Houston Street ( ) is a major east–west thoroughfare in

Lower Manhattan Lower Manhattan, also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York City, is the southernmost part of the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of Manhattan. The neighborhood is History of New York City, the historical birthplace o ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, New York. It runs the full width of the island of

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

, from FDR Drive along the

East River The East River is a saltwater Estuary, tidal estuary or strait in New York City. The waterway, which is 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 Long Island, ...

in the east to the West Side Highway along the

Hudson River The Hudson River, historically the North River, is a river that flows from north to south largely through eastern New York (state), New York state. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains at Henderson Lake (New York), Henderson Lake in the ...

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 NoHo, short for "North of Houston Street, Houston Street" (as contrasted with SoHo), is a primarily residential neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded by Mercer Street (Manhattan), Mercer Street to the west, the Bowery ...

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village, or simply the Village, is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street (Manhattan), 14th Street to the north, Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the s ...

, and 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 West Village is bounded by the Hudson River to the west and 14th Street (Manhattan), 14th Street to ...

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. Historically, it w ...

, most of the

Bowery The Bowery () is a street and neighbourhood, neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City, New York. The street runs from Chatham Square at Park Row (Manhattan), Park Row, Worth Street, and Mott Street in the south to Cooper Square at 4th ...

, Nolita, and

SoHo SoHo, short for "South of Houston Street, Houston Street", is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, art installations such as The Wall ...

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 Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

, Texas, whose name is pronounced "" (). The street was named for William Houstoun, whose surname was pronounced "", while the city was named for

Sam Houston Samuel Houston (, ; March 2, 1793 – July 26, 1863) was an American general and statesman who played a prominent 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 indi ...

Description

At its east end, Houston Street meets FDR Drive in an interchange at East River Park. West of FDR Drive, it intersects with Avenue D. Further west, other streets, including First Avenue, the

Lafayette Street Lafayette Street ( ) is a major north–south street in Lower Manhattan, New York City. It originates at the intersection of Reade Street and Centre Street, one block north of Chambers Street. The one-way street then successively runs throu ...

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, is a major thoroughfare in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The avenue is commercial for much of its length, and traffic runs northbound, or uptown. Sixth Avenue begins four blocks b ...

intersects Houston Street at a curve in the road in

. East of Sixth Avenue, Houston street is bidirectional and separated by a

median The median of a set of numbers is the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a Sample (statistics), data sample, a statistical population, population, or a probability distribution. For a data set, it may be thought of as the “ ...

; 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 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 legislature, legislative bodies, with some executive function, for the Thirteen Colonies of British America, Great Britain in North America, and the newly declared United States before, during, and after ...

from 1784 through 1786 and to the Constitutional Convention in 1787.Peretz Square

New York City Department of Parks and Recreation The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, also called the Parks Department or NYC Parks, is the department of the government of New York City responsible for maintaining the city's parks system, preserving and maintaining the ecolog ...

. 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 Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

hero

, for whom the street is sometimes incorrectly said to have been named, was an unknown teenager in

Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

. 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

to the West Side Highway, was known as "Hammersley Street" (also spelled "Hamersly Street") until the middle 19th century, and was inside

. It later came to be regarded as the Village's southern boundary. In 1891,

Nikola Tesla Nikola Tesla (;"Tesla"
. ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. ; 10 July 1856 – 7 ...

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 in the early 1930s during construction of the

Independent Subway System The Independent Subway System (IND; formerly the ISS) was a rapid transit rail system in New York City that is now part of the New York City Subway. It was first constructed as the IND Eighth Avenue Line, Eighth Avenue Line in Manhattan in 1932. ...

'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 garden A community garden is a piece of land gardened or cultivated by a group of people individually or collectively. Normally in community gardens, the land is divided into individual plots. Each individual gardener is responsible for their own plot ...

s. Lower Manhattan's

district takes its name from an

acronym An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial Letter (alphabet), letter of each wor ...

for "South of Houston", as the street serves as SoHo's northern boundary; another, narrower neighborhood north of Houston Street is correspondingly called

. 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, 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 Columbia to Washington Streets westbound, and from 6th Avenue to the FDR Drive eastbound. The bus route itself had replaced an earlier streetcar line, which is now the between Avenues A and C. Additional service is provided by the eastbound east of Avenue D and the downtown from Second Avenue to Allen Street. The does not make any stops on Houston Street. A portion of the

New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system in New York City serving the New York City boroughs, boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. It is owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Tr ...

's IND Sixth Avenue Line 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 Houston Street ( ) is a major east–west thoroughfare in Lower Manhattan in New York City, New York. 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 ...

(). The

Bleecker Street Bleecker Street is an east–west street in Lower Manhattan, New York City. It is most famous today as a Greenwich Village nightlife, nightclub district. The street connects a neighborhood popular today for music venues and comedy as well as a ...

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 is on Houston Street. The street also connects directly with the West Side Highway; however, by then, Houston Street is westbound-only.

References

External links

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

Description

History

Transportation

References

Further reading

External links