[PW] House numbering in the US

[Nichael Cramer]

Peter Underwood wrote:
>As a fervent follower of the unfolding confusion of Desperate 
>Housewives I have a query about the environs of Wisteria Lane and 
>the town of Fairview.  Each house in the Lane has a house number 
>consisting of four numerals.    Does this mean that every house in a 
>typical small American town has a unique number, independent of its 
>street, or is Wisteria Lane supposedly of considerable length?

Hi Peter

1] In the US standard practice is for each street to have a unique 
set of numbers,
odd on one side, even on the other.    A given number (say "2801") 
may be re-used
but, always on a different street.

(Note furthermore, that in many towns it is common practice for the 
street addresses
to be divided by a major north-south and a major east-west 
street.  Consequently,
the "other" streets so divided would be known as, say "North Maple 
St" and "South Maple St"
or "East Ohio St" and "West Ohio St".   As a consequence, it is not 
unusual for there
to be both, say, a "611 North Main St" and "611 South Main St" in a 
single town.

(Finally, some cities and towns put a final filip on this by naming, 
say all North-South streets
"Street" and all East-West streets "Avenue".)

2] While a four digit might typically imply that the section of the 
street is of considerable
length, this is not necessarily the case.

In the US it is common practice for the for house-numbering to 
"reset" itself to the nearest
"100" when crossing a major street.   (Thus, for example, if you were 
to walk down Mulberry
street, you might pass the house-numbers 102, 104, 106.  If you then 
cross a "major" street
the set of houses might be 202, 204,... etc.   Moreover, it's not 
unusual for the there to be "gaps"
in the numbering sequence (e.g. 110, 120, 130....) presumably to 
allow for possible subdivisions
of the lots

However, in many older cities (for example, I know this is true in 
certain parts of Boston/Cambridge)
for the odd/even sides to be number "consecutively" regardless of the 
cross streets for long stretches
(as a consequence, it's not unusual to addresses of the form "127 3/4 
Main St" in order to allow
for the need for "new" addresses in an established neighborhood.

So, in short, an address like "4208 Wisteria" would imply that the 
house is on the "42nd block"
of the street on some idealized grid overlaying the city (even if the 
actual Wisteria Lane were
itself only one or two blocks long --not unusual in, say, a smaller 
housing division "out in the 'burbs".)

3] Finally, all of the above are merely common conventions.   So far 
as I'm aware, there are no
standard "legal" practices requiring any of the above, although most 
towns adhere to some
version the above (again, this is especially true of those 
cities/towns which were established
after these practices became standardized --which is most 
municipalities in the US)

>>The parallel in my mind is the British practice of numbering houses 
>>in a road by even numbers on one side and odd on the other, starting at 1.

4] Let me ask a question about this:
Is this universally true throughout England?

For example, in the Harry Potter series the address "13 Grimauld 
Place" has some importance.
Among other things, the house is invisible to "outsiders".   This, in 
turn, means that the neighboring
house, (12 and 14 Grimauld Place) appear --to the uninitiated-- to be 
side-by-side.

[Note:  I may not have the exact numbers --and spelling-- correct 
here, but the basic idea is correct.]

This implication here is that "normal" ordering on the street is in 
strict sequential order.
Is this common practice?

Thanks,
Nichael

--
Nichael Cramer
Guilford VT
nichael at sover.net
http://www.sover.net/~nichael/