Scrabble in Jackson Heights

It seems to be the height of redundancy and a complete waste to post two maroon street signs indicating neighborhoods designated by the NYC’s Landmarks Preservation Commission at one corner in Jackson Heights, at 35^th Avenue and 81st  Street  at the Community Methodist Church. What’s the Department of Transportation up to? One sign shows 35^th Avenue normally, but the other one has small numbers after each letter: “1” after T, A, E, N, U and E, and “4” after the H and V.

It’s all because of Jackson Heights resident Alfred Butts. In the 1940s Butts, an architect by trade and Community Methodist congregant, created a new word game combining the features of anagrams and crossword puzzles, calling it “Criss Cross Words,” and shopped it around to game and toy manufacturers without success. In 1948, Butts sold the rights to the game to Criss Cross Words fans Mr. and Mrs. James Burnot, who decided to manufacture and market the board game themselves. Renting an abandoned schoolhouse in Dodgington, Connecticut, they hand-manufactured the games, stamping out letters on wooden tiles. Word gradually spread about the new game and orders gradually increased; Macy’s placed some orders. The renamed Scrabble®, now distributed by Hasbro, became America’s second most popular board game, second only to Parker Brothers’ Monopoly®. There are professional Scrabble players and Scrabble leagues; Stefan Fatsis’ 2001 book “Word Freak” describes the lives, trials and tribulations of people who know what words have a “q” not followed by a “u”.

The Department of Transportation, not usually known for whimsical humor, posted its tribute to Butts during the early 1990s. T, A, E, N, and U carry a one-point value, while H and V are good for four points. In Scrabble, point values go up the rarer the letter in English usage; Q and Z earn ten points.