As a librarian (degreed but without the complete sheepskin) and nominally in charge of what is called our archive, I can see some interesting archival dives for such a project.  There's a lot of historical data - assuming it was preserved - from city archives that would trace street naming and mapping.  If the city didn't maintain such archives, local unis might.  And the post office might also be a resource, though I'm not sure how you'd go about finding what department within them would track such.  And, of course, newspaper archives.  I'll bet there's some interesting stories to be uncovered there.