Alert — and confused — “06880” reader Jaime Bairaktaris was looking up an address on Google.
The world’s largest search engine — which supposedly knows everything — took Jaime’s “Post Road East,” and turned it into “State Street East.”
It’s right there on Google Street View too:
That’s the internet search equivalent of your grandmother telling you to close “the icebox.”
Jamie wonders: “Is State Street still the legal name of Post Road East?”
I’m guessing no. That would be “US 1.”
Going North, it is State Street until between Sakura and the connector where it becomes Post Road East, which, at the connector, becomes US1! I think the median is causing the confusing name change!
You can let google know the problem right from the picture although I don’t recall exactly how…click on the pic and correct I believe.
I seem to recall in the 50’s & 60’s the common reference was “State St.” East and West. However, since the early ’80’s, when I moved back, it was Post Rd. East and West. What prompted the change?
I wonder what town or city has the most names for the Post Road. In Norwalk, different parts are called Westport Ave., North Ave., Cross St., Belden Ave., Van Buren Ave., and Connecticut Ave. They’re all Route 1, once known as the Boston Post Road. I don’t know where State St. came from.
It’s sorta OK to call it State Street right there. Think: “State Cleaners”. Besides, this isn’t really the Post Road right here – not historically anyway. It’s the Connecticut Turnpike, which was put in around 1807. The real 1673 Post Road didn’t come through what is now Downtown Westport. Instead, it stayed on King’s Highway and thence onto Myrtle Avenue. The turnpike went bust because of the railroad and we took the turnpike company’s bridge across the Saugatuck in 1857. But everybody still called this the turnpike. Later we renamed it State Street – I want to say to honor the Centennial – but can’t recall for sure.
It was always State Street on the signs and addresses downtown through the sixties. So it depends on what you mean by “official”. Post Road or more properly “Boston Post Road” goes back at least to when NYC was the nationCapital. US Route 1 was much later, but US Routes are just that, routes not named roads. And towns are always free to name their streets. So State Street is legally and historically correct, if not exclusive. PS, it is also “King’s Highway”.
Nope, this is not part of the original King’s Highway. Not right there. This road didn’t even exist before 1807.
Post Road????
It seems that the people in every town (and city) in Connecticut with a US1 running through it, refer to it as “The Post Road,” regardless of what its official name is. I traveled through much of lower Connecticut for business and that’s what everyone called it. At least the people I met.
The name was State Street from the time the State of Connecticut took over the bridge from the town in 1917. The name was then officially changed to the more ‘historic’ Post Road during the Bicentennial, but Google Earth never got the memo.
Thanks for setting us straight, Robert. Personally, I like the name State Street – it sets us apart. I say we don’t tell Google.