40°43′9.12″N73°59′38.07″W / 40.7192000°N 73.9939083°W /40.7192000; -73.9939083
Broome Street is an east–west street inLower Manhattan.[1] It runs nearly the full width ofManhattan island, fromHudson Street in the west to Lewis Street in the east, near the entrance to theWilliamsburg Bridge. The street is interrupted in a number of places by parks, buildings, andAllen Street's median.[2] The street was named afterStaten Island-bornJohn Broome, who was a Colonial merchant and politician and became a Lieutenant Governor of New York State.
According to a map sourced from theNew York Public Library collection, the area around Broome Street was developed in the first decade of the 1800s as part of the neighborhood known at that time as 'New Delaney's Square,' although this is probably a mistake for "Delancey," as the Delancey family had owned the land for many decades and had already begun planning development in the 1760s.[3]
The street is named afterJohn Broome, an earlycity alderman andlieutenant governor of New York in 1804.[1] The architecture along the street is distinctive for its use ofcast iron and is strongly influenced byGriffith Thomas, who designed several buildings along Broome Street, including theGunther Building.[1] TheOur Lady of Vilnius Church stood in the street between 1910 and 2015.
As part of an experiment, in 1948, Broome Street west of Chrystie Street was converted to a one-way westbound street.[4] In the 1960s, as the city was going through massive urban renewal and revitalization projects, Broome Street became the proposed route for theLower Manhattan Expressway, designed byRobert Moses. Had the construction been carried out, the ten-lane elevated highway would have completely replaced the street, along with all of the buildings on its north side, many of which are now land-marked as part of thehistoric cast-iron district.[5] However, protests opposing the project led byJane Jacobs gained enough momentum to stop the project from going forward.
330 Broome Street was the address of theA's art space.[6]
Notes
Media related toBroome Street (Manhattan) at Wikimedia Commons