Where is Manhattan Street?
Manhattan Avenue is easily located on any New York City map between 100th and 125th Streets, but no amount of searching will turn up Manhattan Street. Make no mistake, it truly lies in Lower Manhattan. Unless of course, the large block letters that spell out its name on the side of a building are an elaborate ruse. Exactly where it is will be discovered only by the most curious of blockologists, for Manhattan Street is no more than a glorified driveway, a non-block.
Why did such a distinguished street name shrivel in insignificance to be completely overshadowed by an avenue far to the north and years later? Manhattan Street deserved a better fate; it rolls right off the tongue with visions of a long and distinguished thoroughfare, a rival to Broadway. And who was present when both East and West Broadway were unimaginatively titled in a transparent attempt to inflate real estate values? Did anyone suggest Manhattan Street?
The Commissioners’ Plan of 1811 that laid out the grid pattern for the whole island could have easily mandated Houstoun Street to henceforth be proclaimed as Manhattan Street. No offense to William Houstoun, the patriot from aristocratic Georgian stock, but he received this honor through marriage not deed, and it has been a troublesome cognomen ever since. Even the spelling somehow got changed to Houston. It is a New Yorker’s secret delight to set Texans straight. “You say HUEston, we say HOWston!” No amount of explanations will ever suffice. For what reason do we perpetuate this north/south confrontation? Provincialism?
In the end, what is done is done. Manhattan Street can be found in its
current state, east of West Broadway, north of East Broadway, while walking
east on the north side of North Street, now known by another name.
75 year old map still shows Manh. St., but alas no longer.
Could Have Been Street excerpt from Blockology: An Offbeat Walking Guide
to Lower Manhattan, Turning Corners Press. p.104.
