 The Public Theater, formerly theAstor Library | |
 Lafayette Street | |
| Width | 50 feet (15 m) |
|---|---|
| North end | East 9th Street |
| South end | Reade Street belowFoley Square |
| East | Centre Street |
| West | Broadway |
Lafayette Street (/ˌlæfiˈɛt,ˌlɑːf-/LA(H)-F-ee-ET) is a major north–south street inLower Manhattan,New York City. It originates at the intersection of Reade Street andCentre Street, one block north ofChambers Street. The one-way street then successively runs throughChinatown,Little Italy,NoLIta, andNoHo and finally, betweenEast 9th andEast 10th streets, merges withFourth Avenue. A bufferedbike lane runs outside the left traffic lane. North ofSpring Street, Lafayette Street is northbound (uptown)-only; south of Spring Street, Lafayette is southbound (downtown)-only.
The street is named after theMarquis de Lafayette, a French hero of theAmerican Revolutionary War.[1]
The street originated as a real estate speculation byJohn Jacob Astor, who had bought a large market garden in 1804, for $45,000, and leased part of the site to a Frenchman named Joseph Delacroix, who erected a popular resort and called it "Vauxhall Gardens" after thefamous resort on the edge of London. When the lease expired in 1825, Astor cut a new street through, a 100-foot wide three-block boulevard with no cross streets, which began atAstor Place and ended atGreat Jones Street[2][3] which he namedLafayette Place to commemorate the Revolutionary war hero, who hadreturned to a rapturous reception in America the previous year. Lots along both sides of the new street sold briskly, earning Astor many times what he had paid for the land two decades before.[4] The grandest was the terrace of matching marble-frontedGreek Revival houses on the west side of the street, called La Grange Terrace when it was built in 1833, but known to New Yorkers as "Colonnade Row" for the two-story order of Corinthian columns that unified its fronts; the nine residences each sold for as much as $30,000; four that remain are the only survivors of the first fashionable residential phase of Lafayette Street, which gained its new name when the city extended the street south in the early 1900s.[1][5] At that time its route was carved from the former Elm Street, Marion Street, and Lafayette Place and connected to Centre Street at the Municipal Building.[6]
The change in Lafayette Street's history is epitomized by the construction of theSchermerhorn Building in 1888 to replace the Schermerhorn mansion, where Mrs. William Colford Schermerhorn had redecorated the interior to resembleLouis XV'sVersailles, it was thought, to give a French-themedcostume ball in 1854 for six hundred New Yorkers,[7] at which theGerman Cotillion was introduced in America.[8] A sign of changing times, in 1860 the W.C. Schermerhorns moved uptown to 49West 23rd Street.[9] Before long, half of Colonnade Row was demolished to make way for a warehouse forWanamaker's Department Store. Wanamaker's had taken overA.T. Stewart's palatial dry-goods store that occupied the full block between Broadway and Lafayette and9th and10th Streets, and had also built an equally gigantic Annex next door between8th and 9th Streets, with a skywalk connecting the two buildings. The main store burnt down in 1956, but the annex and warehouse buildings remain extant on Lafayette.
Landmarks along Lafayette Street include:[10]
In August 2008, theNew York City Department of Transportation closed Lafayette Street, Park Avenue, and part ofEast 72nd Street to motor traffic for three Saturdays as part of the "Summer Streets" program to encourage non-motor uses.[12] The program has taken place on the first, second, and third Saturdays of August every year since then.[13]
TheNew York City Subway's4, 6, <6>, B, D, F, <F>, and M trains intersect at a subway station complex atBleecker Street / Broadway – Lafayette Street. TheIRT Lexington Avenue Line (4, 5, 6, and <6> trains) runs under Lafayette Street, with stops atCanal Street,Spring Street, Bleecker Street, andAstor Place,[14] as well as a former stop atWorth Street.
The westboundM22 runs on Lafayette Street south of Worth Street, while the full-route uptownM1 runs north of Spring Street.
Notes
Further reading
40°43′35.57″N73°59′39.3″W / 40.7265472°N 73.994250°W /40.7265472; -73.994250
