Lighthearted question this time: what's the deal with apartment numbering? From what I've seen, the vast majority use the "regular" scheme of having a number that indicates the floor, and then a letter for each apartment on the floor. 1A, 1B, 1C... on the first floor, 2A, 2B... on the second, etc. Or they might have a digit for the floor and then two more digits for the apartment: 101, 102...,... [more]
Lighthearted question this time: what's the deal with apartment numbering? From what I've seen, the vast majority use the "regular" scheme of having a number that indicates the floor, and then a letter for each apartment on the floor. 1A, 1B, 1C... on the first floor, 2A, 2B... on the second, etc.
Or they might have a digit for the floor and then two more digits for the apartment: 101, 102..., 201, 202..., etc.
And then there are the rare birds who just start with 1 and count up from there; 1 to 20 here:
http://streeteasy.com/nyc/building/628-east-14-street-new_york#building_activity_units
Now I know little about the little while ago there was a thread about 60 Sutton Place, which contains some unusual-indeed apartment numbers:
http://streeteasy.com/nyc/building/60-sutton-place-south-new_york#building_activity_units
The listings contain a number, then two letters, with the middle letter going up normally and then an N or S at the end. #1D2DES: Is this an amalgamation of 1D, 2D, and 2E into a big duplex, all on the south (S) side?
Maybe something similar is going on with the utterly-unbeatable #1LS2KLMS, which looks like meaningless gibberish but could well be 1L plus K, L, and M on the second floor; the floorplan certainly looks like that:
http://img.streeteasy.com/nyc/attachment/show/151903.gif
But then you've got things like MD1ES and GRN and MAISD1S. I can't even... wow.
I've never seen apartment numbers like this. Are these just for real estate management, with people in the real world using more normal numbering (much like the difference between lot numbers and street addresses)? Surely nobody actually writes all that gibberish -- they pick one main door and use that number... don't they?
So what's the most unusual apartment numbering scheme you've ever seen? What's the weirdest number you ever had?
(I myself have only ever had the "3A" and "301" type. Also had a friend whose building "lettered" the floors A, B, C... and then numbered the apartments, so he was in B7 on the second floor. But nothing more interesting or exotic than that.)
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Response by yikes
over 13 years ago
Posts: 1016
Member since: Mar 2012
floor numbering can be amusing, too--some new bldgs number the basement as 1, the lobby as 2 and 3 (based on the double height ceiling) so that the residential floors start on 4!! makes the 2nd floor so much more appealing!!
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Response by Triple_Zero
over 13 years ago
Posts: 516
Member since: Apr 2012
Are they allowed to do that? I once checked out an apartment building in Tokyo which was built into the side of a hill, with the entrance on the high side. This meant that the rooms in the "basement" were really ground-floor-like, but regulations on numbering meant that those had to be "basement" rooms. The agent was saying that just seeing the number "002" was enough to put people off, despite it getting as much light as a ground-floor room, and that rooms above that, in the 100s, looked like ground floor rooms so people would shy away from them. I'd pick that 002 just for the novelty!
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Response by NWT
over 13 years ago
Posts: 6643
Member since: Sep 2008
http://streeteasy.com/nyc/building/1025-5-avenue-new_york is another two-building co-op that uses number-letter-building notation. It was usually done where the two buildings together had more apartments per floor than there are letters, so A-to-something in one building and something-to-Z in the other building wouldn't work.
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Response by truthskr10
over 13 years ago
Posts: 4088
Member since: Jul 2009
I like the ones that use N/S. Saves the trouble on googling the street address and figuring out north and south apartments.
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Response by flarf
over 13 years ago
Posts: 515
Member since: Jan 2011
I think using the Fibonacci sequence would be a great idea, assuming you can figure out how to have two apartments that are both numbered 1. Probably best for a smaller building though...
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Response by ph41
over 13 years ago
Posts: 3390
Member since: Feb 2008
2 Tudor City place does it, and I think Southgate also does it.
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Response by jordyn
over 13 years ago
Posts: 820
Member since: Dec 2007
They use the Fibonacci sequence?
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Response by Triple_Zero
over 13 years ago
Posts: 516
Member since: Apr 2012
"I like the ones that use N/S. Saves the trouble on googling the street address and figuring out north and south apartments."
And "The Edge" in Brooklyn seems to have so many units on some floors that they ran out of letters, but didn't want to assign "#427"-type numbers, so they went with double letters like #4DD and #3AA:
This building isn't without its share of other weirdness; what are "TH1N" and "PG2GN"?
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Response by truthskr10
over 13 years ago
Posts: 4088
Member since: Jul 2009
>This building isn't without its share of other weirdness; what are "TH1N" and "PG2GN"?
Best guesses
TH1N Townhouse One North
PG2GN Parlour floor and ground floor duplex North
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Response by lad
over 13 years ago
Posts: 707
Member since: Apr 2009
For walk-up buildings, the standard seems to be F/R for buildings for two units per floor, and FE/FW RE/RW for buildings with four units per floor. Basement is usually B (occasionally G), and on rare occasions I've seen Cellar with C. (There is one cellar apartment I saw where you had to walk up one flight of stairs outside to a vestibule and then go down TWO flights of interal stairs to the cellar/sub-basement level, which opened into a below-grade yard. Have no idea how this was ever legal.)
Is any of this a city and/or postal service convention, I wonder? My building and a few others I've seen have or had numbers from 1-10 on the doors, but the postal address is F & R.
As an aside, basement-level unit owners and/or their real estate agents tend to get creative and "rebrand" their apartments as GARDEN / GRDN, etc. Makes for some trickiness on StreetEasy, attempting to match listing to sales.
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Response by Triple_Zero
over 13 years ago
Posts: 516
Member since: Apr 2012
Lad, that "GARDEN" is pretty sneaky; I'd assumed that GRN meant "ground", or first floor!
I learned from that building I mentioned above that in Tokyo, the grade level is based on where the main entrance is, so the floors are defined with that point being the ground floor. Developers will also fiddle with the position of the door so as to avoid the hated-in-Asia number 4; synonymous with "death". In new developments the house number changes every 10 meters, and it's based on where the door is, so sometimes you'll see a door in an odd spot just so that the house number can be, say, 18-3 or 18-5 and not 18-4.
I don't think the postal service can go around dictating to building developers (and certainly not co-op boards) how to number their apartments. It would be pretty scary if they could.
'/%3e%3c/g%3e%3c/svg%3e)
floor numbering can be amusing, too--some new bldgs number the basement as 1, the lobby as 2 and 3 (based on the double height ceiling) so that the residential floors start on 4!! makes the 2nd floor so much more appealing!!
Are they allowed to do that? I once checked out an apartment building in Tokyo which was built into the side of a hill, with the entrance on the high side. This meant that the rooms in the "basement" were really ground-floor-like, but regulations on numbering meant that those had to be "basement" rooms. The agent was saying that just seeing the number "002" was enough to put people off, despite it getting as much light as a ground-floor room, and that rooms above that, in the 100s, looked like ground floor rooms so people would shy away from them. I'd pick that 002 just for the novelty!
http://streeteasy.com/nyc/building/1025-5-avenue-new_york is another two-building co-op that uses number-letter-building notation. It was usually done where the two buildings together had more apartments per floor than there are letters, so A-to-something in one building and something-to-Z in the other building wouldn't work.
I like the ones that use N/S. Saves the trouble on googling the street address and figuring out north and south apartments.
I think using the Fibonacci sequence would be a great idea, assuming you can figure out how to have two apartments that are both numbered 1. Probably best for a smaller building though...
2 Tudor City place does it, and I think Southgate also does it.
They use the Fibonacci sequence?
"I like the ones that use N/S. Saves the trouble on googling the street address and figuring out north and south apartments."
That is an advantage; this place has east/west:
http://streeteasy.com/nyc/building/644-broadway-new_york
I've seen F/R (front/rear) also, like this one:
http://streeteasy.com/nyc/building/strivers-row#building_activity_units
And "The Edge" in Brooklyn seems to have so many units on some floors that they ran out of letters, but didn't want to assign "#427"-type numbers, so they went with double letters like #4DD and #3AA:
http://streeteasy.com/nyc/building/the-edge-north#building_activity_units
This building isn't without its share of other weirdness; what are "TH1N" and "PG2GN"?
>This building isn't without its share of other weirdness; what are "TH1N" and "PG2GN"?
Best guesses
TH1N Townhouse One North
PG2GN Parlour floor and ground floor duplex North
For walk-up buildings, the standard seems to be F/R for buildings for two units per floor, and FE/FW RE/RW for buildings with four units per floor. Basement is usually B (occasionally G), and on rare occasions I've seen Cellar with C. (There is one cellar apartment I saw where you had to walk up one flight of stairs outside to a vestibule and then go down TWO flights of interal stairs to the cellar/sub-basement level, which opened into a below-grade yard. Have no idea how this was ever legal.)
Is any of this a city and/or postal service convention, I wonder? My building and a few others I've seen have or had numbers from 1-10 on the doors, but the postal address is F & R.
As an aside, basement-level unit owners and/or their real estate agents tend to get creative and "rebrand" their apartments as GARDEN / GRDN, etc. Makes for some trickiness on StreetEasy, attempting to match listing to sales.
Lad, that "GARDEN" is pretty sneaky; I'd assumed that GRN meant "ground", or first floor!
I learned from that building I mentioned above that in Tokyo, the grade level is based on where the main entrance is, so the floors are defined with that point being the ground floor. Developers will also fiddle with the position of the door so as to avoid the hated-in-Asia number 4; synonymous with "death". In new developments the house number changes every 10 meters, and it's based on where the door is, so sometimes you'll see a door in an odd spot just so that the house number can be, say, 18-3 or 18-5 and not 18-4.
I don't think the postal service can go around dictating to building developers (and certainly not co-op boards) how to number their apartments. It would be pretty scary if they could.