Jones and Jones

[James A. Landau]

Yesterday I took my daughter and two friends of hers to visit the NYU and
Columbia campi.

While driving up Center Street from the Holland Tunnel, my daughter asked,
"Don't they have numbered streets in Manhattan."  I said yes, they hadn't
started up.  We promptly found a parking lot on what should have been 3rd
Street but which according to all the signs was "Great Jones Street".

I've heard of "Great Scott" but never "Great Jones".  Didn't she publish a
magazine?

And then there was the corner of Great Jones Street and Jones Alley.  There
was no adjective on the alley's name, so we couldn't tell if it were the same
person, an Ursa Major-Ursa Minor relationship, or a divorce settlement.

What has happened to the numbered street names in the NYU area?

In a message dated 8/15/02 8:22:05 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM
writes:

> HALAL/HALAAL/HARAM/HARAAM--I'M WORKING ON THIS!  I ONLY HAVE TWO HANDS!

I think you're confusing two words.  "Halal" refers to Moslem dietary laws.
"Haram" means something like "enclosure" or "compound", as in
"Haram-es-Sharif", the "Noble Sanctuary" (known in English as the "Temple
Mount"; site of the Dome of the Rock, sacred to Moslem's as the site of the
Sacrifice of Isaac).

Going to the Columbia University campus we got off the subway at 116th Street
and discovered we were on Malcolm X Avenue.  Let's see now.  Manhattan has
both a Tenth Avenue and an X Avenue?

For whatever it's worth, I wish to report that a group of Caucasians standing
at the corner of Malcolm X Avenue and 116th Street does NOT get stared at.

We eventually got to Columbia University by scaling the cliff in Morningside
Park, only to discover that the Columbia visitors' center was at the top of a
long flight of stairs.  I don't think the island of Manhattan can boast a
loftier place of higher education.

While on 116th street we passed a Something Kine Restaurant.  An eatery that
specialized in beef?  Perhaps, since it boasted of being :"Allal".  Somewhere
on our wanderings I also saw a sign reading "Hala".

Also I wish to report, on Canal Street, a set of golden arches labelled only
in Chinese.  The concept of a MacDonalds' on the fringe of Chinatown that
does not bother to encourage Occidental customers can only be described by
the cliche "inscrutable".

                  - Jim Landau (who is going to take along a better set of
maps the next
                                       time he visits New York)