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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have not seen anyone mention this, so I thought I'd mention it, so you would know if your father didn't explain the streets of DC to you when you were in your teens or 20's.

Everyone knows that streets that go north-south are named with numbers.  And the numbers are west and east of the US Capitol. 
And the lettered streets go east west from the US Capitol.

But my dad went further to explain the first set of streets which went E-W were A - W, no J.  The second set of streets E W as you got closer to MD were two syllable streets through the alphabet, then the closer you got to MD, the third set of streets were 3 syllable streets thru the alphabet.  And then when you got almost to Silver Spring, the names were names of botanicals from A - R

Eastern and Western Aves are the boundaries E and W.  North, South Capitol streets go N-S from the Capitol.  There is an E Capitol St, bit no W Capitol St.

So you see you are at Rittenhouse and 16th NW, you have a long way to go to get downtown.

The diagonal streets are names of states.  The first states are closer to downtown and the last states (e.g. Alaska and Hawaii) are much further out.

There are no A-B streets, Constitution is where those would be in NW.  I'm sure I forgot or got wrong some things that people could fill in. 
[/quote]

Similar  thing occurs in Arlington. Streets down by Rosslyn/Courthouse are one syllable eg Oak and Veitch, then move on to two syllables near Clarendon eg Edgewood and Highland, then become three syllables as you get closer to Falls Church eg Edison and Roosevelt streets. Numbered streets are "South" south of Rt 50 or "North" north of Rt 50.[/quote]

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