![]() ![]() The frustration was chronicled by the press under a kind of Victorian-era hashtag: “Renumbering the Streets.” City officials tried to solve these problems, but in the end, planners only managed to partly rationalize the system. The lack of attention and haphazard planning, which occurred disproportionately in poor areas, often Black and Irish neighborhoods, reflected who counted and who didn’t.īut as Brooklyn grew, even well-planned areas and the city’s business interests were affected by the duplications. The confusion about both street names and numbers was far from comical, as basic government services like mail delivery and police response suffered. Five presidents - Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe - saw double duty. Commuters would find one block called a street and the next an avenue for no discernible reason. South Fourth Street had three buildings numbered 42, while Furman Street reportedly had no fewer than four No. That growth, paired with a city government that wasn’t adept at urban planning, led to incoherent street numbering schemes, and repeated names and numbers across Kings County. Illustration from an 1852 map of the City of Williamsburg (then spelled Williamsburgh) with part of Greenpoint.
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