There was a time, not that long ago, when you had to actually think to find an address. Yes, a time before iPhones or even MapQuest would send you on your way without any thinking.

So given an address, how do know what cross street or avenue an address is on?

There is of course a method to address numbers in Manhattan. Some things most New Yorkers know: Numbers get higher as you head towards the waterways. Numbers start from 1 at 5th Avenue. Numbers get higher as you head North.

Still, I was curious how this all looked if you mapped it out. Could a map help add some clarity to the system?

So I turned once again to the wonderful NYC Open Data set PLUTO to map out these phenomena.

The map below allows you to make a bit more sense out of the system. Higher address numbers are darker and lower address numbers are lighter. The lightest color are for addresses 1-100, the next is 101-200, etc. The darkest color (of the 7) is for 601 and greater.

Some findings:

The street with the highest address number (5365) is no surprise; it is also the longest street: Broadway. And it shows in the map, as the lots around it get darker and darker.

Zooming in on neighborhoods like the Upper East side, one can see the buildings that are addressed on the avenues versus those on the side streets.

The Upper West Side avenues all change names and reset at 59th Street, which is shown in the map by the sudden lightening of the neighborhood.

Frederick Douglas and Adam C Powell Blvd seem to start at 2040 and 1800 respectively, right at the top of Central Park, as opposed to 1.

Once above 14th street, most blocks are split into 100s. It’s especially easy to see on the Upper East Side.

I also wondered what the most common address numbers were, so I made a histogram counting the number of addresses 1 - 100:

It turns out that 15 is the most common address number in Manhattan, with 179 distinct addresses. The plot also shows that numbers cluster around 5s and 10s more often then other numbers. There is also a sudden drop in unlucky 13 on the chart! I knew it affected elevators, but never knew it affected addresses.

Zooming out a bit, we can see addresses 1 - 2000 counts, bucketed by intervals of size 10:

We see here that numbers spike up at the 100s and work their way down. So an address ending in 99 is more rare.

In the end, I imagine that this map is in most NYC Taxi Drivers’ heads. So it’s probably nothing new. (Though they don’t seem to have to know this kind of thing for the TLC taxi test.) Nonetheless, I feel I can find my way around Manhattan just a little bit better now that I’ve seen it. Thanks Open Data!

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-Lot Data Provided by NYC Open Data here

-Maps Made in QGIS and exported to cartodb via GeoJSON.

-Histograms made in IPython

Related: Streets, Avenues and Roads, Oh My! Visualizing NYC Street Suffixes