I realise that this one might need some context…  which, in the eyes of some, makes it a less successful photograph that it could have been.  Of course, I could just as easily not give context and it could probably be a better photograph for it…

But, I will put in my few words anyway 😀

Canon EOS 60D, Sigma 10-20mm.

Main Street/ High Street, Georgetown.

Basically, I wanted a photo of the pedestrian in the distance with the recently knocked down / destroyed sign in the foreground; the sign that once indicated to drivers and pedestrians that there was a pedestrian crossing ahead.  🙂

But this photo got me to also thinking about the street upon which I took the photo; this portion you see is called High Street, the portion behind me (which is obviously not in the photo) is called Main Street, as you proceed further south it then changes to Avenue of the Republic and then back to High Street.  Why would what is effectively one street have four different named sections?  From what I’ve read, it was possibly once called simply “High Street”; the portion running through Cummingsburg was then named Main Street, and then when Guyana attained Republic status the portion running through Lacytown was renamed to Avenue of the Republic.  Interestingly, after a slight detour around St Saviour’s Church, it becomes Saffon Street, this, however, never seems to be considered as part of the “High Street” issue.

Stretches of streets within Georgetown which have multiple names is normally attributed to the fact that Georgetown was originally built as a number of different wards, and the streets were never meant to be contiguous, then the wards were joined together, the multiple names resulted, along with some streets having a slight turn to continue since the original ones were not in-line.  The wards involved in the High Street issue are Kingston (High Street), Cummingsburg (Main Street), Lacytown (Avenue of the Republic) and Stabroek / Werk-en-Rust – and part of Charlestown (High Street).

Click on the image to see it in the gallery.