On 5 Aug 2004, James wrote:

There is no Ely Av anywhere near the station - it's just what 23rd St
(Queens) used to be called before the Queens street numbering of circa
1920.

Stupid question here, but did New York's streets have proper names before
they had numbers? If so, why were numbers considered better? Did this
happen to other US cities, too?

tom

--
Science of a sufficiently advanced form is indistinguishable from magic