![753-757 Greenwich Street](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/753-757_Greenwich_Street.jpg)
Greenwich Street is a north–south street in the
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
borough
A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely.
History
In the Middle Ag ...
of
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
. It extends from the intersection of
Ninth Avenue and
Gansevoort Street Gansevoort may refer to any one of the following:
__NOTOC__ People
*Guert Gansevoort (1812–1868), US Navy officer
*Harmen Harmense Gansevoort (ca. 1634–1709), early American settler, landowner and beer brewer
*Leonard Gansevoort (1751–1810), ...
in the
Meatpacking District
The Meatpacking District is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan that runs from West 14th Street south to Gansevoort Street, and from the Hudson River east to Hudson Street. The Meatpacking Business Improvement District along ...
at its northernmost end to its southern end at
Battery Park
The Battery, formerly known as Battery Park, is a public park located at the southern tip of Manhattan Island in New York City facing New York Harbor. It is bounded by Battery Place on the north, State Street on the east, New York Harbor to ...
. Greenwich Street runs through the
Meatpacking District
The Meatpacking District is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan that runs from West 14th Street south to Gansevoort Street, and from the Hudson River east to Hudson Street. The Meatpacking Business Improvement District along ...
, the
West Village
The West Village is a neighborhood in the western section of the larger Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City.
The traditional boundaries of the West Village are the Hudson River to the west, 14th Street (Manhattan ...
,
Hudson Square
Hudson Square is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded approximately by Clarkson Street to the north, Canal Street to the south, Varick Street to the east, and the Hudson River to the west. To the north of the neig ...
, and
Tribeca
Tribeca (), originally written as TriBeCa, is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. Its name is a syllabic abbreviation of "Triangle Below Canal Street". The "triangle" (more accurately a quadrilateral) is bounded by Canal Stre ...
.
Main east–west streets crossed include, from north to south,
Christopher Street
Christopher Street is a street in the West Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is the continuation of 9th Street west of Sixth Avenue.
It is most notable for the Stonewall Inn, which is located on Christopher S ...
,
Houston Street
Houston Street ( ) is a major east–west thoroughfare in Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs the full width of the island of Manhattan, from FDR Drive along the East River in the east to the West Side Highway along the Hudson River i ...
,
Canal Street, and
Chambers Street. North of Canal Street, traffic travels northbound on Greenwich Street; south of Canal Street, it travels southbound.
History
The earliest documentation of Greenwich Street came in the 1790s, when it ran parallel to the
Hudson River
The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...
. At that time it was called 'Road to Greenwich', as it was the only continuous road from Lower Manhattan to
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...
other than
Broadway
Broadway may refer to:
Theatre
* Broadway Theatre (disambiguation)
* Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
** Broadway (Manhattan), the street
**Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
.
![Pacific Hotel LCCN2003670119](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/Pacific_Hotel_LCCN2003670119.jpg)
By the late 18th century, lower Greenwich Street had become part of one of the most fashionable residential neighborhoods in the city, lined with four-story Federal-style mansions, although upper Greenwich street was home to artisans, shopkeepers and an enclave of free blacks. Greenwich Street still maintained its status as a choice address in 1820, but by the 1850s, the wealthy residents had fled uptown, and private residences on the street became unusual. Hotel owner
Amos Eno
Amos Richards Eno (November 1, 1810 – February 21, 1898) was an American real estate investor and capitalist in New York City. He built the Fifth Avenue Hotel and many other developments on the streets of Broadway and Fifth Avenue, where he est ...
left once he was "surrounded by immigrant boarding houses," according to his daughter. In 1873, the Butter and Cheese Exchange opened on the street, not far from where dairy products arrived daily at the freight railroad terminals. By 1882, a steam generation plant of the
New York Steam Company
The New York City steam systems include Con Edison's Steam Operations, and other smaller systems that provide steam to New York University and Columbia University. Many individual buildings in New York have their own steam systems.
Con Edis ...
was at Greenwich and Dey Streets.
In the early 19th century, circus impresario John Bill Ricketts opened his "New Amphitheatre" on Greenwich streets, designed by
Joseph-François Mangin
Joseph-François Mangin was born on June 10, 1758 in Dompaire, in the Vosges region of France. He was a French-American architect who is noted for designing New York City Hall and St. Patrick's Old Cathedral in New York City.
He died in 1818 ...
, where sell-out crowds watched his "Equestrian Circus" which featured "clowns, tightrope walkers, tumblers, acrobatic riders, mounted Indians and fireworks." This continued a tradition for the area, as 150 years earlier "Vauxhall Gardens", which boasted a wax museum and fireworks and served afternoon teas, was put up by
Samuel Fraunces
Samuel Fraunces (1722/23 – October 10, 1795) was an American restaurateur and the owner/operator of Fraunces Tavern in New York City. During the Revolutionary War, he provided for prisoners held during the seven-year British occupation of New ...
, of
Fraunces Tavern
Fraunces Tavern is a museum and restaurant in New York City, situated at 54 Pearl Street at the corner of Broad Street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan. The location played a prominent role in history before, during, and after th ...
, near the present corner of Greenwich and Warren Streets.
In 1824, painter
Thomas Cole
Thomas Cole was an English-born American artist and the founder of the Hudson River School art movement. Cole is widely regarded as the first significant American landscape painter. He was known for his romantic landscape and history paintin ...
, who had arrived in the U.S. in 1818, maintained his residence in a
garret
A garret is a habitable attic, a living space at the top of a house or larger residential building, traditionally, small, dismal, and cramped, with sloping ceilings. In the days before elevators this was the least prestigious position in a bu ...
on Greenwich Street, exhibiting his paintings in local shops. Poet and writer
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...
lived in a boardinghouse on the street briefly between 1844 and 1845, but did not like the neighborhood, complaining of dirty streets and the noise made by clam-and-catfish vendors.
Also on Greenwich Street in the mid-1800s was one of the many outlets of "
Madame Restell
Ann Trow Lohman (May 6, 1812 – April 1, 1878), better known as Madame Restell, was a British-born American abortion provider who practiced in New York City.
Early life
Ann Trow was born in Painswick, Gloucestershire, England in 1812 to John a ...
" (Ann Lohman), who sold pills for
abortion
Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pregn ...
of unwanted pregnancies. The Greenwich Street location doubled as a lying-in facility for women who wanted to bear their child. In 1846, an angry mob, riled up by Restell's competitors and false claims of murder, descended on her Greenwich Street headquarters and attempted to evict her from the city; 40 policemen restored order. Restell, who was wealthy from her business, was arrested a number of times, but was able to buy her way out of trouble, and eventually built a mansion at
Fifth Avenue
Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping stre ...
and
52nd Street
52nd Street is a -long one-way street traveling west to east across Midtown Manhattan, New York City. A short section of it was known as the city's center of jazz performance from the 1930s to the 1950s.
Jazz center
Following the repeal of ...
.
In 1867, engineer Charles T. Harvey managed to get permission from the
New York State Legislature
The New York State Legislature consists of the two houses that act as the state legislature of the U.S. state of New York: The New York State Senate and the New York State Assembly. The Constitution of New York does not designate an official ...
to build a short stretch of elevated track as an experiment on Greenwich Street north of Battery Place. The half-mile single-track set-up, which had two stationary engines at each end, attached by cables to a car which the motors shuttled back and forth, was ready for testing by June 1868. Harvey filed for personal bankruptcy on
Black Friday (1869)
The Black Friday gold panic of September 24, 1869 was caused by a conspiracy between two investors, Jay Gould and his partner James Fisk, and Abel Corbin, a small time speculator who had married Virginia (Jennie) Grant, the younger sister of ...
, resulting from the speculations of
Jay Gould
Jason Gould (; May 27, 1836 – December 2, 1892) was an American railroad magnate and financial speculator who is generally identified as one of the robber barons of the Gilded Age. His sharp and often unscrupulous business practices made him ...
and
James Fisk, but the company he set up went through several reorganizations and emerged in 1872 as the
New York Elevated Railway Company
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
, which utilized steam locomotives to pull cars on a single elevated track that ran up Greenwich and
Ninth Avenue to
30th Street, where a connection could be made at the terminal of the
Hudson River Railroad
The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Mid ...
. Eventually, this would become the
IRT Ninth Avenue Line
The IRT Ninth Avenue Line, often called the Ninth Avenue Elevated or Ninth Avenue El, was the first elevated railway in New York City. It opened on July 3, 1868 as the West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway, as an experimental single-track cable ...
; the elevated tracks were demolished in 1940.
At the
World Trade Center site
The World Trade Center site, often referred to as "Ground zero#World Trade Center, Ground Zero" or "the Pile" immediately after the September 11 attacks, is a 14.6-acre (5.9 ha) area in Lower Manhattan in New York City. The site is bounde ...
, Greenwich Street once ran through a neighborhood called
Radio Row
Radio Row is a nickname for an urban street or district specializing in the sale of radio and electronic equipment and parts. Radio Rows arose in many cities with the 1920s rise of broadcasting and declined after the middle of the 20th century. ...
, which specialized in selling radio parts. The neighborhood was demolished in 1962, when the area was condemned to make way for the
Construction of the World Trade Center
The construction of the first World Trade Center complex in New York City was conceived as an urban renewal project to help revitalize Lower Manhattan spearheaded by David Rockefeller. The project was developed by the Port Authority of New ...
. After the
World Trade Center
World Trade Centers are sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association.
World Trade Center may refer to:
Buildings
* List of World Trade Centers
* World Trade Center (2001–present), a building complex that includes five skyscrapers, a ...
was destroyed in the
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...
, the public supported rebuilding a street grid through the World Trade Center site.
[ It was ultimately decided to rebuild Cortlandt, ]Fulton
Fulton may refer to:
People
* Robert Fulton (1765–1815), American engineer and inventor who developed the first commercially successful steam-powered ship
* Fulton (surname)
Given name
* Fulton Allem (born 1957), South African golfer
* Fult ...
, and Greenwich Streets, which had been destroyed during the original World Trade Center's construction.
Etymology
Both Greenwich Street – originally called Greenwich Road[, p.77] – and Greenwich Avenue
Greenwich Avenue, formerly Greenwich Lane, is a southeast-northwest avenue located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It extends from the intersection of 6th Avenue and 8th Street at its southeast end to it ...
, with which it is sometimes confused, derive their names from the formerly independent country Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...
, which was subsumed by New York City as the city grew northward. "Greenwich" means "Green village", with the "wich" derived from Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''vicus'' through Old Saxon
Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas and parts of Eastern Europe). It i ...
''wick''. Of the two roads, Greenwich Street was the shorter, more scenic and popular route to the village, but often flooded[, p.55] until the 19th century, when landfill moved the river's edge farther away.
Transportation
Subway
The IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line
The IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line (also known as the IRT Seventh Avenue Line or the IRT West Side Line) is a New York City Subway line. It is one of several lines that serves the A Division, stretching from South Ferry in Lower Manhatta ...
runs under Greenwich Street from Vesey Street south to its end. The Cortlandt Street and Rector Street stations () serve it directly. Other New York City Subway
The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, an affiliate agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Opened on October 2 ...
stations serve Greenwich Street from nearby. These include (from north to south) the 14th Street–Eighth Avenue station (); the Christopher Street–Sheridan Square (local), Houston Street
Houston Street ( ) is a major east–west thoroughfare in Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs the full width of the island of Manhattan, from FDR Drive along the East River in the east to the West Side Highway along the Hudson River i ...
(local), Canal Street (local), Franklin Street (local) and Chambers Street (express) stations on the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line
The IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line (also known as the IRT Seventh Avenue Line or the IRT West Side Line) is a New York City Subway line. It is one of several lines that serves the A Division, stretching from South Ferry in Lower Manhatta ...
(); and the Chambers Street–World Trade Center station ().
The Christopher Street
Christopher Street is a street in the West Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is the continuation of 9th Street west of Sixth Avenue.
It is most notable for the Stonewall Inn, which is located on Christopher S ...
PATH train station ( HOB–33, JSQ–33, and JSQ–33 (via HOB) trains) is on Christopher Street just east of Greenwich Street. The World Trade Center
World Trade Centers are sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association.
World Trade Center may refer to:
Buildings
* List of World Trade Centers
* World Trade Center (2001–present), a building complex that includes five skyscrapers, a ...
PATH station ( NWK–WTC and HOB–WTC trains) is at Vesey and Greenwich Streets.[
The ]World Trade Center Transportation Hub
World Trade Center is a terminal station on the PATH system, within the World Trade Center complex in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City. It is served by the Newark–World Trade Center line at all times, as well as by the H ...
, between Greenwich and Church Streets, connects the five stations at the World Trade Center site (, as well as PATH trains). The combined station connects via the Dey Street Passageway
The Dey Street Passageway or Dey Street Concourse is a underground passageway in Manhattan, New York City, built as part of the Fulton Center project to rehabilitate the Fulton Street station complex and improve connectivity in Lower Manhattan ...
with the Fulton Center
Fulton Center is a subway and retail complex centered at the intersection of Fulton Street and Broadway in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The complex was built as part of a $1.4 billion project by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority ...
().
Bus
The uptown M11 bus operates on Greenwich Street from Bethune Street to Gansevoort Street.
Two buses intersect with, but do not stop on, the street:
* The crosstown M8 bus crosses Greenwich Street in both directions, westbound on Christopher Street and eastbound on West 10th Street.[
* The crosstown M21 bus crosses Greenwich Street in both directions, westbound on Houston Street and eastbound on Spring Street.][
]
Notable buildings and establishments
* 443 Greenwich Street
__NOTOC__
Year 443 ( CDXLIII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Maximus and Paterius (or, less frequently, year 1196 ' ...
* 408 Greenwich Street
408 Greenwich Street is a post-modern neoclassical condominium designed and built by Morris Adjmi Architects. It is located in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. The design of the building was inspired by Italian architect, Aldo ...
* 388 Greenwich Street
* 125 Greenwich Street
* 88 Greenwich Street
88 Greenwich Street, also known as the Greenwich Club Residences and previously as 19 Rector Street, is a building located on the southern side of Rector Street between Greenwich and Washington Streets in the Financial District of Manhattan, N ...
* 7 World Trade Center
* 4 World Trade Center
* 3 World Trade Center
* 2 World Trade Center
* American Stock Exchange Building
The American Stock Exchange Building, formerly known as the New York Curb Exchange Building and also known as 86 Trinity Place or 123 Greenwich Street, is the former headquarters of the American Stock Exchange. Designed in two sections by Starr ...
* Tribeca Grill
Tribeca Grill is a New American restaurant located at 375 Greenwich Street (at Franklin Street) in Tribeca, Manhattan, in New York City, co-owned by Robert De Niro and Drew Nieporent. Celebrity investors include Bill Murray, Sean Penn, Christophe ...
References
Bibliography
*
External links
New York Songlines: Ninth Avenue with Greenwich Street
a virtual walking tour
{{Streets of Manhattan
Greenwich Village
Hudson Square
SoHo, Manhattan
Streets in Manhattan
Tribeca