In the old Legion of Super-Heroes at DC Comics, one of the members was Triplicate Girl, who could split into three Triplicate Girls. I don’t know if she could cube, though. One of the triplicates was killed, and she then carried on as Duo Damsel. She had a thing for Superboy, but couldn’t pry him away from Lana Lang, so Duo Damsel married Bouncing Boy instead. In Superman’s orbit, alliterative names are very important.
Off the bat, I can only think of 4 cases in NYC where a street splits in two, with both sides having the same name. Duane Street is cloven in two here by the colonial-era Duane Park at Hudson Street. Further uptown, Waverly Place becomes two Waverly Places (that’s how the phrase “two Places at once” came about) at Christopher Street; way out in Brooklyn, Avenue U becomes a duo at Gerritsen Avenue, and the Gowanus Expressway is accompanied by 7th Avenue on either side in Bay Ridge. There are likely many more.
Here’s Duane Street just west of Duane Park, its two “halves” clearly visible. It looks like the buildings on either side are teetering inward, Pisa-esque, but that’s just the camera, I assure you (famous last words). On the left is the 10-story brick Schepp Building, designed by Stephen Decatur Hatch in 1880 as a factory, warehouse, and office building. It was named for importer Leopold Schepp, whose most notable product was dried coconut.
The massive Western Union (now Verizon) Building on Hudson Street dominates the left side of the photo, and in the middle is the nearly windowless 33 Thomas Street, the AT&T “Long Lines” Building.
Duane Park is unusual because the “island” on which it sits has never been occupied by a building. It had, since the arrival of Europeans in the New World, always been farmland. As the city encroached northward and Duane Street was laid out in the 1790s, named for a NYC mayor, the small bit of farmland was developed as a formal garden and has always remained parkland through various remodelings and reconstructions.
Information from Tribeca West Landmarks Designation Report –it’s over 400 pages!
7/27/13