I spend a decent amount of time looking at maps. I’m no cartographer, but if I had the time I’d at least be a map otaku of some sort.

But it was not an actual map that brought the mystery of 54th Avenue to my attention. It was being there, discovering in person that for some reason there are parallel instances of 54th Avenue in West Maspeth, approaching and leading into the only streetside entrance to 4th Calvary Cemetery.

In fact I think the signs are in error. I believe the upper 54th Avenue to actually be 53rd Avenue. The signs are simply in error. I suspect Calvary is aware of this, since they use 53-09 as the address for that entrance to the cemetery. At the corner of what appears to be 54th Avenue they should, it seems, have used 54-##. Instead they usee 53-09, creating another lesser question of what happened to 53-01 and other addresses in between -01 and -09. Why did Calvary start at -09?

Many commercial maps label the extra 54th Avenue (let’s call it a bonus!) as 54th Avenue, but a few maps get it right. One of the offical New York City maps gets it right, while another one gets it wrong. My in person visit yesterday to the area reveals it to be a confusing quagmire of streets continuing illogically. The 54th Avenue that continues on toward Old Calvary way continues in two directions, with one 54th Avenue inhabited by residential houses, the bonus 54th Avenue devoid of any structures.

You would think this void of structures might render the whole situation benign but I disagree. Emergency responders, told of an incident on 54th Avenue, would easily be misled by this errant signage into thinking they should go down that road, and when they did they would find nothing there. From this they might assume it was a bogus call and they would return to their station, leaving the real emergency situation behind.

Renaming this strip of road to 53rd Avenue would create another quirk among Queens streetgrid aficianados. It would usurp Hicks Street as the only named street in Queens with no addressable structures on it. In fact 53rd Avenue already lays claim to this, but it does not get to actually claim the award of buildinglessness because by appearances it is 54th Avenue, which does have houses on it.

Good morning!