How many readers know of streets in Cleveland Heights that actually are called “Street?” We have only three: Edendale, Ardoon and Vandemar (English, Scottish and probably Dutch or German names, respectively), all contiguous and running north from Mayfield Road between Cleveland Heights Boulevard and Noble Road. Not including Treuhaft-developed Lynn Park Drive between the Boulevard and Edendale, which has slightly newer homes, these streets form a tract originally referred to with the no-frills name of “Acreage Subdivision no. 1 & 2” in old plat books. This small district includes Noble School property and the former Center Mayfield Theater building, and is filled primarily with homes from ca. 1910 to 1925 – with many bungalows and early Dutch colonials, as well as a few doubles.

In 1906, about the time this tract was laid out, the City of Cleveland’s street-naming and numbering system underwent massive change, whereby most north-south streets were renamed with numbers and then called “Streets.” The developers of most of Cleveland’s early 20th-century suburban streets, including those in Cleveland Heights, may have associated the “Street” appellation with built-up cities or villages, and instead selected “Road,” “Avenue,” or “Boulevard” for the grace or romance associated with these terms. Did the developers of most Cleveland Heights neighborhoods, earlier and later, connect “Street” with the center city their buyers often moved from, and therefore avoid it? The builders probably just favored the images associated with the other terms for their leafy suburb. Naming new streets ‘Street’ was, in any case, going out of fashion for new developments by 1920.