Birmingham Road

In 1919-1920, developer Ben W. Marks hatched an ill-fated plot to build a college campus here. And thus two sets of school-themed streets were planned for either side of University Avenue, each in alphabetical order. (See Amherst Drive for the other set.) This set honors both universities and prep schools, both here and in the UK: Andover Drive, for Phillips Academy Andover; Birmingham Road, presumably for Birmingham–Southern College; Cambridge Drive; Dartmouth Road; Eton Drive; Franklin Road, renamed Stanford Road (so much for alphabetical order!); Groton Drive, for the boarding school in MA; Hampton Road, probably for London’s Hampton School; Irving Drive, possibly for the since-closed Irving Female College in PA; and Jamestown Road, presumably for Jamestown College in ND. (The original list continued with nine never-built streets: Kenyon, Lafayette, Meredith, Newton, Oxford, Princeton, Quincy, Roanoke, and a different Stanford Drive.) Tufts Avenue and Uclan Drive were added later.