 The east-west avenues, originally named, were first numbered in 1871, with modern East 35th Avenue designated First Avenue; however, this system was abandoned in 1886, when the city passed an ordinance linking avenue numbers to the street numbers of the diagonal grid.Where a numbered street met an avenue at Broadway, the avenue was given the number of the connecting street; thus 16th Street provided the number for 16th Avenue, and so forth.An exception was Colfax Avenue, which meets 15th Street and is the equivalent of 15th Avenue, but retained its original name.