If there’s an actual name for these cross streets carved or affixed to the corners of some city buildings, I don’t know what it is.
But they’re fun to spot anyway. I’ve never seen one quite like this decorative sign on an otherwise unremarkable tenement at 169th Street and Broadway.
Fancy, right? This one at Horatio and Washington Streets is also a notch above the usual corner address sign, which is typically carved into the facade in a plain font.
A good example of the traditional style is this one below, worn and so faded it’s hard to see the letters, at Mott and Bleecker Streets.
I’ve heard that these street signs are up high because they were meant to be seen from elevated trains. But there were no trains running on Mott and Bleecker, or Horatio and Washington.
Or West End Avenue and 82nd Street, for that matter. This is a beauty of a sign that’s survived the elements on the circa-1895 facade of former Public School 9, now strangely called the Mickey Mantle School.
Some of my favorites are carved into tenements in the East Village. And of course, the loveliest in the city is at Hudson and Beach Streets.
Tags: Cross streets on tenement buildings, elevated railroads NYC, Mickey Mantle School West End Avenue, New York before street signs, PS 9 West End Avenue, street addresses building corner, tenement ornaments, Tenements New York City
Ephemeral New York 
August 12, 2016 at 5:36 am |
“College Place” at West Broadway and Warren is the most remarkable quoin: a palimpsest of the last days of Columbia College’s almost 90 years downtown before it moved into the old NY Deaf and Dumb Asylum on 49th and Madison and then moved to Morningside Heights…
August 12, 2016 at 5:41 am |
Ah yes, I have that one in the archives somewhere, another favorite and a forgotten stretch of Lower Manhattan!
August 12, 2016 at 9:48 am |
Like signing a work of art. When we patched our foundation and put in a missing cornerstone, I had to scratch our initials FC MG ’99. Etched in my mind, subtle, history. We were here. Thank you.
August 12, 2016 at 3:45 pm |
Hi I also like looking at these street signs. A particular favorite is an intersection that has been renamed, as Mr. Feldman cites. I have a photo of the street-quoin at the intersection of “Fourth Street” and North 4th Street, Williamsburg. Fourth Street has since been renamed as Bedford Avenue. I’d love to share a photo; let me know if that’s possible.
August 12, 2016 at 3:50 pm |
Yes, send it over, very cool! You can email it to ephemeralnewyork @ gmail or tweet, or FB.
August 12, 2016 at 3:53 pm |
Great. I just emailed the photo. Cheers
August 12, 2016 at 5:30 pm |
They’re referred to as cornerstone placements/signs. Like they precede street/avenue street corner signage. Great blog thanks.
August 12, 2016 at 6:15 pm |
Thank you!
August 12, 2016 at 5:51 pm |
The public school on York and 78 St. has a similar carving, showing “Avenue A” on the York Avenue side. The name was changed in honor of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_York. I lived on Avenue A as a kid, and more than a half-century later I still do, except four miles north.
August 12, 2016 at 6:20 pm |
Great story, I had no idea the street was named for a Tennessee native.
August 12, 2016 at 6:27 pm |
I had the honor of shaking Sgt. Alvin York’s hand from his wheelchair in Jamestown TN during a Fourth of July Parade in about 1960. A modest hero if here ever was, a local native.
August 12, 2016 at 6:50 pm |
There’s one at Greenwich Street and charles street which was for 9th avenue el passengers
August 14, 2016 at 3:57 pm |
[…] via Manhattan street names on tenement corners — Ephemeral New York […]
May 1, 2017 at 12:26 am |
[…] a whole bunch more, some fanciful and lovely, others more […]
May 1, 2017 at 3:07 am |
Could be New York copied this from London street corner buildings as I viewed similar street IDs while walking there. Also occurred to me that incised street names were used to discourage ruffians from disfiguring the information located at street level both in London and New York.
May 1, 2017 at 4:25 pm |
Absolutely love these articles and pictures.
Off the top of my head these street signs are also on the corners of: Prince and Mulberry (or is it Mott, carved into the cemetery wall), Beach and Hudson Streets (very ornate), Fourth Ave (Park Ave South) and 23rd Street…
June 4, 2018 at 6:22 am |
[…] tenements with cross streets on them can be found in Manhattan and Brooklyn—especially in older neighborhoods like Williamsburg, downtown Brooklyn, the East […]