So after Queens was annexed by NYC in 1898 and these small towns became more heavily urbanized, and farms were moving out and houses and businesses were moving in between them, the city decided to institute a uniform numbering system. However, a perfect grid, like the one in Manhattan and large stretches of Brooklyn, just couldn’t be accomplished in the sprawling county of Queens. It couldn’t be tamed that way, with uneven coastlines and hilly areas. So a specialized plan had to be implemented to make sure that a 60th Avenue, say, would be on the same latitude across the borough, generally speaking, and 60th Street would be on the same longitude.

But often there were more streets than necessary, not fewer. So numbered streets other than Avenues and Streets had to be added. For east-west streets the pattern is that the first in the series is always Avenue, followed by Road, Drive, Court and Terrace. For north-south streets, it’s Street, followed by Place and then by Lane. In special cases with weird street layouts, like Fresh Meadows, Crescent and Circle were added into the mix.