Manhattan streets and avenues are numbered, with “1st Street” being near the southern end of the island, and “219th Street” being near the northern end, while “1st Avenue” is near the eastern edge of the island and “12th Avenue” near the western edge. You can find on many sites a complete list of names. The street name usually forms part of the address (though addresses in some parts of the world, notably most of Japan, make no reference to street names). Buildings are often given numbers along the street to further help identify them.
Unlike the street names of Greater London, which have been conferred as the districts grew up around the ancient city, the names of the streets within “the square mile” have, as the Rev. W. J. Loftie expresses it, “grown of themselves,” and by solving the riddle of the name of the street, you have the history of the spot before you and with that the atmosphere of by-gone days.