 Looking east fromOrchard Street | |
 Interactive map of Houston Street | |
| Namesake | William Houstoun |
|---|---|
| Length | 2.0 mi (3.2 km) |
| Location | New York |
| ZIP Codes | 10002, 10009, 10012, 10014 |
| West end |  NY 9A/West Side Highway |
| East end |  Franklin D. Roosevelt East River Drive (FDR Drive) |
Houston Street (/ˈhaʊstən/HOW-stən)[1] is a major east–west thoroughfare inLower Manhattan inNew York City, New York. It runs the full width of the island ofManhattan, fromFDR Drive along theEast River in the east to theWest Side Highway along theHudson River in the west. The street is divided into west and east sections byBroadway.
Houston Street generally serves as the boundary between neighborhoods on theEast Side of Manhattan—Alphabet City, theEast Village,NoHo,Greenwich Village, and theWest Village to the north; and theLower East Side, most of theBowery,Nolita, andSoHo to the south. The numeric street-naming grid in Manhattan, created as part of theCommissioners' Plan of 1811, begins immediately north of Houston Street with1st Street atAvenue A.[2]
The street's name is pronounced "HOW-stən" (/ˈhaʊstən/), in contrast to the city ofHouston, Texas, whose name is pronounced "HYOO-stən" (/ˈhjuːstən/). The street was named forWilliam Houstoun, whose surname was pronounced "HOW-stən", while the city was named forSam Houston.[3]
At its east end, Houston Street meetsFDR Drive in an interchange atEast River Park. West of FDR Drive, it intersects withAvenue D. Further west, other streets, includingFirst Avenue, theBowery,Lafayette Street andBroadway, intersect Houston Street. The Broadway intersection is the division point between East Houston Street and West Houston Street.Sixth Avenue intersects Houston Street at a curve in the road inGreenwich Village. East of Sixth Avenue, Houston street is bidirectional and separated by amedian; west of Sixth, the street is narrower and unidirectional westbound.[4] West Houston Street terminates at an intersection withWest Street nearPier 40 on the Hudson River.
Houston Street is named forWilliam Houstoun, who was a delegate fromthe state of Georgia to theContinental Congress from 1784 through 1786 and to theConstitutional Convention in 1787.[2] The street was christened byNicholas Bayard (b. 1736), whose daughter, Mary, was married to Houstoun in 1788.[5] 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 ofCanal Street in which he lived, and the city later extended it to includeNorth Street, the northern border of New York's east side at the beginning of the 19th century.[5]
The current spelling of the name is a corruption: the street appears asHoustoun 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, theTexas heroSam Houston, for whom the street is sometimes incorrectly said to have been named, was an unknown teenager inTennessee.[2] Also mistaken is the explanation that the name derives from theDutch wordshuis forhouse andtuin forgarden.[5] The narrow, westernmost stretch of the current Houston Street, fromSixth Avenue to theWest Side Highway, was known as "Hammersley Street" (also spelled "Hamersly Street") until the middle 19th century,[6] and was insideGreenwich Village. It later came to be regarded as the Village's southern boundary.
In 1891,Nikola Tesla 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 toEssex Street in the early 1930s during construction of theIndependent Subway System'sSixth Avenue Line. The street widening involved demolition of buildings on both sides of the street, resulting in numerous small, empty lots.[7] 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 gardens.
Lower Manhattan'sSoHo district takes its name from anacronym for "South of Houston", as the street serves as SoHo's northern boundary; another, narrower neighborhood north of Houston Street is correspondingly calledNoHo.
In 1971, Houston Street became the southernmost street in Manhattan to extend between both the Hudson and East Rivers, when theWorld Trade Center was constructed and deprivedFulton Street of that title.[8] With the reconstruction of theWorld Trade Center, Fulton Street was extended past Church Street toWest Street, but is closed off to vehicular traffic west ofChurch Street.[9]
A reconstruction project rebuilt parts of the street between 2005 and 2018.[10]
As of 2024[update], Houston Street is served by theM21New York City Bus route from Columbia toWashington Streets westbound, and from 6th Avenue to theFDR Drive eastbound. The bus route itself had replaced anearlier streetcar line, which is now theM9 between Avenues A andC. Additional service is provided by the eastboundM14D SBS east of Avenue D and the downtownM15 from Second Avenue to Allen Street. TheM15 SBS does not make any stops on Houston Street.[11]
A portion of theNew York City Subway'sIND Sixth Avenue Line runs under Houston Street, between Sixth Avenue to just beforeAvenue A;[12] there are stations atSecond Avenue (F and <F> trains) andBroadway – Lafayette Street (B, D, F, <F>, and M trains). Additionally, there is a station at Seventh Avenue, for theHouston Street (1 and 2 trains).[13] TheBleecker Street station (4, 6, and <6> trains) has station entrances on the north side of Houston Street, due to its connection with theBroadway – Lafayette Street station as part of a larger station complex.[14]
Exit 5 on theFDR Drive is on Houston Street. The street also connects directly with theWest Side Highway; however, by then, Houston Street is westbound-only.
Media related toHouston Street (Manhattan) at Wikimedia Commons