

SF has the alphabet thing on streets running east and west in the Sunset district, starting right south of GGP.

Chicago has a slew of consecutive streets running NS beginning with k.

[TimCity2000]

Originally Posted by edsg25

only slightly off topic......are there other cities other than New York and San Francisco that have both numbered streets and avenues?

Birmingham has numbered Avenues running E/W and numbered Streets running N/S.