Source:Renumbering-houses
"Renumbering houses: Allegheny residents will be in temporary confusion: Plan for districting the city north, south, west and east has been adopted and is now being enforced—East and West Side system of numbering." Pittsburg Press, Feb. 4, 1899, p. 9. Newspapers.com 141834825.
Allegheny residents will no doubt be surprised to learn that the houses on various avenues, streets and alleys are all to be renumbered and that the city is to have two distinct sections known as East and West Side, just the same as the larger cities of the east. Three years ago councils passed an ordinance by which every street in the city was to be renumbered and that the numbers would run 100 to the block. Federal street was to be the dividing line and the district to the east of the said street was to be numbered as directed and known as the East Side, and that to the west the West Side. For instance, what is now No. 1 Stockton avenue will be known hereafter as No. 100 Stockton avenue, West, and the other end of the avenue will begin 100 Stockton avenue, East. The next block will be treated in a similar manner and at Arch street and Stockton avenue the number will change to 200 Stockton avenue, West, and on the same avenue at Sandusky street will be the same number, only designated by the suffix "East."
Those streets lying wholly on one side of Federal street, like Isabella street, will not have the designation of east or west attached, but the numbers will be arranged according to their position notwithstanding. The work of arranging the numbers has entailed more labor than the average mortal imagines. Immediately after the passing of the ordinance J. M. Milliken, chief draughtsman of the engineering department, with a number of assistants, began the work and last Monday succeeded in completing it. Yesterday a force of clerks began sending out the notices of the change to the residents of the city and it is thought there will not be any trouble experienced in enforcing the new system. already several of the new numbers have been placed and it is expected that by April 1 the entire city will be renumbered. The notices which every property owner will receive states the new number of the house to which it is sent and contains the following extract from the ordinance:
Sec. 1. "In case any one shall neglect to place said number upon his or her house for 60 days after notice, the superintendent of the bureau of highways and sewers shall procure the proper number and attach the same, and collect the cost from the owner of the property in the same manner as other debts are now by law collectable."
Sec 2. "It shall be the duty of the lieutenants of police to report to the mayor all owners or occupants of property who shall have failed to comply with the requirements of section 1 of this ordinance; and it shall be the duty of said mayor to collect the sum of five ($5) dollars for each and every offense."
The penalty will not be enforced until the property owners have had sufficient time to comply with the ordinance and fail to do so.
While the new system will be a trifle complicated for the average person at first it is certain to become highly satisfactory before it is very old. It will do away with a number of complications now existing. There are many streets in Allegheny that have as many as five sets of numbers and some of them are without any system, and the residents number their houses to suit themselves. The streets having duplicate names will be changed and everything will be in shape in not less than 60 days.
