Numbering as a Fine Art.
When an American visits London for the first time, he may fall into an error which will much provoke him. Suppose that he has to call at 457 Strand. He begins at number 1 in that thoroughfare, and proceeds a goodly distance when, to his dismay he observes that the numbers he is passing on his right are strictly consecutive,—100, 101, 102 and so on. A weary trudge brings him to 457, opposite number 1, whence he started. That odd numbers should be on one side of the street, and even numbers on the other, did not occur to the city fathers of London centuries ago. In this regard a forward step was taken in Philadelphia, where the streets parallel with the Delaware River are First, Second, and so on, while each house on the streets crossing them from the river westward is so numbered as to tell between what streets it stands. Thus, when we walk up Chestnut Street, the first door above Ninth Street, on the right, is 901, although the house next below it, across Ninth Street, is 839; and so on with all parallel streets. If the thoroughfares in Philadelphia, running at right angles to the Delaware River, were labeled avenues, and consecutively numbered, the system would be a troublesaver indeed.
In New York the cross streets as they run east or west of Fifth Avenue are named east or west. In crossing each avenue eastward or westward the numbers jump to the next whole hundred, as in Philadelphia. The building at the southwestern corner of Third Avenue and East 23rd Street is 162; that on the eastward corner, opposite, is 200. Thus in cross streets the number of a house tells us between which avenues it will be found.
In hotels and office-buildings, throughout America, the numbering greatly aids an inquirer. Room 512, for example, will be found on the fifth floor; immediately beneath is 412 on the fourth floor; directly above is 612 on the sixth floor, the first figure always denoting the floor.