Omaha Street Names

Dark Eyes · Post by **Dark Eyes** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 8:29 am

Is there some rule that east-west street names have to be carried westward to infinity? There are no fewer than 13 separate segments of "Harney Street" between 10th and 168th. Same goes for Farnam, Howard, etc.

Why can't developers name the streets in their new neighborhoods? Mission Hills has "lettered" street names R, S, T, etc. and I'm sure someone could have come up with something better. An interesting and unique street name adds to the attractiveness of a home.

MTO · Post by **MTO** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 8:34 am

I'm sure their is some sort of naming convention not sure exactly but personally I wish they would try and keep with the OG street grid. Makes it easier to navigate.

eomaha · Post by **eomaha** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 8:45 am

Hmm. I guess personally prefer standardization of street names across the city. I like to know where I'm at and where I'm going.

That said, I'm sure it's irritating to Elkhorn people knowing that THEIR Pacific Street (for example) will suddenly take an east/west orientation when the annexation is complete. Although let's face it, today... most Elkhorn people are already more familiar with Omaha street naming conventions.

Big E · Post by **Big E** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 9:41 am

Street names really aren't meant to be decorative. They're meant to help navigate and identify. Wait until you need an ambulance, cop or fire truck and have to explain which "Dodge" (for example) you're on. The layout of suburban streets is nothing short of idiotic (aside from the main east/west grid).

Even something simple like Dodge going from Dodge Street to West Dodge Road creates all kinds of confusion. Dodge STREET is the North/South cutoff for numbering in Omaha. I grew up on ### N 130th street... which was a couple blocks SOUTH of West Dodge Road.

If it works for NYC - simply the easiest city in the US for a new person to find their way around - I think we can consider using it here.

-Big E

eomaha · Post by **eomaha** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 10:28 am

Eric, even the suburban streets maintain the same naming conventions with few exceptions. I assume this was just an opportunity taken to gripe more about the layout of suburban neighborhoods... not the street naming they've adopted. And let's not use this to imply there's some association between urban streets and ease of navigation. Shall we talk about your old stomping grounds? And what ABOUT NYC? Easiest city to find their way around?? You've got to be kidding. They not only have directionally prefixed numbered streets... but numbered streets prefixed with multiple areas to denote where the streets are running... Bay, Beach, Brighton, etc, etc. Then you've got your named streets running parallel your numbered streets. It's a nightmare. This is the case with most of your eastern (ie what were our founding fathers thinking) cities.

Once one figures out the Dodge Street point of reference, most find Omaha is one of the most easily navigable cities around (save a few North addresses... south of 'West Dodge'

).

Big E · Post by **Big E** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 11:42 am

1) For clarification, I did say layout, but you can't look at naming conventions separately. When I'm downtown and am on Jackson, I know one block south is Jones and one north is Howard. That just can't be said out west (if you can even identify a "block"). The number of places out west where you can be driving on a numbered street and then actually turn ONTO THAT SAME NUMBER is mind-bogglind. And yes, I take any opportunity I can to gripe about the suburbs.

2) It's hard to gripe about the layouts of streets in cities that are 200 years older than the automobile. I mean, what WAS Veince thinking?

3) Maybe I should have mentioned Manhattan specifically (I haven't been to any other part of NYC yet). And yeah, lower Manhattan is a bit convoluted, but see #2 for that. And I didn't say it was the easiest place to navigate in a car, either.

-Big E

eomaha · Post by **eomaha** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 12:08 pm

NYC - simply the easiest city in the US for a new person to find their way around

So how is it easier to navigate around on foot? Okay, it's easier to walk from one street to the next, but that doesn't mean you have any better idea where you are.

And come on Eric, do you really have that much difficulty in west Omaha? In most instances, you're going to find Jones is still one block, generally south of Jackson Street in west Omaha. When you turn from a numbered street and find yourself on the same numbered street... it shouldn't be that difficult for you to realize that another numbered street is still most likely to either side of you (ie at least you can find your bearings... find a relationship like this which holds true over such a long distance in any of those 200 year old eastern cities).

All that said, I once lived at the corner of 152nd and 154th.

Finn · Post by **Finn** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 12:32 pm

Omaha is easy to navigate. I always tell visitors/newbies: Numbered streets run N/S and start near the Missouri River (eastern edge of city) and increase as they head west. Named streets run E/W and are numbered in relation to distance north or south of Dodge, which bisects the city. Easy enough.

The suburban parts of the city maintain this pattern and Blondo is still the 2000 block whterher you are at 21st Street or 131st Street! Easy!!!!! Now Dodge curves into West Dodge Road and that may cause a LITTLE confusion, but not as much as many cities where you go from a "Dodge" Street to a "Washburn" Street without every making a turn!

And NYC is a grid system, but when you can be on East 23rd and South 3rd - that gets a little more confusing.

eomaha · Post by **eomaha** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 12:38 pm

Yeah, I frequently received the 'free pizza' as the delivery drivers never seemed able to be able to look (south of West Dodge) beyond 'North 323' to my 'South 323' address.

Dark Eyes · Post by **Dark Eyes** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 1:49 pm

My question still hasn't been answered.

Why must developers retain those street names in new neighborhoods? Is it a law or something?

Just wondering.

eomaha · Post by **eomaha** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 2:47 pm

While I'm sure they'll consider developer requests, of course, the planning board has final say in the naming of the public streets. For precisely the reasons stated, I'm sure they feel it's in the best interests to retain street naming continuity across the city (and areas under the boards jurisdiction).

adam186 · Post by **adam186** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 10:45 pm

Yep. I think it is law also, because when we annex Elkhorn they will have to change their street names to conform to Omaha's layout. Easier to find locations = quicker response time in emergencies.

Post by **Brad** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 12:29 pm

As someone who worked for a lawn service for three years, if those names were not kept all the way across the city is would ABSOUTELY AWFUL. I knew that Browne Street was 2 blocks south of Fort weither you were on 90 or 144, just like Polk street is 1 block north of Harrison on 180th and on 42.

Here is something to think about
1. The president names are between Q and Harrison
2. There is a whole bunch of people names enda, joshepine, margo... are south of harrison
3. The State names, NE, KS, IA.... are north of Fort,
4. The tree names, arbor, pine, hickory.... are between Center and Pacific.
5. The other famous people names, Douglas. Farnam, Harney... are between Pacific and Dodge.

MTO · Post by **MTO** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 12:43 pm

6. 69th and Cuming is the best named street crossing in town

Post by **Brad** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 1:02 pm

MTO wrote:69th and Cuming is the best named street crossing in town

I don't know if anyone has ever noticed but that sign is about 3 times higher than most street signs in town, its almost to the street light.

adam186 · Post by **adam186** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 6:37 pm

Brad wrote:
MTO wrote:69th and Cuming is the best named street crossing in town
I don't know if anyone has ever noticed but that sign is about 3 times higher than most street signs in town, its almost to the street light.

Haha, I wonder why.

Darn kids ripping off signs.

TitosBuritoBarn · Post by **TitosBuritoBarn** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 12:06 am

While I do enjoy pretty street names, I think the way Omaha names their streets is more logical than letting developers make up their own street names. While it doesnt sound very pleasent to tell someone that you live on 'X' Street, it is very easy to pinpoint their house in your mind given their house number and knowledge of the fact that the street runs across the entire city. If someone says "yea, I live at 18500 'X' Street" it's very easy to figure out that they live south of 'Q', north of Harrison, west of 180th and east of 192nd; they're in the Falcon Ridge subdivision. If every sub-division could name its own streets and, even worse, no part of the grid had to be numbered streets, it would be a trip trying to figure out where places are without specific directions.

My gripe is, why can't some of the city named streets be a little prettier? Why must the streets be named after people and letters of the alphabet? Why can't there be more "boulevards" and "parkways" and such? I think about my Grandparent's house in St. Louis and how they live off Big Bend Road and Sulpher Spring Road and how I live off "Q" Street which is sort of by Harrison Street. Which sounds more pleasent? Not that I think all of Omaha's streets are bland sounding, but there needs to be a few more FNB Parkways, a few more Blair High Roads, a few more Regency Parkways, a few more Saddle Creek Roads, a few more streets with cardinal directions somewhere in the name (West Center Road, West Maple Road, etc.), and a little more variation in what type of "road" it is (parkway, trail, boulevard, avenue, court, place, etc.)

cdub · Post by **cdub** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 7:34 am

There is indeed a law (ordinance) regarding street naming and a number of conventions that are followed... First, Dodge had to change to W. Dodge road because it moves north and would have fouled up the rest of the grid. Second, most of the names used were decided a long time ago and so they may not sound as nice now but they are generally all predetermined by existing streets or the adopted list of acceptable new names. Last, the boulevard or parkway designations are only used on Boulevards and parkways denoted as such in the master parks plan. Nothing is by accident

nativeomahan · Post by **nativeomahan** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 8:35 pm

I can't vouch for the accuracy of this, but I was once told that the reason for the alphabet soup of street "names" in south Omaha (A, B, C, etc.) was so the German and Italian and Polish immigrants who called the south side of town home could learn the alphabet faster, and be able to comprehend where they lived easier without having to know English.

I think it is absurd to force nice developments in Omaha to retain "Ernst" and "Ida" and X and Z St. names. It sounds so unpleasant. If I was looking for a new place to live I would avoid even looking at homes on unpleasant sounding street names. In Sarpy County the developers have free reign to name streets just about anything. There are some really "cool" street names on the south side of Papillion and west side of Bellevue, as a consequence. Like Glacier St. (pun not intended)

Finn · Post by **Finn** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 11:46 pm

If I was looking for a new place to live I would avoid even looking at homes on unpleasant sounding street names.

That's interesting, I'd love to know how you pick your stocks!

stomsu · Post by **stomsu** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 5:52 am

I think it's funny that some people would potentially avoid a home in a great neighborhood with everything they may want, but oops, wait a second... the street name isn't pretty. There must be more serious issues to consider than the aesthetics of street names.

MTO · Post by **MTO** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 10:27 am

I live in a pretty dam cool neighborhood but with a cool street name Chicago. Not to say it sealed the deal but it was a bonus.

HskrFanMike · Post by **HskrFanMike** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 11:11 am

Reusing street names as you move from east to west helps build familiarity with where each street is, especially when you are dealing with unfamiliar neighborhoods. When you hear "78th & Lake" you know you are looking for someplace near 72nd & Maple. If they didn't reuse 78th or Lake, you wouldn't have a clue where this street was, except to use Mapquest or some other mapping tool.

For example, where is the intersection of Sherman Drive and Richmond Drive?

omahastylee459 · Post by **omahastylee459** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 1:10 pm

speaking of omaha streets, did anyone catch the OWH article yesterday about the worst intersections in the metro area? It was a good read. Here's the link, but the paper edition had a lot more information than the online one. It went on to describe each of the 10 intersections they felt were the worst, including volume of traffic each day.

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_pg=1636&u_sid=2190934

riceweb · Post by **riceweb** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 8:47 pm

The downtown streets are laid out alphabetically, with a few exceptions. I wonder if anyone on the board knows, what were the original names of the streets?

Burt
Mike Fahey - Previous Name Webster - Original Name ???
California
Cass
Chicago
Davenport
Capitol Ave - Original Name ???
Dodge
Douglas
Farnam
Harney
Howard
Jackson
Jones
Leavenworth
Marcy
Mason
Pacific
Pierce
Poppleton

North of Burt, you have Cuming, Izard, and Nicholas, which are totally random as far as I can tell. South of Pierce, again, the pattern drops off. But does anyone know the original street names?

Also, I think we should, at least as a separate, historical sign, list the old street names. We could even give Cuming the alternate name "Abbott" so that our street names have a definitive starting street. I think then it'd be a lot easier for first-timers to navigate the downtown area.

iamjacobm · Post by **iamjacobm** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 8:52 pm

http://www.omahahistory.org/Education_StreetNames.htm

This can answer your every question.

riceweb · Post by **riceweb** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 9:06 pm

It's close! But it doesn't say what they originally were. However, the bibliography does mention this:

Brick, H. Ben. The Streets of Omaha: Their Origins and Changes. Omaha: Omaha Public Library, 1997.

Post by **Brad** » Thu Sep 01, 2011 12:37 am

Then they get in to tree streets...

Pine
Hickory
Walnut
Cedar
Elm
Oak

Then A-Z streets

Then Presidents

Washington
Jefferson
Adams
Madison
Monroe

Omababe · Post by **Omababe** » Thu Sep 01, 2011 3:02 am

riceweb wrote:The downtown streets are laid out alphabetically, with a few exceptions. I wonder if anyone on the board knows, what were the original names of the streets?

Burt
Mike Fahey - Previous Name Webster - Original Name ???
California
Cass
Chicago
Davenport
Capitol Ave - Original Name ???
Dodge
Douglas
Farnam
Harney
Howard
Jackson
Jones
Leavenworth
Marcy
Mason
Pacific
Pierce
Poppleton

Ya know, I've lived here 30 years now and I did not notice that pattern!

I've heard that Cuming (singular, of course), Webster, Izard, and Burt are named for 19th century political figures. I really did not notice the (semi) alphabetic pattern from north to south. I'm kinda surprised, since the area I come from has a number of pockets of alphabetical streets (Albemarle, Beverl(e)y, Cortelyou, Dorchester; Huron, India, Java, Kent dot-dot-dot).

I wonder if there are any other patterns to the Omaha streets?

TitosBuritoBarn · Post by **TitosBuritoBarn** » Thu Sep 01, 2011 7:58 am

Not downtown, but my favorite street is John Galt Boulevard. It's named after a fictional character from Ayn Rand's book Atlas Shrugged whose life apparently isn't going anywhere. It received it's name because, just like character, it doesn't go anywhere.

bigredmed · Post by **bigredmed** » Thu Sep 01, 2011 7:59 am

The streets are laid out in their original development or township that got added to Omaha over time. The tree names start south of Leavenworth and go towards Center. When they ran out of trees, they switched to Girls names (Shirley street). When Omaha and So Omaha merged, they ended up with double girl names in a couple of streets (If I remember correctly, Mary or Martha street).

Presidents were added at some point. When Millard was its own town, the streets there were originally tree names or Presidents names. I lived on Madison street that got changed to O street to fit with the Alphabet streets of South Omaha.

Omababe · Post by **Omababe** » Thu Sep 01, 2011 8:29 am

bigredmed wrote:When Omaha and So Omaha merged, they ended up with double girl names in a couple of streets (If I remember correctly, Mary or Martha street).

A real estate agent was telling me the tale of some of the "girl" streets in the northern part of Sarpy County, some of which begin in what is now northern Bellevue and run westward to the vicinity of Denver or so.

Some of these (Emiline, Gertrude) were named for the wives, daughters, and in some cases mistresses of the settlers and developers of the area. The trend continued into the mid-late 20th century and now includes one named for the ex-wife of a recent somewhat flamboyant developer.

There are a few oddities in these streets. (I have a thing for street oddities for some reason.) Emiline is spelled both "Emeline" and "Emiline" in places, with differently-spelled signs being quite close together in some places. Audrey is one of the few streets in the Omaha area that is addressed by both the "south of Dodge" numbers and the "east to west" numbers in places.

Seth · Post by **Seth** » Sat Sep 03, 2011 12:24 pm

I actually check out a book from the library that had a comprehensive discussion of the origin of Omaha street names. It was a bound copy of a university MS thesis, but it was pretty interesting. It's in the Omaha history section of the downtown library.

Turtle9160 · Post by **Turtle9160** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 2:33 pm

I remember seeing some old maps of Omaha form around 1870 and on till round after the second world war, Capital was always called that since it lead to the old capital building, the odd thing was that some of he named streets south of Leavenworth use to be names of streets in North Omaha and vice versa and alot of the streets changed names at some point, library site might have images of them if anyone wanted to look should be in the historic section.

iamjacobm · Post by **iamjacobm** » Tue Jul 15, 2014 8:01 pm

I was talking to someone that was listening to KGOR(I think) the the other day and they said they were having a huge discussion about changing the name of Cuming b/c it was "innappaoiatte" and "crude." She didn't remember if they mentioned that Cuming is a notable figure in Nebraska history, not a mention to some other things.

Coyote · Post by **Coyote** » Tue Jul 15, 2014 9:15 pm

Well that's just bright. They should rename Dodge Street because I was traumatized by playing that in 2nd grade.

bigredmed · Post by **bigredmed** » Wed Jul 16, 2014 1:33 pm

iamjacobm wrote:I was talking to someone that was listening to KGOR(I think) the the other day and they said they were having a huge discussion about changing the name of Cuming b/c it was "innappaoiatte" and "crude." She didn't remember if they mentioned that Cuming is a notable figure in Nebraska history, not a mention to some other things.

Just because someone is too lazy to check out a book at the library and read it, or too clueless to use Google, does not mean the rest of us should take their infantile and immature concerns seriously, much less go to the trouble of having a hearing on it.

TitosBuritoBarn · Post by **TitosBuritoBarn** » Wed Jul 16, 2014 10:59 pm

I mean let's not be too quick to judge. Maybe this particular person lives on Cuming at one of it's more unfortunate cross streets and gets tired of telling visitors that they're "Cuming 'n' Burt" or that they're at "Fairwood 'n' Cuming," or "i'm at the end of the Cuming Circle that's after 69th."

Omababe · Post by **Omababe** » Thu Jul 17, 2014 1:15 am

Actual street intersection in upper Manhattan, NYC:

Hey, we're all adults here, right.

threeoutside · Post by **threeoutside** » Fri Oct 10, 2014 10:52 am

This is fascinating! I do know that a lot of the older streets, such as Cuming, Burt, Dodge, and others, are named after military generals - many from the Civil War, some (probably) from the so-called "Indian wars." I agree, one person who can't be bothered to educate themselves shouldn't be able to dictate to the whole community. History is right there on our street signs, folks, open your eyes.