Is it common for people where you live to give directions by saying "where XYZ used to be?"
Posted by annnnn5@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 67 comments
I'm from an area of Canada where it's very common to tell people where something is by saying what used to be located there. For example, instead of telling people that the local Walmart is in the such and such mall, people say it's "where K-Mart used to be". A local car dealership, instead of saying its' address on radio commercials, says "where Ford used to be." This is sometimes confusing for younger or newer people in the area, as they may not remember the previous business, but it's how it is.
andmewithoutmytowel@reddit
Yes! Louisville, KY. I can’t tell you how bad it was when I moved here. “By where Sears used to be” is not helpful when you’ve lived in a city for less than 6 months.”
West_Guidance2167@reddit
Haha yes, literally had the conversation yesterday. “ we went to that new sushi restaurant last weekend. It was really good.” “ oh, where’s that at?” “next to where the old torchys tacos was. Ya know, right behind the old Burger King that’s now a dentist.”
Eubank31@reddit
Mm torchys tacos, that's a deep cut. Yum
OGIBLP@reddit
Wait but did you actually have a burger king that’s now a dentist’s office? Because that’s hilarious.
West_Guidance2167@reddit
https://imgur.com/a/jxIzo0w it’s hard to tell, the one says children’s dentistry
OGIBLP@reddit
Oh wow, that could look a lot worse. Still weird!
West_Guidance2167@reddit
Yes. It was a Burger King and it is now a pediatric dentist.
thej611@reddit
Yes! Especially among older people. Here in Indiana, if older locals are talking to each other, they’ll refer to things that haven’t existed in 30 or 40 years when giving directions
CupBeEmpty@reddit
My favorite one in Indiana that my family uses is this palce which used to be D Dan’s Hot Dogs but hasn’t been for about 30 years.
Now it is Sybaris which is like a romantic fuck hotel with private pools and big beds and stuff.
So it is hilarious that the outline of the sign is still a hot dog.
Unless you knew it used to be a hot dog place you probably would not know why the sign outline is weird.
It’s also funny that the sex hotel has a hot dog sign.
Suppafly@reddit
It's crazy that a spot big enough to be a hotel used to be a hotdog joint. It's even crazier that they kept the hotdog shaped sign though.
CupBeEmpty@reddit
The hot dog place used to sit on a really big plot of land because that part of Indy was basically farmland back in the day. The hotel moved in bought all the land and the hot dog place.
Why they kept the sign I don’t know. But they must have ordered a new custom insert for the sign frame which is funny in and of itself.
“Hi can you build us a custom sign for our hotel? Great! Yeah the shape is a little funny though, can you make it hot dog shaped?”
Suppafly@reddit
Guess they spent all their money remodeling the hotdog place into a sex hotel, that they ran out of sign money? Honestly seems like it'd be just as cheap to get a new sign holder a normal shape than to order a hotdog shaped sign insert.
CupBeEmpty@reddit
No clue but I’m glad they didn’t. It’s been decades of mild amusement for me.
thej611@reddit
That’s absolutely HILARIOUS 😂😂😂😂
CupBeEmpty@reddit
Next time you are in Indy cruising across 86th St. keep your eyes peeled on the north side of the street just east of Zionsville Rd.
thej611@reddit
I will! It sounds like an exceedingly… interesting place
CupBeEmpty@reddit
I mean if you are with someone you want to bang it might be worth a stop. I couldn’t say. I haven’t been.
rawbface@reddit
Yes, I remember when my youngest was born I had to pick up a birth certificate.
" Where the hell is the Voorhees community Center?"
" It's where the Echelon Mall used to be."
Meilingcrusader@reddit
On occasion with someone you know. Actually came up today, brunch was at a place that was where a childhood restaurant once was
flp_ndrox@reddit
The older you get the more you give that direction.
Bluemonogi@reddit
I have not heard anyone do that but I haven’t asked directions either for a long time. I live in a town that is about 1 mile across and I have lived here since about 2007. If I were given directions I’d give the street name or something that is currently there not a place that closed down years ago.
unrepentantlibboomer@reddit
Ha ha. Sounds like the directions my uncle used to give. "You go to where Johnson's barn burned down in '54, but you don't turn there."
KittenPurrs@reddit
On my dad's side of the family, they used to host a family reunion every four years on a property in the middle of nowhere in another state. My folks knew how to get 99.9% of the way there, but had to wait on the phone call for the last stretch of the directions due to crop rotation. "Just beyond where that old oak used to be, turn left at the soybeans. You're going to see a lot of feed corn. Turn left again when you see the sweet corn." GPS has made a lot of things easier.
Suppafly@reddit
This. Some old timer gives you 20 minutes of dumb directions, and then gets mad when you just ask for the address so you can put it into google maps and instantly find it.
No_Information_8973@reddit
If you get to the big oak tree you went to far! You need to turn at the pine tree.
Suppafly@reddit
Yes, people in America give directions just like people in every other country do.
KJHagen@reddit
That's common in my area for sure. It's dumb though, since about half the people here came from somewhere else, and most of them arrived in the last 10 years.
Bishop-Logan@reddit
Ayuh.
Efflux@reddit
Don't wanna go down THAT road.
HowardIsMyOprah@reddit
The road by the old Kmart?
CupBeEmpty@reddit
Ayuh and NH definitely has those same Mainer can’t get there from heyah vibes.
Just Thursday I met with a client and the instructions were.
Turn on Road X. The bridge is out so take the right just before the river. Go 2 miles on the dirt road and left across the next bridge. Then straight, but not to the house at the end. There will be two boulders so take a left at the two boulders, it kind of looks like a trail but your car can make it. We are at the cabin there next to the white camper and truck.
The fastest way home from there was then to retrace my steps back to the intact bridge and take it about 3 miles out around a pond to a paved road then across another bridge back to the main road.
Despite all assurances my Subaru (yes I am a Granite Stater in a Subaru) struggled a bit with the nearly washed out trail through a swamp after the two boulders.
I should have added a car wash fee for the meeting.
I felt very northern New England on Thursday.
critkit@reddit
You should know by now, but - yuh cain't get theyuh fruhm hyuh.
PghSubie@reddit
In SW PA here, it's very common
Ristrettooo@reddit
It's not common, but I've heard things from older folks.
I live in an area where there's been a lot of development in the last 20 years and a ton of people moved here from somewhere else (including me). So giving directions based on what used to be somewhere would be pretty pointless. But sometimes I'll hear people who have lived here a long time refer to old street names that have since been changed, or talk about where the farm was, even though that farm has been a Target since the 90s.
Equivalent-Speed-631@reddit
All the time.
SnooChipmunks2079@reddit
I do it just because I can’t remember what is there now.
TsundereLoliDragon@reddit
I do this all the time. And give a history of every business that used to be there.
UptownJunk802@reddit
Where I live there was a drive in movie theater. People still use that as a landmark. It's been over 30 years.
Head_Razzmatazz7174@reddit
Yep. But only for locals that have been there for a while. You can tell those by saying "you know where the German restaurant used to be?" or some other long time landmark that isn't there anymore. If they say no, then you stick to the current buildings.
Deolater@reddit
Pretty common in my experience
Tron_35@reddit
Yes and its annoying sometimes. My mother does this when giving me directions when im driving, and she'll use stuff as reference that was torn when I was a kid, way before I started driving. I dont know how to get to the old bridge, it was torn down when I was 5.
Vanilla_thundr@reddit
Dear Americans, is it common for you to be human and act like humans?
Wolfsburg78@reddit
When people ask me which way I go home I say, "I take 126 and turn where the Log Cabin used to be. Then bear left, left, and I'm basically home." The Log Cabin Restaurant was torn down at least twenty years ago, and was never open in my lifetime.
So, yes it is common.
workntohard@reddit
All the time. When I first moved to current location it drove me crazy having to get them to adjust directions to current. Since then I still refuse to use local names for roads and landmarks even though I have learned most of them.
pseudonym7083@reddit
Sometimes. Pretty contingent on if you were around for when XYZ was in that specific location.
Common-Independent-9@reddit
I don’t even know the name of the store that’s in the old toys r us. Everyone just calls it “the store that’s in the old toys r us”
Oldachrome1107@reddit
I once heard a guy give directions using only restaurants as reference points. He didn’t know a single street name, just the restaurants along the way. Some of them were “used to be”s
“Yeah, so turn left out of here, and when you see the McDonald’s you turn right at the next light, go about a quarter mile, past the taco place that used to be a Pizza Hut, turn left just before the Cane’s, go past the Culver’s and it’s next door to the Jersey Mikes. If you see the new Pizza Hut you’ve gone too far.
critkit@reddit
Very common when talking to people who have lived nearby for a long time, especially the older folks who may have been there before the roads had names or changed names.
My father knows places by the old names the bridges had, not the State Route numbers or the new road names.
"Yeah, just past the road that leads to the old Hiram Long bridge, dad."
toilet_roll_rebel@reddit
Very common where I'm from.
Western-Willow-9496@reddit
Where I grow up, we have a house that is used as a point of reference, it’s known by the name of the woman who lived there probably 60 or 70 years ago. The current owners have been there since the early ‘70s.
reflectorvest@reddit
Yes and I didn’t grow up here so it’s fucking infuriating
Remarkable_Table_279@reddit
I think that’s common in small towns/rural areas - probably a world wide thing and probably has been happening as long as people have asked for directions
I_am_photo@reddit
They do and it's so annoying since I then have to say I don't know what that is as I moved to the area a few years ago. It's mainly annoying since the people giving me directions know when I moved here.
ConceptOther5327@reddit
Yea, absolutely a common thing in my region. I can follow directions based on landmarks that have been gone since before I was born because that's how the previous generations did it. It's a test to see if people are from the area.
When I started driving, we were a really nice town of about 30,000 people, I'm not even 40 and now there's almost 100,000 people. Locals don't pay attention to road names because a lot of of them don't even have street signs. We just know how to get where we're going. New people get frustrated with directions based on landmarks and significant events. If somebody doesn't like that my directions include something like "need to turn where the church burnt down" I tell them to put it into their GPS, then they say "I tried that but it's not working" so my response is "yeah because not all of our roads are mapped or named yet" if somebody's not smart enough to realize the overgrown lot with nothing but an old sign for a church is where they need to turn... I don't think I want them to stay in the area.
frickenfantastic@reddit
Uncommon in my area. Likely has way more to do with how transient the population is in an area. When most people move there within the last 5 to 10 years, it’s unlikely we’re going to refer to anything by something that used to be there before we lived here.
stratusmonkey@reddit
I do "Used to be a Pizza Hut" whenever I get a chance. But otherwise, no
Roadshell@reddit
Eh, who even gives directions anymore in the era of GPS?
Ol_Man_J@reddit
If I don’t know the address what should I say if I’m asked directions?
iowanaquarist@reddit
Humans in conversation. If I am talking to a friend I am not going to tell them to gps to find out where the business I just referred to is located.
Annhl8rX@reddit
I think that’s pretty common among people who know an area well, but it can definitely be frustrating for people who don’t.
I had a delivery job once, and it was very informal. This was before smartphones, and I didn’t have a GPS. I went out one day and couldn’t find the place I was supposed to go. I called in to my old man boss who’d worked in the town forever. He said, “It’s that church that used to be a movie theater”. Having no clue what he was talking about, I asked for some further clarification. “It’s behind the old China Star restaurant”. Finally I asked, “Do you have any current reference points?”
iowanaquarist@reddit
Only if people can reasonably understand the references. Telling someone the new Walmart is in the old Kmart is super quick, easy, and specific if you know they knew where Kmart is.
You can't just say it's in the mall, at least around here, as that is vague -- which side of the mall? Which floor? Can you even access it from the mall, or is it only an external entrance? Is it even attached to the mall, or is it a free standing building in the mall complex?
The same holds true for most directions.
Sugah-mama21@reddit
Sure do
nomoregroundhogs@reddit
Yeah, as long as the thing that used to be there is relatively recent. I live in a place where the population is fairly transient (college and military town) and I’ve noticed that I am no longer able to use a certain store that closed almost 20 years ago as a reference lol
hypo-osmotic@reddit
Not uncommon.
Part of my job involves going through the past uses of neighborhoods and this can make that difficult, as I’ve run into a few cases where the only location information listed for a business that no longer exists is along the lines of “next door to [another business that no longer exists]”
MrsQute@reddit
Only if the person to whom I'm giving directions will understand the references.
I might tell my mother that this new place opened up near where my grandmother used to do her grocery shopping but tell my son it's by where the coffee shop used to be.
Directions should be useful to the person receiving them.
Im_Not_Nick_Fisher@reddit
Not super common. Especially if there’s no evidence of the place actually ever being there. Wouldn’t exactly make sense, unless the person you were talking to actually knew it was there. However I live in a beach town, and lots of surf spots are referred to by landmarks, both old and new. So an old restaurant or hotel that closed 20 years ago could still be what that spot is called. But it depends who is calling it that, and who they are talking to. If you grew up in the area you likely called it by the old name, even if it never actually existed during your lifetime.
bloopidupe@reddit
Yes.