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Street Names
by Lore Sjöberg
Circle
I like "circle," because it provides actual information. You're not
going to say to yourself, "Maybe if I just follow Van Buren Circle I'll
get to the freeway." I would like to apply this principle to other
street names, giving us "Harding Road That Winds Around a Lot Then
Comes to an Abrupt End at the Cannery," and "Coolidge Speed-Bump-Infested
Road That You're Going to Have to Go Down at Fifteen Miles an Hour
Because the Residents Got Tired of High-Schoolers Laying Rubber at
Three in the Morning." A
Lane
"Lane" is a nice word, but I think it should only be applied to two-way
residential streets with lots of trees and endearingly asymmetrical
chalked hopscotch squares on the sidewalks. And it can't be used in
Los Angeles. There are no lanes in Los Angeles, unless you count Car
Pool Lane. B-
Crescent
Now this is just trying too hard. "Crescent" is for city planners
who find "cul-de-sac" too vulgar. What are they trying to evoke here?
The silvery autumn moon? French pastries? A wrench? I don't know
that I've ever seen a crescent-shaped street anyway. Aren't crescents
supposed to be fatter in the middle? I think the word they're
looking for is "Arc." D
Avenue
I generally think of Avenues as where you put the car dealerships.
In fact, if I were designing a city, I'd just stick "Car Dealership
Avenue" near a major freeway and that way everyone would know where to
go for Crazy No-Down-Payment Dealin' Days without having to use
Mapquest. Maybe I'd divide it into "West Car Dealership Avenue"
and "East Car Dealership Avenue" just to add a bit of challenge. C-
Street
I admire "street" precisely because it's so boring. "We're on Tyler
Street. Don't get all worked up, it's just a street." It's an antidote
to living in a society where, in an effort to make boring things sound
interesting, words become less meaningful by the day. For instance,
one would expect "Beanie Baby Headquarters" to indicate the place where
Beanie Babies go to receive instructions and get debriefed, but judging
from the signs on about two dozen local stores, it now just means "A
place where one can buy Beanie Babies." A
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