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

[Jonathan Lighter]

My recollection is much like Larry's.

ISTR a lengthy disquisition plus formulae in the _World Almanac and Book of
Facts 1953_. Or was it the _Information Please Almanac 1957_?

But maybe I was just too young to grasp the simplicity. Cab drivers also
carry the secret in printed detail.

JL

On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 9:10 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: (across the) "block" ~= street, and the OED?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 4:16 PM -0400 4/29/11, 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
>
> I remember it being much more complicated; there was a legend in the
> beginning of the Manhattan phone book that provided a constant for
> each avenue, and it was definitely not as simple as "3rd Ave thru 9th
> Ave", but a different one for 784 Lexington, 1197 8th Ave., 1450
> Broadway (my father's office building--guess which cross street?),
> etc. etc. I remember the first time I visited a different city where
> there was a simple algorithm for determining cross streets and it
> seemed like cheating.
>
> LH
>
>
>
> >
> >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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