Query: "I've got your [ouse] number."

[Joel S. Berson]

At 4/5/2010 07:44 AM, victor steinbok wrote:
>Note that by December 1777, Queen Street had already had house numbers
>exceeding 200.

Queen St. (renamed Pearl St. after the Revolution) runs north from
the Battery, today up to the Brooklyn Bridge, about one
mile.  Probably a desirable location, probably thick with houses by
the time of the Revolution (houses in NY were close together), and
long enough for 100 houses on each side.


>There may be earlier references--I did not check other New York
>newspapers. I found no similar ads with house numbers in Philadelphia
>or Boston newspapers, but I did not look extensively. It does appear,
>however, that New York may well have had house numbers on downtown
>streets (including Wall Street!) at the time of the proclamation of
>Independence.

My intuition from my reading of 18th-century newspapers is that NY
may have been the first city to assign house numbers.

Joel

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