Liberty Street is a street in

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 ...

that stretches east-west from the middle of

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 ...

almost to 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 ...

. It borders such sites as

28 Liberty Street 28 Liberty Street, formerly known as One Chase Manhattan Plaza, is a 60-story International style skyscraper in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City, between Nassau, Liberty, William, and Pine Streets. The building was design ...

, the

Federal Reserve Bank of New York Building The Federal Reserve Bank of New York Building, also known as 33 Liberty Street, is a building in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City, which serves as the headquarters of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The buildi ...

, Liberty Tower, the Chamber of Commerce Building

140 Broadway 140 Broadway (formerly known as the Marine Midland Building or the HSBC Bank Building) is a 51-story International Style office building on the east side of Broadway between Cedar and Liberty streets in the Financial District of Manhattan in ...

One Liberty Plaza One Liberty Plaza, formerly the U.S. Steel Building, is a skyscraper in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is situated on a block bounded by Broadway, Liberty Street, Church Street, and Cortlandt Street, on the ...

, Liberty Plaza Park, the World Trade Center, Brookfield Place, Gateway Plaza, Liberty Park, and the North Cove Marina. A FDNY Firehouse, Engine Company 10 and Ladder Company 10, is located at 124 Liberty Street, directly across from the World Trade Center.

History

Before the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...

, Liberty Street was known as Crown Street, which consisted of the present Liberty Street as well as the present Maiden Lane between Liberty and Pearl Streets. The name was changed to Liberty Street in 1793, with the part east of the junction being added to Maiden Lane. Detroit Photographic Company (0620)

Between the 1860s and the 1960s the

Central Railroad of New Jersey The Central Railroad of New Jersey, also known as the Jersey Central or Jersey Central Lines , was a Class I railroad with origins in the 1830s. It was absorbed into Conrail in April 1976 along with several other prominent bankrupt railroads of ...

's main ferry ran from the foot of the street on 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 Ne ...

Communipaw Terminal The Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal, also known as Communipaw Terminal and Jersey City Terminal, was the Central Railroad of New Jersey's waterfront passenger terminal in Jersey City, New Jersey. The terminal was built in 1889, replacing ...

Jersey City Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark.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 ...

were demolished to make way for the World Trade Center. The western portion of the street was extensively damaged by 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 commer ...

. This section of the road, adjacent to the South Tower of the World Trade Center, was crushed by debris and blanketed with dust and smoke when the building collapsed at 9:59 a.m. The Deutsche Bank Building at 130 Liberty Street sustained heavy damage and was later demolished. Other buildings on Liberty Street were also ravaged by the events. The Burger King on the corner was used as a temporary NYPD headquarters in the days following the attacks. The

World Trade Center site The World Trade Center site, often referred to as "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 bounded by Vesey Street to the north ...

has since been redeveloped as the new World Trade Center.

References

Notes

External links

Streets in Manhattan Financial District, Manhattan {{NYC-road-stub