This item is for New Yorkers and former New Yorkers to enter NYC 
trivia and reminiscences.  Me first: 

The five boroughs of New York City are: The Bronx, Brooklyn, 
Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island.  If you live in Brooklyn, 
Staten Island, or The Bronx, your address is "Brooklyn, New 
York," "Staten Island, New York," or "Bronx, New York."  If you 
live in Queens, your address is "Jackson Heights, New York," or 
"Forest Hills, New York," or whichever part (neighborhood? 
community? sub-borough?) of Queens you live in.  And if you live 
in Manhattan, your address is "New York, New York." 

When you look at a map of Manhattan, the streets (42nd Street, 
59th Street, etc.) are oriented horizontally, and the avenues 
(5th Avenue, Park Avenue, etc.) are oriented vertically.  
Broadway runs from the lower right to the upper left, on the 
diagonal (although Broadway is the street that comes closest to 
running north-south).  Most of the famous "squares" of Manhattan 
-- Herald Square, Times Square, and the others -- are actually 
the places where Broadway intersects with the avenues.  

"Uptown" is a direction.  "I'm going uptown" says that you're 
going to travel up an avenue, or on the subway, to some street 
with a higher number than the one you're at, but it doesn't say 
how much higher.  It's useful for helping someone decide whether 
to share a cab with you, or it tells them which subway platform 
you're going to.  "Downtown" is a direction, the opposite of 
"uptown," but it's also a place: Wall Street, Battery Park, etc.  
"Crosstown" is a direction, and means "traveling east-west or 
west-east along a street."  ("Crosstown" is also the name of a 
bus.)  "Midtown" is a place; you certainly know it when you're 
there, but no one will tell you exactly where it is.  

6th Avenue was renamed "Avenue of the Americas" decades ago 
(somebody once told me it was renamed in the 1930s).  But native 
New Yorkers, most of whom were born after the name changed and 
have never in their entire lives seen a street sign that said 
"6th Avenue," *still* haven't stopped calling it "6th Avenue."  

It gets confusing when you go downtown.  The streets seem to be 
laid out in no particular order.  Fran Lebowitz, in an essay 
satirizing the proliferation of cutesie pseudo-neighborhood names 
like SoHo (South of Houston Street), NoHo (North of Houston 
Street) and TriBeCa (Triangle Below Canal Street), invented one 
called "BeJelfth": 4th Street between Jane and 12th Streets ("a 
real cabbie stumper" she called it).  

Btw, "Houston" is pronounced HOUSE-ton.

The streets are closer together than the avenues.  When New 
Yorkers tell you something is "ten blocks" away, they are 
generally talking about the "short" north-south blocks that 
separate the streets.  The avenues are separated by the "long" 
east-west blocks.  

Finally, you won't find two native New Yorkers who will agree on 
any of the above.  If you need a good laugh some day, go to New 
York and ask two native New Yorkers for directions to some 
location in Brooklyn -- say, a famous cheesecake deli.  The two 
native New Yorkers will both say, "Oh yeah, I know where that 
is," and then spend the next half-hour yelling at *each other* 
about the best way to get there.  The only time they'll address 
you is when they're telling you to listen to them, not the other 
person.  It starts off fairly civilized, but within five minutes 
it's degenerated to: "Are you crazy!?!  Why are you telling him 
to get off there?  Look, don't listen to him, do what I tell 
you..."  "Who's crazy?  If he doesn't get off there, how's he 
gonna transfer to the..."  "DO WHAT I TELL YOU!  Don't listen to 
him!"  "Don't you interrupt me!"  "You're gonna get him lost!  
I'll interrupt if I feel like it."  And so on and on and on.  At 
the end of the argument, you still won't even know which train to 
take first, much less which train to transfer to after that, but 
you will be rolling on the floor laughing.

9 responses total.

I remember hearing on the radio when Whitney Houston won a Grammy or American
Music Award a year or two ago, and they mentioned that the pronouciation of
"Houston Street" in New York was different from Whitney's surname.

So, I have to enter my NY reminiscences again? Maybe next year...
But I was born in Brooklyn, and lived in Bayside, Queens; Jackson
Heights, Queens, and Tottenville, Staten Island - and swam in bay.
So, I think I qualify... (it never came off).

I was born in NYC and then lived in Jamaica and then lived in Staten Island.
That basically sums up the first six years of my life.
I remember not being tall enough to reach those high handles in the
subway and getting mad that they didn't make them at a decent level
for me to reach :)

I was born in Flushing, Lived in Elmhurst, traveled the subways extensively,
then moved out on the Island and went to the city a lot less often after
that. When I lived in Elmhurst, the mailing address was
Elmhurst 73, NY

This was before ZIP codes, but NYC had its own 2-digit codes.
The 73 is still around -- I think it comes out as Elmhurst, NY 10073,
nowadays.

md did a good job of explaining the layout of the streets in Manhattan, and
the Bronx. They all run E-W, are close together, and increase as you
go North (uptown).

However, there were numbered strets in Queens and (I think) Brooklyn, too. 
These run N-S and increase as you go East. The addresses are hyphenated
in those boroughs, so you can tell the difference.

9205 Broadway would be a Manhattan or Bronx address. (addresses in Manhattan 
are helter-skelter, so there is no relation to 92nd street)
92-05 Whitney Avenue is a Queens address. (near 92nd street)

As a 5-year-old, (circa 1950)
I used to look out the window of 92-05 Whitney Avenue at the lights of the
Flushing IRT which ran over Roosevelt Avenue. Later, I was old enough to
ride it by myself, and all of the subways in NY that it connected to.

In Jackson Heights I lived at 75-05 75th(?) Ave - at the point where
the land started droping off down to the Sound, toward LaGardia
Airport. They built LaGardia while we lived there, and at first we
enjoyed the DC-3s coming in over our heads to land....eventually, you
don't hear them at all. Wasn't 82nd a main N-S shopping street? We
couldn't quite see the IRT "el" from our place, but it was an easy walk.
Us kids used to go down to the wharves on the sound to explore the old
coal-loading building, even then long abandoned. Very mysterious; very
adventursome; very dangerous. In Jackson Heights I went to PS 69,
and graduate summa cum lauda in 1943. That was, of course, the time
when we had blackout curtains on our windows, and talked in whispers,
for fear of the "Jap" submarines nearby. We build aircraft spotter
models (Zeroes, Messerschmidts,...) in wood shop. [When one starts
doing something like this, the memories flood in, until traffic
congestion occurs....]

I went to P.S. 36 for one year.  Don't remember much though.
It was afternoon kindergarten 12 pm - 3 pm :)
Those were the days... :) waking up at 10 am to go to school.
Playing all day...
"Cut out or draw something Red"
I wonder what happened to all those people?
Anyone out there in Mrs. Rowen's class 1981-1982 school year?

Where might these famous views be seen?  

1. A top-of-a-skyscraper view showing the Empire State Building 
   in the middle distance and the twin towers of the World Trade 
   Center in the distance behind it.  

2. A view down a broad avenue divided by a landscaped median, 
   with the end of the avenue seemingly blocked by two buildings 
   planted smack in the middle of the road - an older rather 
   ornate tall building, and an even taller modern skyscraper 
   rising behind it.  

3. A view down a narrow sunless street with, at the far end, an 
   old-fashioned church steeple dimly silhouetted in the narrow 
   space between the walls of a steep canyon of office buildings.  

  #2 is Grand Central Station

  #5 probably is 5th Ave, and the church is probably St Patricks.

make that three.

#1 is from a 5th Ave Skyscraper north of 34th street. Perhaps 666 5th Ave?

#2 is indeed Grand central. The avenue is Park Ave. The ornate tall building
is much older than me, but I remember when they built the newer, taller
one (It was called the Pan AM building, but Pan Am is dead now,
so I have no idea what they call it now).

Park Avenue actually used to go up a ramp and then around the Grand Central
building at the second floor level. When you came down on the south side,
it had a new name. It became 4th Avenue. I don't know what happens to it now,
though. I am remembering from the 50s.

Rane's memories of Jackson Heights and wartime are very interesting, as 
I missed all of that excitement. I was born as the war ended. I walked to
PS 89 in Elmhurst, and passed by air raid shelters, though, in the early 50s.

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