40°42′17″N 74°00′45″W / 40.704648°N 74.012568°W / 40.704648; -74.012568

Marketfield Street

Marketfield Street is a short one-way, one-block-long alleyway in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City. The street begins as a southern branch of Beaver Street, then veers east and north, ending at Broad Street. Alternative past names include Exchange Street, Field Street, Fieldmarket Street, Oblique Road, and Petticoat Lane.[1]

The name Marketfield Street is a translation from the Dutch.[2][3] The street originally ran to the Dutch livestock market, Marcktveldt, located near where Battery Park is now, which was then outside the walls of the city.[1][4] The market operated from 1638 to 1647. In 1641, the Governor-General of New Netherland, Willem Kieft, opened the colony's first cattle market there.[1][5]

By 1680, mainly poor people were living on Marketfield Street.[6] In 1688, the city's first French Huguenot church was built there.[7][8]

In September 1776, Marketfield Street was part of the area devastated by the Great Fire of New York, which engulfed the southwestern tip of Manhattan.[9] In 1821, a hurricane hit the East Coast, destroying the street's dock.[10] In 1821, Marketfield Street, which overlooked the Hudson River, had a single name throughout its length,[11] but by the 1830s, the street was renamed "Battery Place" from Bowling Green to the Hudson River.[1] The 1882 construction of the New York City Produce Exchange demolished the block of the street that contained the French church.[1]

The American Bank Note Company Building at 70 Broad Street, between Marketfield and Beaver Street, was erected in 1908 as the headquarters of the American Bank Note Company.[12]

References

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e Walsh, Kevin (May 1999). "The Alleys of Lower Manhattan". Forgotten NY. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  2. ^ Feirstein, Sanna (2001). Naming New York: Manhattan Places & How They Got Their Names. New York: New York University Press. p. 28. ISBN 978-0-8147-2712-6.
  3. ^ Moscow, Henry (1978). The Street Book: An Encyclopedia of Manhattan's Street Names and Their Origins. New York: Hagstrom Company. ISBN 978-0-8232-1275-0., p.75
  4. ^ Burrows & Wallace, p.36
  5. ^ Valentine, David T. (1853). History of the City of New York. New York City: G. P. Putnam & Company.
  6. ^ Burrows & Wallace, p.88
  7. ^ Griffiths, William Elliot (1923). The Story of the Walloons: at Home in Lands of Exile and in America. Houghton. pp. 205, 340.
  8. ^ Burrows & Wallace, p.95
  9. ^ Burrows & Wallace, p.241
  10. ^ Ludlum, David M. (1963). Early American Hurricanes, 1492-1870. Boston: American Meteorological Society. pp. 85, 212.
  11. ^ "8". Laws of the State of New York. Albany: E. Croswell. 1830. p. 8.
  12. ^ Burrows & Wallace, pp.45, 133

Bibliography

Burrows, Edwin G. and Wallace, Mike (1999). Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-195-11634-8.

External links

Streets of Manhattan
Financial District
Categories