More Street Blade Madness

A few weeks ago I posted about Portland's new street sign designs, tipped off by a fellow blogger who is also prone to geek out about things like road signs. I hadn't actually seen one of the new ones in person until Thursday when I had to go to drop off some t-shirts at Bridgeport Brewing. I didn't have the camera in tow at that moment, but just happened to pass through this area again today on a long walk around the city.


This has been an area of heavy construction for the past few years. Construction on the new high-rise condos are finally finished on this block, folks are moving in, and new street signs are going up.
It seems another street blade re-write is in order. You makin' a list ZehnKatzen?
In a perfect world, Portland's Alphabet District, so named because the east/west streets are named in alphabetical order from Ankeny to York*, should be relatively intuitive. Laid out in quadrants, Portland just makes sense, so it makes sense that the 1300 block of 12th ave should occur after crossing the street named after the 13th letter of the alphabet. The city sign shop even gets it.
However, in the real world, we do things differently. In Portland, we start counting at Burnside, not Ankeny, and we always have a block of two-digit addresses before we get into the 100's. I assume this is how this sign came to be. The real 1300 block is between Overton and Pettygrove Streets.
On a side note, if anyone from the city happens upon this post and is thinking, "hmm, maybe we should hire a fact-checker," I'm available nights and weekends, perhaps even full time if the price is right. Just sayin'.

*Roosevelt St. is a total cop out. Wasn't there at least one guy in town named Xavier to name this street after?