(across the) "block" ~= street, and the OED?

[Joel S. Berson]

My mother, back in the '50s and later, had a little book with which
one could calculate the location of addresses in Manhattan-- on the
avenues; perhaps also on the streets (I'm not sure about the
latter).  So there were formulas, at least after the fact.  IIRC, the
"general rule" was observed more in the exception -- the formulas
varied depending on the avenue, and not just by the axis crossing
(the zero point), also by the slope (multiplier).

Joel

At 4/29/2011 04:16 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
>The general rule for Manhattan avenues is 400 numbers per 20 blocks = 1 mile.
>
>Fifth Avenue never followed a good single rule, however.
>
>Because the avenues did not all start counting at the same place,
>there is no effective "zero" street, although Houston St. is the
>closest to serving that role.
>
>If you take a house number, divide by 20, and add +3 (from the East
>River thru 2nd Ave.) or +10 (3rd Ave thru 9th Ave.) or +15 (Fifth
>Ave.), you'll have a good estimate of the cross street.
>
>DanG
>
>On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 3:17 PM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       victor steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: (across the) "block" ~= street, and the OED?
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > This expression would have been more likely in a city like Chicago, where
> > there is an exact correspondence between cross-streets and house numbers.
> > It's also 800 numbers per mile IIRC, although the numbers on any block
> > rarely run up to a full hundred. There are also "half-blocks" because some
> > small streets appear at x50 blocks (usually streets that don't
> run more than
> > a couple of blocks themselves--at least, not continuously). In any case, a
> > reference to "x-hundred block" is both somewhat ambiguous (although context
> > usually tells you whether it's NS or EW) and over-specifying, as it may
> > include more than one /actual/ block.
> >
> > I've been told that parts of NYC also match some specified house numbers to
> > specific distances (e.g., 600 per mile, or something like that). I don't
> > know enough about NYC to be sure (or to care).
> >
> > However, I have heard the  "x-hundred block" expression outside of Chicago
> > although in other locales it's usually more specific, i.e.,
> "x-hundred block
> > of y-street". Obviously, if you are trying to give directions for
> a specific
> > address, such expressions would be unnecessary, but they may work
> in context
> > where the address is not specified, e.g., when a reference is to a specific
> > store within a known block but whose specific address is unknown. This
> > expression has been common in Cambridge, MA, although I can't possibly tell
> > whether it was Harvard or MIT students/faculty or visitors or local
> > residents who've used it (I've been a student and employee at both over the
> > past 2 and a half decades). When someone refers to "the 800 block on Mass
> > Ave", it's pretty clear.
> >
> > VS-)
> >
> > On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 2:15 PM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> "The 300 block" phrasing is something I have never heard in NYC.
> >> Wouldn't work on the avenues in Manhattan, and the streets are better
> >> defined by the avenues: streets are defined as east or west of Fifth
> >> Avenue, 100 numbers to the avenue; Park Avenue replaces Fourth Avenue
> >> except for a few blocks south of 14th St.
> >>
> >> There was a recent to-do in the press when it was noticed that the
> >> street names on bus stop signs on the west side of Fifth Avenue,
> >> adjacent to the eastern edge of Central Park, were labelled west, as
> >> in W 72nd St., even though W 72nd St. actually exists only on the west
> >> side of the park, the equivalent of three avenues away.
> >>
> >> DanG
> >
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> >
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