10. Street Names

Downtown St. Louis is on a Philadelphia model of street names: the north-south streets are numbered, and the east-west streets are trees--in order of hardness of wood, by the way.

South City is done less methodically. There are state names (at one time, I was warned against living on a "state street" due to crime in those areas--except that some of them are so long, it would be hard to generalize like that and take it seriously). There are Indian tribe names--at one time, there were two Kansas Avenues, one for the tribe, one for the street. Now, I believe, there is no Kansas Avenue because one of them became Compton and the other, I forget what it became.

So we have Keokuk and Winnebago and Potomac. My street used to be Powhatan, I believe, until it was changed to a landowner's surname. And we have Texas, Ohio, Iowa, and so forth.

There are vestiges of the downtown streets--there's a 39th nearby, and a 59th further west. And some are named for destinations: Gravois is the road to the dump; Hydraulic, I assume, is named for the brick company; Arsenal is self-explanatory. Others, like Grand and Kingshighway, are lofty descriptions.

West of where I live, Henry Shaw named his streets after things he liked (Botanical, Flora, Magnolia) and people he knew (Gurney). In Tower Grove South, Hartford is named for the insurance company, and Connecticut for the state Hartford is located in. Pestalozzi is a Swiss educator. Blow is an American educator (St. Louis is the home of the first American kindergarten, started by Susan Blow). My aunt lives on Marwinette, named for the wives of the developers of her area (all merged together).

I'm glad I don't live on Sulphur; I kind of wish I had an address on Hydraulic just because it reminds me of the movie Metropolis for some reason. Further west of me, names get odd: Pernod, Tholozan, January (but no February),Landsdowne--without any real rhyme or reason to them. We still have a Goethe Street, but most of the German names were purged during the war. The Irish part of town doesn't have particularly Irish names (Gregg? Tamm?), and besides Marconi, I can't remember anything down on the Hill that sounds Italian.

We pronounce Gravois wrong (Gra-voy) and a professor at SLU once told me no self-respecting Dutchman would ever say Vandeventer the way we do (VAN-duh-vent-er), but instead van-DEV-enter.

St. Louis is not that confusing, though--roads do not change names, and it is essentially a grid system, with a few spokes radiating out from downtown (Gravois, for instance). Tamm is a tricky little street, zigzagging back and forth between crossroads, and some roads pick up blocks after they leave off (like Crittenden). But for the most part, if someone says something to me like "I grew up at Bates & Tennessee" or "It's on the corner of Magnolia and Klemm" I can envision what they mean. I don't know my hundreds-blocks very well (4200 block of Russell, for instance) but I know when they say "Russell before Tower Grove Avenue").

Just remember, if you have holes in your socks, according to my great-great-grandmother Jennie, you're relatives of the Chouteau family (show-toe), and you'll be able to follow directions just fine.