Where the Streets Have Cool Names

We've always assumed that our life-long, near total ignorance of the fact that the US and Mexico fought a war in the 1840s could be blamed on the inadequacies of the Swampscott school system (though we'll concede, their field trips are considerably more awesome now than when we were in school). But our informal polling of the American-educated community, and anecdotal evidence such as the fact that the Strand Bookstore, whose military history section takes up about a quarter of an acre, does not have a "Mexican War" shelf, and that what books we have been able to find on the war usually open with an introduction explaining why nobody remembers it, are leading us to believe it's a national, not a local problem.

So we were pleased to learn via Robert Reid's excellent Reid on Travel site, that there's an entire neighborhood in Pittsburgh called The Mexican War Streets historic district. We heartily second Robert's declaration of it as the best-named neighborhood in the US, and strongly urge Swampscott High School to consider a field trip during the 2009-10 academic year. Which we'll offer to chaperone in exchange for our usual, non-negotiable per diem.