Pearl Street is a street in the
Financial District 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 ...
, running northeast from
Battery Park to the
Brooklyn Bridge
The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed/ suspension bridge in New York City, spanning the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Opened on May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the first fixed crossing of the East Rive ...
with an interruption at
Fulton Street, where Pearl Street's alignment west of Fulton Street shifts one block south of its alignment east of Fulton Street, then turning west and terminating at
Centre Street.
History
Pearl Street takes its name from of a prominent
Lenape
The Lenape (, , or Lenape , del, Lënapeyok) also called the Leni Lenape, Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada. Their historical territory inclu ...
shell midden that was located on its southern section, and that may have also marked a
Lenape canoe landing.
The colonial history of Pearl Street dates back to the early 1600s. A cow path at first,
["Bilger, Burkhard. "Mystery on Pearl Street", ''The New Yorker'', December 20, 2007](_blank)
/ref> it was laid out in 1633. It lay along a beachy area known as the Strand. Its name is an English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ...
translation of the Dutch Parelstraat (written as Paerlstraet around 1660). The street is visible on the Castello Plan
The Castello Planofficially entitled ''Afbeeldinge van de Stadt Amsterdam in Nieuw Neederlandt'' (Dutch, "Picture of the City of Amsterdam in New Netherland")is an early city map of what is now the Financial District of Lower Manhattan from an o ...
along the eastern shore of New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam ( nl, Nieuw Amsterdam, or ) was a 17th-century Dutch settlement established at the southern tip of Manhattan Island that served as the seat of the colonial government in New Netherland. The initial trading ''factory'' gave rise ...
, together with Schreyers Hook Dock (cf. Amsterdam's Schreierstoren) built by Broad Canal as the city's first wharf in 1648. It was named for the many oyster
Oyster is the common name for a number of different families of salt-water bivalve molluscs that live in marine or brackish habitats. In some species, the valves are highly calcified, and many are somewhat irregular in shape. Many, but not ...
s found in the river. During the period of British rule, Pearl Street was known as Great Queen Street. The "Great" was used often to differentiate from Little Queen Street, which became Cedar Street in 1784.
Pearl Street's irregular course is due to the fact that it generally followed the original eastern shoreline of the lower part of Manhattan Island, until the latter half of the 18th century when years of landfill
A landfill site, also known as a tip, dump, rubbish dump, garbage dump, or dumping ground, is a site for the disposal of waste materials. Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of the wast ...
extended the shoreline roughly 700–900 feet (200-300m) further into the East River
The East River is a saltwater tidal estuary in New York City. The waterway, which is actually not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates the borough of Quee ...
, first to Water Street and later to Front Street.
The colony's first church was built in 1633, during the tenure of director Wouter van Twiller at 39 Pearl, just outside the fort. In 1652 a wooden defensive wall was constructed along the town's northern perimeter to protect against possible attack by English colonists. There were two gates: the "land gate" on the Heerestraat and the "water gate" at Pearl Street. In the mid-1650s, a three-story tavern near what is now 73 Pearl Street became the city's first City Hall
In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...
.
Printer William Bradford lived at 81 Pearl. In 1693 he set up the first printing press in the colony.
The Walton Mansion at 326 Pearl Street was a four story house built in 1752, and prior to the Revolution, known as the scene of extravagant parties. In 1784, Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757July 12, 1804) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first United States secretary of the treasury from 1789 to 1795.
Born out of wedlock in Charle ...
, and others founded the Bank of New York
The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, commonly known as BNY Mellon, is an American investment banking services holding company headquartered in New York City. BNY Mellon was formed from the merger of The Bank of New York and the Mellon Finan ...
and set up offices in the old mansion, until moving three years later to Hanover Square. At one time a boarding house, it was taken down in 1881.
Herman Melville
Herman Melville ( born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are '' Moby-Dick'' (1851); '' Typee'' (1846), a ...
was born at 6 Pearl Street in 1819. In 1831 soap magnate William Colgate owned a Counting house at 211 Pearl. In the winter of 1835, a gas pipe burst in a warehouse at the corner of Pearl and Merchant
A merchant is a person who trades in commodities produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Historically, a merchant is anyone who is involved in business or trade. Merchants have operated for as long as indust ...
Streets, causing a fire that consumed some 600 buildings over seventeen blocks. Both sides of Pearl Street burned from Wall Street to Coenties Slip.
In 1833, the publishing house of J. & J. Harper changed its name to Harper & Brothers. The firm was located at 329–331 Pearl Street, facing Franklin Square. They began publishing ''Harper's New Monthly Magazine'' in 1850. In December 1853 a fire destroyed the premises, but the brothers built a large cast-iron building designed by architect James Bogardus, which was connected to a second structure on Cliff Street by cast-iron walkways. The building was demolished in 1925, but is memorialized in a painting by Richard Haas
Richard John Haas (born August 29, 1936) is an American muralist who is best known for architectural murals and his use of the ''trompe-l'œil'' style. Haas has a 1959 B.S. from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and a 1964 M.F.A. from the U ...
in the New York Public Library Main Branch
The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, commonly known as the Main Branch, 42nd Street Library or the New York Public Library, is the flagship building in the New York Public Library system in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City ...
’s DeWitt Wallace Periodicals Room. As of 2018, the company, now known as HarperCollins
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News C ...
, is headquartered at 195 Broadway
195 Broadway, also known as the Telephone Building, Telegraph Building, or Western Union Building, is an early skyscraper on Broadway in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City. It was the longtime headquarters of AT&T as well as ...
.
In 1851, a three-story brownstone
Brownstone is a brown Triassic–Jurassic sandstone that was historically a popular building material. The term is also used in the United States and Canada to refer to a townhouse clad in this or any other aesthetically similar material.
Type ...
masonry structure was built in the Italian Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...
style at 1 Hanover Square. The building extends southwest to 60–64 Stone Street (also known as 95–101 Pearl Street), a set of four-story Greek Revival
The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but a ...
brick structures completed in 1836. It served as the first headquarters of the New York Cotton Exchange
The New York Cotton Exchange (NYCE) is a commodities exchange founded in 1870 by a group of one hundred cotton brokers and merchants in New York City. In 1998, the New York Board of Trade (NYBOT) became the parent company of the New York Cotton ...
from 1872 to 1885. Operated since 1915 as part of a private club called India House, the building is designated as a New York City landmark and is a National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places liste ...
.
In July 1854, African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
school teacher Elizabeth Jennings boarded a streetcar
A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport a ...
at the intersection of Pearl and Chatham Streets and was forcibly ejected. Chester A. Arthur, a 24-year-old attorney, was successful in a lawsuit brought against the Third Avenue Railway Company, thus beginning the gradual desegregation of all New York City transit systems by 1865.
Pearl Street Station, Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventi ...
's first power plant
A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid.
Many ...
, and in turn the first power plant in the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
, was located at 255-257 Pearl Street. It began with one direct current
Direct current (DC) is one-directional flow of electric charge. An electrochemical cell is a prime example of DC power. Direct current may flow through a conductor such as a wire, but can also flow through semiconductors, insulators, or ev ...
generator, and it started generating electricity on September 4, 1882.
New York Telephone
The New York Telephone Company (NYTel) was organized in 1896, taking over the New York City operations of the American Bell Telephone Company.
Predecessor companies
The Telephone Company of New York was formed under franchise in 1876. The princi ...
put up a large administrative building at 375 Pearl Street
375 Pearl Street (also known as Intergate.Manhattan, the Verizon Building, and One Brooklyn Bridge Plaza) is a 32-story office and datacenter building in the Civic Center of Lower Manhattan in New York City, at the Manhattan end of the Brooklyn ...
, on the north side of the street east of the Brooklyn Bridge, in the early 1970s.
Built in 1991, the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse at 500 Pearl Street houses the .
In 2014, playwright and theater artist Toni Schlesinger
Toni Schlesinger is a journalist, theater artist, and fiction writer. She was the author of "Shelter", a long-running column in '' The Village Voice'' between 1997 and 2006, and in ''New York Observer'' between 2006 and 2007.
A selection of her ...
's "The Mystery of Pearl Street"—about the 1997 disappearance of artists Camden Sylvia and Michael Sullivan from their Pearl Street apartment following a dispute with their landlord—debuted at the Dixon Place theater.
Transportation
The IRT Third Avenue elevated railway ran above Pearl Street from August 26, 1878, until December 22, 1950. When the elevated structure was removed, members of the India House at 1 Hanover Square proposed a maritime-themed park at Pearl Street and Hanover Square. The park was dedicated in November 1951.
The run on Pearl Street between Madison Street and Fulton Street. The M22 local bus and the express buses serve short segments of the street.
See also
*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 ...
* 1 Wall Street Court
References
External links
*
Pearl Street: A New York Songline
* NYPL Digital Gallery
Pearl St.
items, various dates.
Walsh, Kevin J., "Walking Pearl Street", Forgotten New York
Streets in Manhattan
{{NYC-road-stub
Beaches of New York (state)
Financial District, Manhattan
Piers in New York City
Shell middens in the United States