the importance of alphabetized street names

It wasn't until I started running in the Terrace that I noticed something of exceedingly great importance. Something I can't believe I never noticed before. Something so important that I once begged my mom to drive to the outer limits of The Avenues to know the extent to which the alphabet was adhered--YES. The streets in College Terrace (and The Avenues) are named in alphabetical order!

(As an aside, my mom and I were driving through the Avenues for some reason (in my early teens), and we were playing that alphabet game where you have to find each letter in the alphabet on a sign or a license plate, in order. I was at once captivated with the prospect of going to the end of the avenues, and begged my mom to Drive! Drive! Keep going! It turned out that it goes to V. A street, B street....T street, U street, Virginia street. And then it stops. Alas. I was so hoping it would go all the way to Z.)

College Terrace has but one unfortunate blight upon it. The original landowner, Alexander Gordon, named the cross streets in alphabetical order after the names of universities. It goes like this:

Amherst

Bowdoin

Columbia

Dartmouth

Hanover

Harvard

Oberlin

Princeton

Washington

Wellesley

Williams

Yale

In 1925, College Terrace was annexed by Palo Alto, and was forced to rename streets that were duplicates of existing Palo Alto street names. There was only one street that was renamed. Washington. Poor, long lost Washington street. Can you guess what Washington was renamed? Anything between between Princeton and Wellesley would do--there are scores of colleges that would fit alphabetically between those two! But NO. Some twit renamed it Cornell.

Thus, Cornell is a blight upon the terrace. According to me, anyway. The beauty and order of the alphabetized streets was thrown away by one careless person who didn't know the alphabet.

PS. My mom and dad named their kids in alphabetical order too:) (though by accident).