Not that I've gazed at alleyways in very many cities in the US, but I was astonished to see that Boston, MA names its alleys (e.g. see image below). That was a first for me.

So.. I wanted to ask if it's a common occurrence in US cities and if Metropolis might have (or if we have seen in the series) named alleys?

Thanks,


Example of an alley name in Boston:

The only reasons I know of for a city to go to the trouble to name its alleys is either to provide a mailing address for any legitimate business or residence located on the alley or for historical purposes. The alleys in the cities where I've visited aren't named, except for Dallas Alley (which is really a big shopping mall in downtown Dallas).

I don't think Metropolis had any named alleys, but if you need one named you could certainly do so.

Tin Pan Alley. I always figured Metropolis was New York City.

Although I've seen good cases made for Chicago and Toronto.

c.

Fairly common in Britain - and how else will postmen etc. find them? For example, fairly near me there's a pedestrians-only route called "Westbourne Passage" which starts as a footbridge over a railway, comes down into a road, then continues on the other side of the road as an alley. Nobody lives there, it's just a route from A to B, I think there's one door (into someone's garden) along the whole length of it.

Most alleys in Britain have addresses like "xxx Mews" "xxx Close" or "xxx Passage East" where xxx is part or all of the name of the main road. Long roads with multiple alleys get more complicated, of course, but most of our roads here are pretty short, rarely more than a couple of hundred houses.

Well, here down under most side streets/alleys would only get a name if they were important enough....

and that depends on whether or not there are postal addresses located on them...
otherwise, with no postal addresses, it depends on the town planner at the time....


things vary greatly all the time, and vary greatly from city-city, and suburb-suburb within the same city.... so do what you want...


one common thing here though, is that when a street has a back passage running parallel to it, like a back entrance to houses etc., but no new postal addresses, then the street is labelled as SOMETHING Lane (Ln)

eg.
address: 14 Smith Avenue/Street etc. ... may have a back driveway or garage backing onto Smith Ln