Cities with the bad compasses (neighborhood, association, locations)

[btownboss4]

By compass I mean how far off from North of Downtown the North End is or how far off from West the west end is.

Like New York is slightly tweaked NE:SW.

Duluth is really bad the East end is more North than East.

In New Orleans the West Bank is the geographic South bank

[Space_League]

New Orleans West Bank is the wackiest one I've ever heard of. If you go due EAST from the CBD across the river, you end up in the heart of the WEST bank. I get why it's named that but still. There are West Bank locations that are further east than parts of NOLA East

[annie_himself]

Another fun New Orleans one. Uptown is south of downtown. It follows the flow of the Mississippi rather than cardinal directions.

[Space_League]

There is a neighborhood in Charleston called East Central that deserves an honorable mention for the following

(1) it's not centrally located, and there is no central st/ave anywhere nearby to justify the name

(2) it's located north/northwest of downtown

[atadytic19]

Originally Posted by Space_League

New Orleans West Bank is the wackiest one I've ever heard of. If you go due EAST from the CBD across the river, you end up in the heart of the WEST bank. I get why it's named that but still. There are West Bank locations that are further east than parts of NOLA East

Yet another New Orleans oddity is West Riverside is not on the Westbank, it is on the East Bank of the river, although technically it is North of the River.

[TheTimidBlueBars]

Nice thread topic.

A couple off the top of my head:

- East Palo Alto, CA is directly north of Palo Alto

- West St. Paul, MN is directly south of St. Paul

[Toxic Toast]

I suppose this one isn't THAT interesting, but Toledo OH is turned clockwise about 45 degrees in every direction from downtown. The Maumee Rivers serves as the compass in that regard more than downtown Toledo itself.

East Toledo is SE of downtown.

South Toledo is SW of downtown.

West Toledo/Old West End is NW of downtown.

North Toledo comes closest to due north, but is NE of downtown.

[Turnerbro]

West St. Paul being south of regular St. Paul still perplexes me to this day.

[SonnyDaze]

Southeast Houston is directly west of the city of South Houston.

[Veritas Vincit]

Eastpointe, MI - until 1992 known as "East Detroit" - is actually north of the city of Detroit. They didn't change the name because of that though, they just didn't want the stigma of "Detroit" attached to their name.



The irony is that they changed it to "Eastpointe" because they wanted the association with the nearby upscale communities featuring the name Grosse Pointe - Grosse Pointe, Grosse Pointe Farms, Grosse Pointe Woods, Grosse Pointe Park. Collectively often referred to as "the Pointes".


But of course "Eastpointe" is actually NW of those communities. So if you counted Eastpointe as a "pointe" (which no-one does tbf) it'd actually be the westernmost one.