BUILDING STREET SIGNS

REGRETFULLY, I have not been to London or to any city outside the North American continent. I’m sure I’ll be criticized for this, but I shy away from places where the language or even the accent is radically different from mine, since I’d be revealed as an outsider. Additionally, my income has been modest for my 45-year career, and since work has been spotty the last 15 years … when I have the money, I don’t have the time (since I’m working) and when I’m not working I don’t have the money. Prior to about 2008, I was able to travel in the USA because I had steady income and vacation time; I was a regular in places like Boston, Philly and Washington DC, and got as far afield as LA, San Fran, Atlanta and Chicago. Most of that was before I had a digital camera and could get hundreds of photos, but in the early years I had to budget my pictures. After 2008 came heart surgery, spotty employment, a pandemic and various maladies causing discomfort of one kind or another.

So most of my travel has been Google Street View as I can see places that were previously available only as lines on maps. In London, I notice that there few, if any, street signs. Instead, enamel signs are nailed onto buildings, one pair per intersection, and you have to look around to see what street you’re on. I prefer the North American practice, within cities, of two pairs per corner, mounted on lampposts, telephone poles, streetcar wire poles, etc. situated catercorner to each other. In the suburbs, I am occasionally frustrated by their not including street signs at all on main intersections; there, motorists rely on state or interstate route markers.

Street signs were not always mounted on poles in NYC at least, and likely on other North American cities. If streets were identified at all, they were on concrete slabs into which the street names were inscribed by a man with a chisel; or, they were small enamel signs, again mounted one pair per corner. NYC is full of leftover chiseled or enamel signs, like this one on Greenwich and Spring. Occasionally, such signs reveal a street’s previous name. I’ve gotten more diligent in getting pictures of such signs, but you have to keep looking up, not easy on crowded streets.

Check out the ForgottenBook (HarperCollins, 2006), as well as Forgotten Queens (Arcadia, 2013). I also have a chapter in the anthology “New York Calling: From Blackout to Bloomberg” (Reaktion, 2007). As always, “comment…as you see fit.” I earn a small payment when you click on any ad on the site. 

10/15/26