Marketfield Street is a short one-way, one-block-long alleyway in the

Financial District A financial district is usually a central area in a city where financial services firms such as banks, insurance companies and other related finance corporations have their head offices. In major cities, financial districts are often home to s ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

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. 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. The name Marketfield Street is a translation from the Dutch. The street originally ran to the Dutch livestock market, ''Marcktveldt'', located near where

Battery Park The Battery, formerly known as Battery Park, is a public park located at the southern tip of Manhattan Island in New York City facing New York Harbor. It is bounded by Battery Place on the north, State Street on the east, New York Harbor to ...

is now, which was then outside the walls of the city. The market operated from 1638 to 1647. In 1641, the

Governor-General Governor-general (plural ''governors-general''), or governor general (plural ''governors general''), is the title of an office-holder. In the context of governors-general and former British colonies, governors-general are appointed as viceroy t ...

New Netherland New Netherland ( nl, Nieuw Nederland; la, Novum Belgium or ) was a 17th-century colonial province of the Dutch Republic that was located on the East Coast of the United States, east coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territor ...

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, opened the colony's first cattle market there. By 1680, mainly poor people were living on Marketfield Street. In 1688, the city's first French Huguenot church was built there. In September 1776, Marketfield Street was part of the area devastated by the

Great Fire of New York The 1835 Great Fire of New York was one of three fires that rendered extensive damage to New York City in the 18th and 19th centuries. The fire occurred in the middle of an economic boom, covering 17 city blocks, killing two people, and destroyin ...

, which engulfed the southwestern tip of Manhattan. In 1821, a

hurricane A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depend ...

hit the

East Coast East Coast may refer to: Entertainment * East Coast hip hop, a subgenre of hip hop * East Coast (ASAP Ferg song), "East Coast" (ASAP Ferg song), 2017 * East Coast (Saves the Day song), "East Coast" (Saves the Day song), 2004 * East Coast FM, a ra ...

, destroying the street's dock. In 1821, Marketfield Street, which overlooked 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 N ...

, had a single name throughout its length, but by the 1830s, the street was renamed "Battery Place" from

Bowling Green A bowling green is a finely laid, close-mown and rolled stretch of turf for playing the game of bowls. Before 1830, when Edwin Beard Budding of Thrupp, near Stroud, UK, invented the lawnmower, lawns were often kept cropped by grazing sheep on ...

to the Hudson River. The 1882 construction of the New York City Produce Exchange demolished the block of the street that contained the French church. The

American Bank Note Company Building The American Bank Note Company Building is a five-story building at 70 Broad Street in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City. The building was designed by architects Kirby, Petit & Green in the neo-classical style, and contain ...

at 70 Broad Street, between Marketfield and Beaver Street, was erected in 1908 as the headquarters of the

American Bank Note Company ABCorp is an American corporation providing contract manufacturing and related services to the authentication, payment and secure access business sectors. Its history dates back to 1795 as a secure engraver and printer, and assisting the newl ...

.Burrows & Wallace, pp.45, 133

References

Notes Bibliography *

External links

* {{Financial District, Manhattan, state=collapsed Streets in Manhattan Financial District, Manhattan