i’ve realized no address says like 23rd W 3rd but more like 200 W 23rd. these are just imaginary addresses from the top of my mind. idek if those are real or what’s there. can anybody explain how do you number that?
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as far as i know, when they were planning the city block grid, they assigned each block a 100 number segment, so it was 100, 101, 102, etc then the next block started at 200, 201, 202, etc.
the idea, AFAIK, was to ensure they could build up the block without having to worry about how many properites were on it and running out of address space, because you couldn’t physically fit 100 houses down the street frontage of a single block. thus you can start building on the next block without having to re-order things later or resort to stuff like “number 25b” as often seen in Europe.
bear in mind, this plan was worked out in the early 1810s, LONG before many of the streets in question were laid down or buildings built. they were deciding the street ordering and adresses up to 155th street, while the physical city was still down below the line of 1st street.
It was future proofing that has basically worked to allow seamless expansion up the island of Manhattan for over 200 years at this point.
5th Avenue is the dividing line between east and west. So all street addresses west of 5th are West X street, and all addresses east of 5th are East X street. Each block is 100 addresses and it goes up block by block as you move away from 5th Ave. So for example, the addresses on the block between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, have the numbers 1 through 99; between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, 100-199; and so on. The same is true on the west side.
So in your example. 23 W 3rd is between 5th Ave and 6th Ave because 0-99 is 1 block west, and 200 W 23rd is 2 blocks west of 5th Ave, which is at 7th Ave, because 200 = 2 blocks west.
First Off – you asked about NYC and the responses so far have been focused on Manhattan Island. Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, and Staten Island (East New Jersey) all have their own random traditions and while they all have some grid areas they don’t follow the same logic as Manhattan.
As far as Manhattan-specific –
All of the responses so far apply *above* Houston Street – pronounced – How-stun, which if you Google Map is, is roughly the upper 9/10ths of Manhattan.
The bottom 1/10th of Manhattan is an irregular assembly of random roads and streets like any Colonial US historic district. There really is no method or pattern to learning those streets other than lived experience. This area in lower Manhattan that’s chaos includes such famous neighborhoods as the Financial District, SOHO, Little Italy, Chinatown, Greenwich Village, and the Lower East Side.
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