ARTIFACT: Street Name Ballot

Artifact of the day is the above ballot, "How About a New Name for Our Main Street?", published in a 1938 issue of Tudor City View, the neighborhood monthly.

At the time, the enclave's three-block-long main drag was known as Prospect Place, a name coined in the 1870s. Unfortunately, there was a considerably longer thoroughfare in Brooklyn with the same name, causing mail delivery delays. Apparently, anything with a Prospect Place address was routinely routed to Brooklyn, only to be re-routed. Hence the reason for the ballot.

The results of this referendum are lost to history; the street was eventually renamed Tudor City Place in 1947. More about that here.