40°42′17″N 74°00′45″W / 40.704648°N 74.012568°W
Marketfield Street is a short one-way, one-block-long alleyway in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City. The street begins as a southern branch of Beaver Street, then veers east and north, ending at Broad Street. Alternative past names include Exchange Street, Field Street, Fieldmarket Street, Oblique Road, and Petticoat Lane. [1]
The name Marketfield Street is a translation from the Dutch. [2] [3] The street originally ran to the Dutch livestock market, Marcktveldt, located near where Battery Park is now, which was then outside the walls of the city. [1] [4] The market operated from 1638 to 1647. In 1641, the Governor-General of New Netherland, Willem Kieft, opened the colony's first cattle market there. [1] [5]
By 1680, mainly poor people were living on Marketfield Street. [6] In 1688, the city's first French Huguenot church was built there. [7] [8]
In September 1776, Marketfield Street was part of the area devastated by the Great Fire of New York, which engulfed the southwestern tip of Manhattan. [9] In 1821, a hurricane hit the East Coast, destroying the street's dock. [10] In 1821, Marketfield Street, which overlooked the Hudson River, had a single name throughout its length, [11] but by the 1830s, the street was renamed "Battery Place" from Bowling Green to the Hudson River. [1] The 1882 construction of the New York City Produce Exchange demolished the block of the street that contained the French church. [1]
The American Bank Note Company Building at 70 Broad Street, between Marketfield and Beaver Street, was erected in 1908 as the headquarters of the American Bank Note Company. [12]
Notes
Bibliography