Avenue (landscape)
From Freepedia
Traditionally, an avenue is a straight road with a line of trees or large shrubs running along each side, which is used, as its French source à venir "to arrive" indicates, to emphasize the arrival at a landscape or architectural feature. In most cases, the trees planted in an avenue will be all of the same species or cultivar, so as to give uniform appearance along the full length of the avenue.
The avenue is one of the oldest ideas in the history of gardens, with even earlier ritual uses that sanctified a landscape by laying a plumbline across it. An avenue of sphinxes that lead to the tomb of the pharaoh Hatshepsut (died 1458 BCE); see the entry Sphinx. Avenues defined by guardian stone lions lead to the Ming tombs. British archaeologists have adopted highly specific criteria for "avenues".
In Baroque landscape planning, avenues of trees centered upon the dwelling radiated across the landscape. See the avenues in the gardens of Het Loo.
In modern urban or suburban settings, "avenue" is often a street name used to differentiate some streets from others, along with "way", "road", etc. Thus a community might have a "Maple Avenue" and a "Maple Street" to avoid confusion between addresses. In some cities in the United States, there is a convention that "avenues" run in a north-south direction, while "streets" run in an east-west direction.
