{"id":15640,"date":"2022-06-17T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-17T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/content-manager\/?p=15640"},"modified":"2022-06-17T15:01:29","modified_gmt":"2022-06-17T19:01:29","slug":"nyc-street-name-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/blog\/nyc-street-name-history\/","title":{"rendered":"The Stories Behind the Names of NYC\u2019s Streets"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Among NYC’s<\/a> streets and avenues, Lexington Ave, Canal Street, and Broadway, and a handful of roadways still bear more traditional titles. These street names make reference to historic individuals, landmarks, and events that helped to shape the city in its early days, even as centuries and layers of pavement have obscured New York\u2019s original topography. While many of these streets have taken on new connotations\u2014Wall Street, for example, has more or less become a metonym for the city\u2019s financial industry\u2014their origins provide a fascinating insight into what life in New York used to be like.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

NYC’s Street Name History<\/h2>\r\n

It’s time to get the scoop on some of NYC’s streets.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Wall Street<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Financial District\u2019s best-known thoroughfare takes its name from an actual wall that used to mark the northern border of the city back when it was still the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam. Standing approximately twelve feet tall, settlers erected the wall in 1653<\/a> to repel attacks or invasions from pirates, the English, and displaced Native Americans. New Amsterdam became the English colony of New York in 1664, and tore down the wall in\u00a01699<\/a> to accommodate expanding city limits. The street\u2019s name, however, persisted.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The Bowery<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

No \u201cstreet\u201d or \u201cavenue\u201d designation is necessary\u2014 The Bowery<\/a> is an entity beyond such titles. Prior to its renaming in 1813, however, locals called the street \u201cBowery Lane.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 Centuries prior, the the Dutch East India Company christened the road \u201cBouwerij,\u201d<\/a> the Dutch word for \u201cfarm.\u201d It was a reference to the farmland that dominated the area when they set up shop in Manhattan in the 1620s. The current name is an anglicization of the original Dutch and is yet another relic of the city\u2019s turnover to English hands.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Park Avenue<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

When examining a street map of the city, a puzzled observer might notice that there is no 4th Avenue between 3rd and 5th Ave. That\u2019s because most of the street that formerly bore this name was rechristened Park Avenue in the 1850s<\/a>\u2014through a six-block stretch of the boulevard running from NoHo to Union Square is still known as 4th Ave. In spite of its proximity to Central Park, Park Ave was in fact named for a park that was built to cover the semi-subterranean New York and Harlem Railroad line<\/a> after a portion of the railroad was discontinued in the mid-19th century.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Canal Street<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Canal Street also gets its name from a now nonexistent landmark. A large reservoir known as Collect Pond<\/a> once served as a source of freshwater for downtown Manhattan residents until tanneries began using the pond as a receptacle for their waste in the late 1700s. To help drain away the polluted water, the city dug a canal in 1808<\/a> that opened out into the Hudson River. Ultimately, could no longer stand the smell of the tainted water. Eventually, the city turned the canal into a covered sewer, then paved over it. The resulting road became Canal Street.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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