The Histories Hidden in Our Street Names

Deirdre Mask: “I loved this exploration of how residents of Chinatown in New York often use entirely different street names for their neighborhood than the ones listed on their map. The name you choose to use, as I say in my book, doesn’t have to match the birth certificate.”

DM: “This piece, written by two real estate experts, explains how street names can add to or detract from the value of a home. It explores a treasure trove of data to show the reasons why the value of a home on Washington Court, say, might be so different from one on Washington Street.”

DM: “A lovely and often lyrical article on how street names ‘tell of a city’s character and story.’”

DM: “This article describes how one study of major cities around the world found that only about quarter of street names on average are named after women. An activist group in Paris—where less than 3 percent of streets are named after women, and even then mostly wives and daughters of famous men—have added their own street signs commemorating women.”

DM: “This article describes streets called Boundary Streets in Australia that were once designed to separate the Europeans from the local Jafera and Turrbal people. It reminds me how the struggle over racist street names is not limited to the U.S. Interestingly, some indigenous Australians have argued for keeping the Boundary Street name as a reminder of a cruel past. Changing the street name, one elder argued, ‘might help everyone’s peace of mind and make them sleep a little better at night, but it doesn’t change the fact that there are very bloody and very ugly segments of our joint history together that should not be ignored.’”

DM: “This article humorously explores the strange system of ‘vanity addresses’ in New York, which allows developers to apply to assign a street address to their building that doesn’t correspond to its actual location. Residents of one building ‘upset about missing out on pizza deliveries and Town Car pickups’ sued when another building’s vanity address made it difficult to find them. (They lost.)”

DM: “This article describes battles in Jaffa, Israel over Hebrew and Arab street names, revealing how arguments over street names reflect power imbalances that are often played out more visibly elsewhere in the news.”

DM: “There’s no question, English street names can be absolutely hilarious. The article shines when showing how the residents of places with funny names (Tumbledown Dick Road; Thong, Kent; Butthole Lane) feel about their unique addresses.”

DM: “I love this article for its compelling description of how a working-class community in England reacted when their odd, quirky names were changed to more ‘posh’ and palatable names.”

DM: “A gorgeous, artful retelling of the process of fixing the chaos of Brooklyn street numbers in the mid-1850s. The writing and the detailed maps and photographs all come together to tell a rich story of an oft-forgotten moment of history.”

DM: “This is a fascinating story of how one man in the favelas of Brazil created a complex algorithm to give homes addresses—and how he is making money off his clever invention. In telling this story, the article highlights the problem of addresslessness, which afflicts millions of people around the world, often in slums and marginalized communities.”

DM: “This is an article I wrote arguing that Black Lives Matter Street like the one so visible outside the White House, shouldn’t be shrugged off as simply performative. In doing so, I compare Black Lives Matter streets to the very different story of Martin Luther King, Jr. streets across the country.”