The Folly of Addresses and Why You Can't Find Your Way

Perhaps some numerologists understand the hierarchy of street addresses, but for most New Yorkers, there is little magic.

Many of the best buildings are known by their names, not their numbers, including River House at 435 East 52nd Street, and the Time Warner Center, which has a variety of Columbus Circle addresses, depending on whether one is looking for an office, a hotel, an apartment, or a store. 

A low number, of course, indicates that a building is close to the beginning, which might be a good thing, but numbers can be misleading. One Fifth Avenue, for example, is actually half a block away from the base of Fifth Avenue at Washington Square Park, and 1049 Fifth Avenue is not on the avenue at all, but on East 86th Street, in the middle of the block. More surprising, Manhattan's skyscraper of the moment 432 Park Avenue is not even on Park Avenue.

Everyone has seen the online maps that show the nearest cross street for an avenue address, but they are a bit like programming a thermostat -- far from simple.

There is almost a reverse snobbism in building addresses.

Some buildings proclaim that they are the Clarendon, or The Lucida, or The Brompton, and shy away from a numbered address, presumably for marketing reasons.

Unlike some European cities, which have a fine tradition of enamel plaques on the corner of buildings, New York City has no standards about letting the public know what a building address is. Sometimes it is proclaimed on a canopy over the building's entrance. Or it is engraved in an escutcheon above the entrance. Many buildings in Soho have their street number engraved in stone several floors up at the corners.

A few buildings, however, do it right. 1060 Fifth Avenue, for example, not only has its entrance nicely applied to its limestone base in bronze at the corner, but also tops it with its side-street address -- 1 East 87th Street -- and it does so on both the avenue and the side street, just in case its nice sidewalk landscaping obscures part of one.

One might think a building would take some pride in its address. Put it in lights. Engrave it in stone. Project it with lasers onto the street. Send it out wirelessly to passersby...