40°42′27″N74°00′28″W / 40.70750°N 74.00778°W /40.70750; -74.00778
| Maagde Paatje (formerly) | |
 Looking up Broadway from the corner of Maiden Lane(at right)c. 1885–87 | |
 Interactive map of Maiden Lane | |
| Location | Lower Manhattan, New York City, U.S. |
|---|---|
| Northwest end | Broadway |
| Southeast end | South Street |
Maiden Lane is an east–west street in theFinancial District ofLowerManhattan,New York City. Its eastern end is atSouth Street, near theSouth Street Seaport, and its western end is atBroadway near theWorld Trade Center site, where it becomesCortlandt Street.
The street received its name inNew Amsterdam, asMaagde Paatje, a "footpath used by lovers along a rippling brook", according to theWPA Guide to New York City,[1] a "pebbly brook" that ran fromNassau Street to theEast River, where wives and daughters washed linen according to the city historians Edwin Burrows and Mike Wallace.[2][3][4][5]
The street was formally laid out in 1696, the first street north of still-palisadedWall Street.[6]
By 1728, a market was held at the foot of Maiden Lane, where it ended at Front Street facing theEast River; by 1823, when it was demolished and disbanded,[7] theFly Market,[a] selling meat, country produce and fish under its covered roofs, was New York's oldest.[8] It eventually gave way to theFulton Fish Market, and later, the New Amsterdam Market.[2] The Fly Market, and its successor the Fulton Fish Market, which moved tothe Bronx in 2005, was one of New York's earliest open-air fish markets. From a New York newspaper dated 1831:
In New York, there are a number of Markets. Those called Fulton and Washington Markets are the largest. Fulton Market is at the East end of Fulton Street near the East River...The first was formerly situated in Maiden Lane on the East River side, and was called Fly Market.
TheNew York Slave Revolt of 1712 happened around Maiden Lane, in which 23 black slaves revolted, killing nine white men and women and injuring six other whites.[2]
In September 1732, a company of professional actors arrived from London and took an upstairs room near the junction of Pearl Street which was fitted up with a platform stage, and marked the origin of professional theater in New York; by the time the company was disbanded in 1734, their building was known as the Play House.[2][9]
In the spring of 1790,Thomas Jefferson rented a house at 57 Maiden Lane when he moved to New York to serve as theSecretary of State underGeorge Washington.[2] His dinner on June 20, 1790 at that house withAlexander Hamilton andJames Madison produced theCompromise of 1790, whereby Hamilton won the decision for the national government to take over and pay the state debts, while Jefferson and Madison obtained the national capital (District of Columbia) for the South. The dinner was celebrated in the song "The Room Where It Happens" in theBroadway musicalHamilton.[10]
Maiden Lane was a street of shops by the end of the 18th century, even before the new fashion for multi-paned shop windows caught on in the city.[11] In 1827 the skylit New York Arcade, banking on the fashionable success of London'sBurlington Arcade (1819), spanned the block between Maiden Lane and John Street east of Broadway with forty smart shops; however, while regarded as beautiful by many, it was also financially disastrous, andCharles Haynes Haswell recalled that "it had not the success that had been anticipated...and survived but a few years".[2][12]
Maiden Lane was soon one of the first city streets to be lit withgas lamps, which led to its being a popular shopping street.[2][13] The slip at the foot of Maiden Lane was infilled in the early 19th century, accounting for the widened stretch in the last blocks beforeSouth Street, the present waterfront.[14] The water of the erstwhile brook ran down the center of the street, until 1827, when a suggestion was made in Common Council to close it over and lead rainwater to the side gutters.[15]
One of the handful of mid-19th century commercial structures still standing in the Financial District, is90–94 Maiden Lane, built forRoosevelt & Son, with a cast-iron front (attributed to Charles Wright, 1870–71) by Daniel D. Badger.[16][b]
In 1977, theLouise Nevelson Plaza, a triangular-shaped plaza atWilliam Street, opened.[2]
From 1795 until the early 20th century, Maiden Lane was the center of the jewelry district. At Broadway, the bronze and glass clock embedded in the sidewalk by William Barthman Jewelers still keeps time.[17][18] In 1894 developers Boehm & Coon erected the ten storyDiamond Exchange Building on 14 Maiden Lane, which was specially designed to accommodate the heavy safes used by gem dealers.[19] According to aNew York Times article in 1924, "the bride-to-be who could show a ring from Maiden Lane was thrice happy" because of the abundance of jewelry stores.[20] In 1946 theNew York City Police Department estimated that it was walked on by 51,000 people every weekday between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.[21] The 1936 crime film15 Maiden Lane started with jewels being stolen from a building on Maiden Lane.
The jewelry industry started to move north by the 1920s, but had previously and fruitlessly tried tomove uptown in the 1870s and 1900s. This was in part because the buildings on Maiden Lane had begun to age, even in the 1910s.[20] Because of the city's rapid growth afterWorld War II, this district was later moved toChinatown on theBowery andCanal Street, and to West47th Street, forming a new district of New York, theDiamond District.[22][23]
The Maid of Maiden Lane, written byAmelia E. Barr, is set in the 18th century. It was published in 1900.[24]
Maiden Lane's jewelry district was referred to in the 1936 American crime film15 Maiden Lane.[25]
Informational notes
Citations
Bibliography
Media related toMaiden Lane (Manhattan) at Wikimedia Commons