Incongruous New York by Joyce Kilmer — Read

That dislike of the obvious which is the chief characteristic of American humor is clearly exemplified in the names of most of New York's streets.

The dwellers in a great European city would give their proudest avenue of great shops and rich clubs some dignified and significant title, like the Rue de la Paix or the Friedrichstrasse. The Asiatics would give it a name more definitely descriptive and laudatory, like "The Street of the Thousand and One Mirrors of Delight. " The New Yorkers, "laconic and Olympian," designate it by a simple numeral. They call it Fifth Avenue.