A few weeks ago, Jason Katz, publisher of the local zine Islandia Journal, made the momentous discovery while studying artificial lakes on Google Maps for an upcoming project. The name caught his eye.
"It’s a humorous name, and I have no idea who would name it that all the way out there," Katz tells New Times. "I haven't made it out there to see if there are any pizza boxes on the ground yet."
So Katz issued a call on Twitter for answers: "We are once again asking for your assistance in explaining why this road all the way out in concrete borrow pit country on the edge of the Dade development boundary is called Pizza Street?"
He has yet to receive any credible explanations.
Pizza Street is located outside of the Urban Development Boundary, the line Miami-Dade County uses to delineate residential construction from the eastern edge of the Everglades. The road is west of Hialeah Gardens and just south of NW 114th Street between NW 137th Avenue and NW 147th Avenue. It runs along a borrow pit pond belonging to the Pennsuco Cement Plant, a subsidiary of Titan America.We are once again asking for your assistance in explaining why this road all the way out in concrete borrow pit country on the edge of the Dade development boundary is called Pizza Street? pic.twitter.com/4r4wALyOh9
— Islandia Journal (@IslandiaJournal) March 15, 2022
HistoryMiami historian Paul George has no clue how Pizza Street earned its name. But he says the cement plant is named after a former rural community along U.S. Route 27 called Pennsuco, which was established in 1920 by Pennsylvania Sugar Company and populated by the cane farmers and workers they employed.
Former Florida governor and U.S. senator Bob Graham was born in Pennsuco. His family settled in Florida while working for the sugar company. When the company went under in the late 1920s, the town of Pennsuco disappeared. The Grahams purchased land in northwest Miami-Dade and founded the Graham Dairy farm. Though the dairy farm no longer exists, much of the land that was once Pennsuco remains unpopulated. However, some portions have been industrialized and annexed by Doral, Medley, and Hialeah Gardens.
When reached by New Times by phone, a Pennsuco Plant employee wasn't aware that a road at the plant was named for one of America's most beloved carbohydrates and was very confused when directed to Google Maps satellite imagery of "Pizza Street" on the property. The employee explained that the streets around the borrow pits are numbered and not named after food. Then they hung up.
Amateur sleuths shouldn't bother investigating in person. Pizza Street is shielded by a Pennusco Cement Plant gate and a security guard who doesn't take too kindly to curious journalists seeking access to Pizza Street.
The mystery goes so deep that even officials within county government aren't sure how the road came to be named.
Sandra Antonio, information officer with the Miami-Dade County Department of Transportation and Public Works, tells New Times the street likely got its name from locals in the area. She says the county has no records of an otherwise numbered road being dedicated to cheese, sauce, and crust.
"We were unable to find any information on how Pizza Street got its name," Antonio tells New Times via email. "Additionally, Pizza Street is located outside the Urban Development Boundary (UDB), where most roads are not dedicated. It is possible that Pizza Street is an old street that was never dedicated and was probably called that by the locals in the area."
Was the street named by locals who lived in the area manufacturing Italian pies before they manufactured cement? Perhaps there's a sunken pizza parlor in the bordering borrow pit pond?
Or could it be an elaborate street-naming prank?
It wouldn't be the first time a major mapping database copied illegitimate street names to its database. In 2013, the Wall Street Journal's Kabul bureau chief Yaroslav Trofimov didn't understand why certain streets in the Afghanistan capital were named "Bad Monkey" and "Hillbilly Hameed" on Apple Maps. Turns out, it was a joke by Afghan university students who added them to the street-naming database that Apple Maps copied.
New Times was unable to speak to a representative after calling Google Maps' customer-service line.
Though the hunger for answers may not be satiated, the craving for pizza can easily be satisfied at one of two pizza-themed food trucks in the parking lot of a Valero gas station roughly four miles away from Pizza Street.
A personal-size Cuban pizza at the Mi Pizza Piú food truck costs $6.50.