Neighborly Lane Turns Into Mean Street

C ONCORD, N.H.--Once upon a time, before Enhanced 911, there were two Walnut streets in New Hampshire’s capital. And there was harmony.

But authorities had visions of chaos. What if squads racing to an emergency careered east to Walnut Street, only to learn that the call was for the Walnut Street 5 miles away?

So it was decided that the six families on the newer of the Walnut streets should gather, neighbor-like, and choose a new name.

And that is how the war began.

Within weeks, good friends became estranged, next-door neighbors stopped talking, folks plotted and lobbied for names.

“As small as it might sound to some people, it’s become a big issue for people on the street,” says Jane Wescomb, of No. 5. Perhaps because “you’re not able to make a lot of decisions that affect you today.”

Decisions such as what address to put on your checks, your business cards, your stationery.

The neighbors first met in the spring at Felice Belman’s house, No. 9. “It was fun,” she recalls. “People were calling out crazy names. There was chips and beer.”

Bumblebee Lane, Woodpecker Street, Glacier Path, even Memory Lane--no, no, no and no.

Lois Lane? “I hate cute,” retorted Ralph Jimenez, of No. 8.

No. 7’s Debbie Ceriello rolled her eyes when her husband suggested Martin Luther King Way as one way to absolve a state without a holiday honoring the civil rights leader. Some worried about notoriety. Others thought it an insult: such a small street for such a big leader.

Then came Black Dog Lane. Sure. After all, four families owned black dogs, and a fifth black canine hung out from around the corner.

Ceriello would have none of it. “If it’s a beer, Black Dog sounds great,” she insisted. But on the street where she lives? No way.

Later she confessed to bad feelings about the name because one of the dogs, the one from around the corner, had bitten her son. And the barking of another kept her family up nights.

Besides, when neighbors gathered that March, she didn’t have a black dog. (She does now, and its name is Bets.)

Carole Riley, of No. 11, supported Ceriello. “I respected her reason.”

But Black Dog Lane won 4 to 2 in the final vote. And majority ruled on Concord’s soon-to-be-former Walnut Street, just as majority has ruled in this great American democracy for more than two centuries.

Until the minority complained. Once again, the neighbors were at stalemate. But something had to be done. Enhanced 911 automatically provides the caller’s address, but the technology isn’t smart enough to tell two Walnut streets apart.

“Obviously, seconds count,” says Bill Stanton, executive director of the National Emergency Number Assn. in Coshocton, Ohio. “Duplicate street names probably are the worst thing that can happen.”

So, as the technology spreads across the country, disputes follow. In Crow Wing County, Minn., for example, 8,900 people lost familiar street names last October, and many were not happy about it.

In Concord, Ceriello drafted a letter to city officials, protesting that the Black Dog decision was not unanimous. In a neighborly gesture, she distributed copies along the block.

The reaction? Well, Ceriello’s good friend Linda Graham--wife of Jimenez at No. 8 and owner of a black dog named Griffen--stopped talking to her. She wondered: Why didn’t Debbie consult her first?

Wescomb, never a close friend of Ceriello but owner of Sabbath, was also upset. “We voted on it the American way,” she said, “and that’s the way it should be.”

But the neighbors gathered yet again at Ceriello’s house at No. 7. This time, beer and chips gave way to brownies and grapes. And this time, when Ceriello suggested that every resident have veto power over any name, the meeting took a serious turn.

“It was kind of tense,” said Belman. Added Riley, owner of Kayla: “I didn’t think it would be this hard.”

More names were suggested and discarded.

Some neighbors grew anxious. Jimenez recalled waking in the middle of the night. Later, he sifted through Shakespeare and other writings in a fruitless search for a name everyone could live with.

During a third meeting, in April, at Belman’s No. 9, Ceriello and Wescomb inadvertently crowded each other on a small couch. And when Ed Ferman, owner of Boss at No. 12, again promoted Black Dog Lane, they fought like cats and, well, you know.

Ferman backed off. It was time for the neighbors to be . . . neighborly. “People would be mad at each other for 20 years,” he fretted.

“As long as this is hanging over us, there is a slight air of upset,” Ceriello offered. “When this is settled, I think we can put all this behind us. It’s kind of an open wound.”

Finally, the group saw it in the stars to vote on Orion Path, and it passed 5 to 0.

“To tell you the truth, I hate it,” confides Belman. “But I voted for it because I wanted the meeting to get over.”

Wescomb didn’t like it either. “We could have done something a little cutesy,” she says. But she walked out rather than cast a veto.

By this time, residents just wanted to go home.

“We had fun with it,” Ceriello says, “and we had disaster with it.”

Orion Path--the constellation is prominent in the Walnut Street sky--was submitted to the city’s decision-makers. In August, a decision came back: Orion Street.