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Pearl Street is a street 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 headquarters offices. In major cities, financial districts often host ...
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 ...
, running northeast from
Battery Park The Battery, formerly known as Battery Park, is a public park located at the southern tip of Manhattan#Manhattan Island, Manhattan Island in New York City facing New York Harbor. The park is bounded by Battery Place on the north, with Bowling ...
to the Brooklyn Bridge with an interruption at Fulton Street, where Pearl Street's alignment west of Fulton Street shifts one block south of its alignment east of Fulton Street, then turning west and terminating at Centre Street.


History


17th century

Pearl Street takes its name from a prominent
Lenape The Lenape (, , ; ), also called the Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada. The Lenape's historica ...
shell midden A midden is an old landfill, dump for domestic waste. It may consist of animal bone, bones, feces, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, Lithic flake, lithics (especially debitage), and other Artifact (archaeology), ...
that was located on its southern section, and that may have also marked a Lenape canoe landing. The colonial history of Pearl Street dates back to the early 1600s. A cow path at first,"Bilger, Burkhard. "Mystery on Pearl Street", ''The New Yorker'', December 20, 2007
/ref> it was laid out in 1633. It lay along a
beach A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from Rock (geology), rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle beach, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological s ...
y area known as the Strand. Its name is an English translation of the Dutch Parelstraat (written as Paerlstraet around 1660). The street is visible on the Castello Plan along the eastern shore of
New Amsterdam New Amsterdam (, ) was a 17th-century Dutch Empire, Dutch settlement established at the southern tip of Manhattan Island that served as the seat of the colonial government in New Netherland. The initial trading ''Factory (trading post), fac ...
, together with Schreyers Hook Dock (cf. Amsterdam's Schreierstoren) built by Broad Canal as the city's first wharf in 1648. It was named for the many
oyster Oyster is the common name for a number of different families of salt-water bivalve molluscs that live in marine or brackish habitats. In some species, the valves are highly calcified, and many are somewhat irregular in shape. Many, but no ...
s found in the river. During the period of British rule, Pearl Street was known as Great Queen Street. The "Great" was used often to differentiate from Little Queen Street, which became Cedar Street in 1784. Pearl Street's irregular course is due to the fact that it generally followed the original eastern shoreline of the lower part of Manhattan Island, until the latter half of the 18th century when years of
landfill A landfill is a site for the disposal of waste materials. It is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of waste with daily, intermediate and final covers only began in the 1940s. In the past, waste was ...
extended the shoreline roughly 700–900 feet (200-300m) further into 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, ...
, first to Water Street and later to Front Street. The colony's first church was built in 1633, during the tenure of director Wouter van Twiller at 39 Pearl Street, just outside the
fort A fortification (also called a fort, fortress, fastness, or stronghold) is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from La ...
. In 1652 a wooden defensive wall was constructed along the town's northern perimeter to protect against possible attack by English colonists. There were two gates: the "land gate" on the Heerestraat and the "water gate" at Pearl Street. In the mid-1650s, a three-story tavern near what is now 73 Pearl Street became the city's first
City Hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or municipal hall (in the Philippines) is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses the city o ...
. Printer William Bradford lived at 81 Pearl. In 1693, he set up the first printing press in the colony.


18th century

The Walton Mansion at 326 Pearl Street was a four story house built in 1752 prior to the
American Revolution The American Revolution (1765–1783) was a colonial rebellion and war of independence in which the Thirteen Colonies broke from British America, British rule to form the United States of America. The revolution culminated in the American ...
, known as the scene of extravagant parties. In 1784,
Alexander Hamilton Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757July 12, 1804) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the first U.S. secretary of the treasury from 1789 to 1795 dur ...
, and others founded the Bank of New York and set up offices in the old mansion, until moving three years later to Hanover Square; at one time a boarding house, it was taken down in 1881.


19th century

Herman Melville Herman Melville (Name change, born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance (literature), American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works ar ...
was born at 6 Pearl Street in 1819. In 1831, soap magnate William Colgate owned a
Counting house Counting is the process of determining the number of Element (mathematics), elements of a finite set of objects; that is, determining the size (mathematics), size of a set. The traditional way of counting consists of continually increasing a (men ...
at 211 Pearl. In the winter of 1835, a gas pipe burst in a warehouse at the corner of Pearl and
Merchant A merchant is a person who trades in goods produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Merchants have been known for as long as humans have engaged in trade and commerce. Merchants and merchant networks operated i ...
Streets, causing a fire that consumed some 600 buildings over seventeen blocks. Both sides of Pearl Street burned from Wall Street to Coenties Slip. In 1833, the publishing house of J. & J. Harper changed its name to Harper & Brothers. The firm was located at 329–331 Pearl Street, facing Franklin Square. They began publishing ''Harper's New Monthly Magazine'' in 1850. In December 1853 a fire destroyed the premises, but the brothers built a large cast-iron building designed by architect James Bogardus, which was connected to a second structure on Cliff Street by cast-iron walkways. The building was demolished in 1925, but is memorialized in a painting by Richard Haas in the
New York Public Library Main Branch The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (commonly known as the Main Branch, the 42nd Street Library, or just the New York Public Library) is the flagship building in the New York Public Library system in the Midtown Manhattan, Midtown neighborhood ...
’s DeWitt Wallace Periodicals Room. As of 2018, the company, now known as
HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British–American publishing company that is considered to be one of the "Big Five (publishers), Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group USA, Hachette, Macmi ...
, is headquartered at
195 Broadway 195 Broadway, also known as the Telephone Building, Telegraph Building, or Western Union Building, is an early skyscraper on Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Manhattan in New York City. T ...
. In 1851, a three-story
brownstone Brownstone is a brown Triassic–Jurassic sandstone that was historically a popular building material. The term is also used in the United States and Canada to refer to a townhouse clad in this or any other aesthetically similar material. Ty ...
masonry structure was built in the
Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( ) was a period in History of Italy, Italian history between the 14th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Western Europe and marked t ...
style at
1 Hanover Square One Hanover (formerly known as India House, Hanover Bank Building, and New York Cotton Exchange Building) is a commercial building at 1 Hanover Square, on the southwestern edge of the square, in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in Ne ...
. The building extends southwest to 60–64 Stone Street (also known as 95–101 Pearl Street), a set of four-story
Greek Revival Greek Revival architecture is a architectural style, style that began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe, the United States, and Canada, ...
brick structures completed in 1836. It served as the first headquarters of the
New York Cotton Exchange The New York Cotton Exchange (NYCE) is a commodities exchange founded in 1870 by a group of one hundred cotton brokers and merchants in New York City. In 1998, the New York Board of Trade (NYBOT) became the parent company of the New York Cotton ...
from 1872 to 1885. Operated since 1915 as part of a private club called India House, the building is designated as a New York City landmark and is a
National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a National Register of Historic Places property types, building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the Federal government of the United States, United States government f ...
. In July 1854,
African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
school teacher Elizabeth Jennings boarded a
streetcar A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some include s ...
at the intersection of Pearl and Chatham Streets and was forcibly ejected. Chester A. Arthur, a 24-year-old attorney, was successful in a lawsuit brought against the Third Avenue Railway Company, thus beginning the gradual desegregation of all New York City transit systems by 1865.
Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February11, 1847October18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, ...
's
Pearl Street Station Pearl Street Station was Thomas Edison's first commercial power plant in the United States. It was located at 255–257 Pearl Street in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City, just south of Fulton Street on a site measuring . The ...
, the first public
power plant A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the electricity generation, generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electr ...
in the United States, was located at 255-257 Pearl Street. It began with one
direct current Direct current (DC) is one-directional electric current, flow of electric charge. An electrochemical cell is a prime example of DC power. Direct current may flow through a conductor (material), conductor such as a wire, but can also flow throug ...
generator, and it started generating electricity on September 4, 1882.


20th century

New York Telephone put up a large administrative building at 375 Pearl Street, on the north side of the street east of the Brooklyn Bridge, in the early 1970s. Built in 1991, the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse at 500 Pearl Street houses the
United States District Court for the Southern District of New York The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (in case citations, S.D.N.Y.) is a federal trial court whose geographic jurisdiction encompasses eight counties of the State of New York. Two of these are in New York Ci ...
.


21st century

In 2014, playwright and theater artist Toni Schlesinger's ''The Mystery of Pearl Street'' about the 1997 disappearance of artists Camden Sylvia and Michael Sullivan from their Pearl Street apartment following a dispute with their landlord—debuted at the Dixon Place theater.


Transportation

The IRT Third Avenue
elevated railway An elevated railway or elevated train (also known as an el train or el for short) is a railway with the Track (rail transport), tracks above street level on a viaduct or other elevated structure (usually constructed from steel, cast iron, concre ...
ran above Pearl Street from August 26, 1878, until December 22, 1950. When the elevated structure was removed, members of the India House at 1 Hanover Square proposed a maritime-themed park at Pearl Street and Hanover Square. The park was dedicated in November 1951. The run on Pearl Street east of the Fulton Street interruption until St. James Place. The eastbound M22 local bus also serves the topmost intersection of Pearl at Frankfort Street. Express service is provided by for short segments of the street.


See also

* 1 Wall Street Court * Fraunces Tavern


References


External links

*
Pearl Street: A New York Songline
* NYPL Digital Gallery
Pearl St.
items, various dates.
Walsh, Kevin J., "Walking Pearl Street", Forgotten New York
{{attached KML, display=title Beaches of New York City Financial District, Manhattan Piers in New York City Shell middens in the United States Streets in Manhattan