Houston Street (Manhattan)
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Houston Street ( ) is a major east–west thoroughfare in
Lower Manhattan Lower Manhattan (also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York) is the southernmost part of Manhattan, the central borough for business, culture, and government in New York City, which is the most populated city in the United States with ...
in New York City. It runs the full width of the island of Manhattan, from
FDR Drive The Franklin D. Roosevelt East River Drive, commonly called the FDR Drive for short, is a limited-access parkway on the east side of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It starts near South and Broad Streets, just north of the Battery Park ...
along the East River in the east to the West Side Highway along the Hudson River in the west. The street is divided into west and east sections by Broadway. Houston Street generally serves as the boundary between neighborhoods on the East Side of Manhattan— Alphabet City, the East Village, NoHo, Greenwich Village, and the West Village to the north, and the
Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Traditionally an im ...
, most of the Bowery, Nolita, and SoHo to the south. The numeric street-naming grid in Manhattan, created as part of the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, begins immediately north of Houston Street with 1st Street at Avenue A. The street's name is pronounced "", in contrast to the city of Houston, Texas, whose name is pronounced "". The street was named for William Houstoun, while the city was named for
Sam Houston Samuel Houston (, ; March 2, 1793 – July 26, 1863) was an American general and statesman who played an important role in the Texas Revolution. He served as the first and third president of the Republic of Texas and was one of the first two i ...
.


Description

At its east end, Houston Street meets
FDR Drive The Franklin D. Roosevelt East River Drive, commonly called the FDR Drive for short, is a limited-access parkway on the east side of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It starts near South and Broad Streets, just north of the Battery Park ...
in an interchange at
East River Park East River Park, also called John V. Lindsay East River Park, is public park located on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, administered by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Bisected by the Williamsburg Bridge, it stretches ...
. West of FDR Drive, it intersects with Avenue D. Further west, other streets, including First Avenue, the Bowery, Lafayette Street and Broadway, intersect Houston Street. The Broadway intersection is the division point between East Houston Street and West Houston Street.
Sixth Avenue Sixth Avenue – also known as Avenue of the Americas, although this name is seldom used by New Yorkers, p.24 – is a major thoroughfare in New York City's borough of Manhattan, on which traffic runs northbound, or "uptown". It is commercial ...
intersects Houston Street at a curve in the road in Greenwich Village. East of Sixth Avenue, Houston street is bidirectional and separated by a
median In statistics and probability theory, the median is the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a data sample, a population, or a probability distribution. For a data set, it may be thought of as "the middle" value. The basic fe ...
; west of Sixth, the street is narrower and unidirectional westbound.West Houston Street - NYC.gov
/ref> West Houston Street terminates at an intersection with
West Street The Joe DiMaggio Highway, commonly called the West Side Highway and formerly the Miller Highway, is a mostly surface section of New York State Route 9A (NY 9A), running from West 72nd Street along the Hudson River to the southern t ...
near Pier 40 on the Hudson River.


History

Houston Street is named for William Houstoun, who was a delegate from the state of Georgia to the
Continental Congress The Continental Congress was a series of legislative bodies, with some executive function, for thirteen of Britain's colonies in North America, and the newly declared United States just before, during, and after the American Revolutionary War. ...
from 1784 through 1786 and to the
Constitutional Convention Constitutional convention may refer to: * Constitutional convention (political custom), an informal and uncodified procedural agreement *Constitutional convention (political meeting), a meeting of delegates to adopt a new constitution or revise an e ...
in 1787.Peretz Square
New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Accessed July 12, 2007. "North Street, then the northern boundary of settled Manhattan, was later renamed for William Houstoun, a Georgia delegate to the Continental Congress; at the time of the renaming, the more famous Sam Houston was an unknown teenager"
The street was christened by Nicholas Bayard (b. 1736), whose daughter, Mary, was married to Houstoun in 1788.Moscow, Henry. ''The Street Book: An Encyclopedia of Manhattan's Street Names and Their Origins.'' New York: Fordham University Press, 1990. . p. 61. The couple met while Houstoun, a member of an ancient and aristocratic Scottish family, was serving in the Congress. Bayard cut the street through a tract he owned in the vicinity of Canal Street in which he lived, and the city later extended it to include North Street, the northern border of New York's east side at the beginning of the 19th century. The current spelling of the name is a corruption: the street appears as ''Houstoun'' in the city's Common Council minutes for 1808 and the official map drawn in 1811 to establish the street grid that is still current. In those years, the Texas hero
Sam Houston Samuel Houston (, ; March 2, 1793 – July 26, 1863) was an American general and statesman who played an important role in the Texas Revolution. He served as the first and third president of the Republic of Texas and was one of the first two i ...
, for whom the street is sometimes incorrectly said to have been named, was an unknown teenager in Tennessee. Also mistaken is the explanation that the name derives from the Dutch words ''huis'' for ''house'' and ''tuin'' for ''garden.'' The narrow, westernmost stretch of the current Houston Street, from
Sixth Avenue Sixth Avenue – also known as Avenue of the Americas, although this name is seldom used by New Yorkers, p.24 – is a major thoroughfare in New York City's borough of Manhattan, on which traffic runs northbound, or "uptown". It is commercial ...
to the West Side Highway, was known as "Hammersley Street" (also spelled "Hamersly Street") until the middle 19th century, and was inside Greenwich Village. It later came to be regarded as the Village's southern boundary. In 1891, Nikola Tesla established his laboratory on Houston Street. Much of Tesla's research was lost in an 1895 fire. The street, originally narrow, was markedly widened from Sixth Avenue to
Essex Street Essex Street is a north-south street on the Lower East Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan. North of Houston Street, the street becomes Avenue A, which goes north to 14th Street. South of Canal Street it becomes Rutgers Street, the ...
in the early 1930s during construction of the Independent Subway System's Sixth Avenue Line. The street widening involved demolition of buildings on both sides of the street, resulting in numerous small, empty lots. Although some of these lots have been redeveloped, many of them are now used by vendors, and some have been turned into playgrounds and, more recently, community gardens. Lower Manhattan's SoHo district takes its name from an acronym for "South of Houston", as the street serves as SoHo's northern boundary; another, narrower neighborhood north of Houston Street is correspondingly called NoHo. In 1971, Houston Street became the southernmost street in Manhattan to extend between both the Hudson and East Rivers, when the World Trade Center was constructed and deprived Fulton Street of that title. With the reconstruction of the World Trade Center, Fulton Street was extended past Church Street to
West Street The Joe DiMaggio Highway, commonly called the West Side Highway and formerly the Miller Highway, is a mostly surface section of New York State Route 9A (NY 9A), running from West 72nd Street along the Hudson River to the southern t ...
, but is closed off to vehicular traffic west of Church Street. A reconstruction project rebuilt parts of the street between 2005 and 2018.


Transportation

, Houston Street is served by the New York City Bus route from the
FDR Drive The Franklin D. Roosevelt East River Drive, commonly called the FDR Drive for short, is a limited-access parkway on the east side of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It starts near South and Broad Streets, just north of the Battery Park ...
to Washington Street. The bus route itself had replaced an earlier streetcar line, which is now the from Avenues A to C. A portion of the
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 ...
's
IND Sixth Avenue Line The IND Sixth Avenue Line is a rapid transit line of the B Division of the New York City Subway in the United States. It runs mainly under Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, and continues south to Brooklyn. The B, D, F, and M trains, which use th ...
runs under Houston Street, between Sixth Avenue to just before Avenue A; there are stations at Second Avenue () and Broadway – Lafayette Street (). Additionally, there is a station at Seventh Avenue, for the Houston Street (). The
Bleecker Street Bleecker Street is an east–west street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is most famous today as a Greenwich Village nightclub district. The street connects a neighborhood today popular for music venues and comedy, but which was ...
station () has station entrances on the north side of Houston Street, due to its connection with the Broadway – Lafayette Street station as part of a larger station complex. Exit 5 on the
FDR Drive The Franklin D. Roosevelt East River Drive, commonly called the FDR Drive for short, is a limited-access parkway on the east side of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It starts near South and Broad Streets, just north of the Battery Park ...
is on Houston Street. The street also connects directly with the West Side Highway; however, by then, Houston Street is westbound-only.


References


Further reading

* Knight, Sam
"What a Street! (But Do You Ever Remember Being There?)"
'' The New York Times'', October 17, 2004. * *


External links

* {{Streets of Manhattan, state=collapsed East Village, Manhattan Greenwich Village Lower East Side SoHo, Manhattan Streets in Manhattan West Village