Not A Street

I didn't mean it's not a street -- it's just not A Street. You might have to look at the photo large to see it, but the sign clearly shows it's C Street.

In the US, many townships are designed on a rectangular grid pattern, where the topography allows. Streets (or avenues) are often numbered consecutively, starting from the central street, often called Main Street. In one part of Bellingham we have a Meridian Street. I say one part, because Bellingham was formed by the merger of four townships with street grids that weren't all aligned.

In this part of the city, called the Lettered Streets neighborhood, the streets are labeled from A to I -- not very imaginative, but easy to remember. The downtown area has streets named after trees -- Chestnut, Madrona, Holly, to name a few. I can never remember which is which.

Seattle has the following downtown street sequence: Jefferson, James, Cherry, Columbia, Marion, Madison, Spring, Seneca, University, Union, Pike, and Pine. The first letters of the names are JJCCMMSSUUPP, and the mnemonic for this is Jesus Christ Made Seattle Under Protest.

I need to invent a mnemonic for Bellingham.