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Ann Street is a 3-block-long street located in the Financial District in Lower Manhattan. It runs roughly east to west from Broadway to Gold Street.
Ann Street is a 3-block-long street located in the Financial District in Lower Manhattan. It runs roughly east to west from Broadway to Gold Street.
Ann Street is one of the oldest streets in New York City, appearing on a map created in 1728. Ann Street was named after Ann White, the wife of a developer and merchant, Capt. Thomas White. She may have urged him to name the street after her because other merchants' wives already had streets named after them. [1] The street is relatively small and short compared with the other lower Manhattan streets named after merchants' wives.
There have been several other streets in the city named Ann Street. One laid out between Reade and Franklin Streets prior to 1797 later became Elm Street. "Anne Street" was also a name circa 1748 for part of the present William Street. Today, there is only one Ann Street in Manhattan.
In 1809, John Scudder, a former seaman, had taken over Edward Savage's "Columbian Gallery of Painting and City Museum" on Water Street, and added additional curiosities.
He operated Scudder's American Museum on Chatham Street until 1817, when he relocated to the New York Institution on the site of the city's former almshouse in City Hall Park. The museum shared this space with the New-York Historical Society. Scudder died in 1821. In 1830, his son moved Scudder's American Museum to a five-story building on the corner of Broadway and Ann Street, across the street from St. Paul's Chapel. [2]
In 1841 P.T. Barnum acquired Scudder's Museum. "Barnum's American Museum" became one of the most popular showplaces in the United States during the 19th century. Barnum made a special hit in 1842 with the exhibition of Charles Stratton, the celebrated midget "General Tom Thumb", as well as the Fiji Mermaid which he exhibited in collaboration with his Boston counterpart Moses Kimball. The line in the Charles Ives song, Barnum's Mob, Ann Street, refers to the crowds drawn to see the curiosities at this museum. Other nineteenth-century businesses on Ann Street include the publisher Dick and Fitzgerald on 18 Ann Street.
On May 10, 1979, a woman was attacked on Ann Street by a "pack of rats" as she was walking to her car. The woman hurried into the car and the rats climbed onto it. Several witnesses called the police. The rats were later found living in the burnt-out wreck of "Ryan's Cafe," a bar that had served the area since the 1860s. The bar had exploded due to a gas leak on December 11, 1970, and remained an empty lot throughout the 1970s. This empty lot was widely regarded to be the source of the rat problem. [3] The city tugboat strike in 1979 compounded the problem as heaps of garbage collected on Ann Street and in the abandoned lot causing the rat population to explode. The rat attack incident prompted Mayor Ed Koch to order city pest control personnel to take immediate action on the problem. They killed and trapped hundreds of rats in just a few days, drawing media attention. The close proximity of Ann Street to City Hall made the incident all the more embarrassing. It helped to add to negative impressions of the city for years, but it also prompted people to act to improve downtown. [4]
The recent addition of condominiums to the upper floors of the some of older buildings has added more life to the area. Ann Street was gutted and repaved in 2006, as part of a city water main replacement project, greatly reducing the rat problems and further beautifying the area. The corner of Ann and Vesey Streets, Park Row, and Broadway is still as busy as it was in Barnum's day, shoppers and tourists frequent J&R Computer World, one of the largest electronics stores in the nation.
Ann Street is the title and subject of a song by the early 20th century experimental classical composer Charles Ives with lyrics based on a poem written by Maurice Morris in 1921:
[Shout.]
Broadway!
[Sing.]
Quaint name Ann street.
Width of same, ten feet.
Barnum's mob Ann street,
Far from ob- solete.
Narrow, yes Ann street,
But business, Both feet.
[Shout.]
Nassau crosses Ann Street!
[Sing.]
Sun just hits Ann street,
Then it quits Some greet!
Rather short, Ann Street.
The crossing of Nassau Street and Ann Street is a highlight of the song and the street itself. Nassau Street is a business district filled with shops. At the intersection one can see a view deep into the heart of the Financial District and the facade of the New York Stock Exchange Building (NYSE) six blocks away. Nassau Street and Ann Street meet at uneven angles leading one to feel rather surprised by the sudden explosion of pedestrian traffic, shops and lights when crossing their intersection.
Phineas Taylor Barnum was an American showman, businessman, and politician remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and founding with James Anthony Bailey the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. He was also an author, publisher, and philanthropist, although he said of himself: "I am a showman by profession ... and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me." According to Barnum's critics, his personal aim was "to put money in his own coffers". The adage "there's a sucker born every minute" has frequently been attributed to him, although no evidence exists that he had coined the phrase.
Dime museums were institutions that were popular at the end of the 19th century in the United States. Designed as centers for entertainment and moral education for the working class (lowbrow), the museums were distinctly different from upper middle class cultural events (highbrow). In urban centers like New York City, where many immigrants settled, dime museums were popular and cheap entertainment. The social trend reached its peak during the Progressive Era. Although lowbrow entertainment, they were the starting places for the careers of many notable vaudeville-era entertainers, including Harry Houdini, Lew Fields, Joe Weber, the Griffin Sisters, and Maggie Cline.
Rat-baiting is a blood sport that involves releasing captured rats in an enclosed space with spectators betting on how long a dog, usually a terrier and sometimes referred to as a ratter, takes to kill the rats. Often, two dogs competed, with the winner receiving a cash prize. It is now illegal in most countries.
The Astor House was a luxury hotel in New York City. Located on the corner of Broadway and Vesey Street in what is now the Civic Center and Tribeca neighborhoods of Lower Manhattan, it opened in 1836 and soon became the best-known hotel in America. Part of it was demolished in 1913; the rest was demolished in 1926.
American Museum may refer to:
Nassau Street is in the Financial District, within the borough of Manhattan in New York City. Its southern end is at the intersection with Broad Street and Wall Street, and its northern end is at Spruce Street, at Pace University near the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. For its entire route, Nassau Street runs one block east of Broadway and Park Row.
47th Street is an east–west running street between First Avenue and the West Side Highway in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. Traffic runs one way along the street, from east to west, starting at the headquarters of the United Nations. The street features the Diamond District in a single block, where the street is also known as Diamond Jewelry Way, and also courses through Times Square.
The Sixth Avenue Line was a public transit line in Manhattan, New York City, running mostly along Sixth Avenue from Lower Manhattan to Central Park. Originally a streetcar line and later a bus route, it has been absorbed into the M5 bus route, which replaced the Broadway Line, as its northbound direction.
Barnum's American Museum was a dime museum located at the corner of Broadway, Park Row, and Ann Street in what is now the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City, from 1841 to 1865. The museum was owned by famous showman P. T. Barnum, who purchased Scudder's American Museum in 1841. The museum offered both strange and educational attractions and performances. Some were extremely reputable and historically or scientifically valuable, while others were less so.
Dyckman Street, occasionally called West 200th Street, is a street in the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It is commonly considered to be a crosstown street because it runs from the Hudson River to the Harlem River and intersects Broadway. However, in its true geographical orientation, Dyckman Street runs roughly from north-northwest to south-southeast, and the majority of the street that lies southeast of Broadway runs closer to a north-south direction than east-west.
Greenwich Street is a north–south street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It extends from the intersection of Ninth Avenue and Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District at its northernmost end to its southern end at Battery Park. Greenwich Street runs through the Meatpacking District, the West Village, Hudson Square, and Tribeca.
The Fulton Street station is a major New York City Subway station complex in Lower Manhattan. It consists of four linked stations on the IND Eighth Avenue Line, the IRT Lexington Avenue Line, the BMT Nassau Street Line and the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line. The complex is served by the 2, 4, A, and J trains at all times. The 3, 5, and C trains stop here at all times except late nights, and the Z stops during rush hours in the peak direction.
The Empire Building is an office building and early skyscraper at 71 Broadway, on the corner of Rector Street, in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City. It was designed by Kimball & Thompson in the Classical Revival style and built by Marc Eidlitz & Son from 1897 to 1898. The building consists of 21 stories above a full basement story facing Trinity Place at the back of the building and is 293 feet (89 m) tall. The Empire Building is a New York City designated landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). It is also a contributing property to the Wall Street Historic District, a NRHP district created in 2007.
Maiden Lane is an east–west street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City. Its eastern end is at South Street, near the South Street Seaport, and its western end is at Broadway near the World Trade Center site, where it becomes Cortlandt Street.
The Gillender Building was an early skyscraper in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City. It stood on the northwest corner of Wall Street and Nassau Street, on a narrow strip of land measuring 26 by 73 feet. At the time of its completion in 1897, the Gillender Building was, depending on ranking methods, the fourth- or eighth-tallest structure in New York City.
Vesey Street is a street in New York City that runs east-west in Lower Manhattan. The street is named after Rev. William Vesey (1674–1746), the first rector of nearby Trinity Church.
Scudder's American Museum was a museum located in New York City from 1810 to 1841, when it was purchased by P.T. Barnum and transformed into the very successful Barnum's American Museum.
Manhattan Avenue is a north-south thoroughfare in the neighborhoods of Greenpoint and Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York City. It is the major shopping street in Greenpoint while it is mostly residential in Williamsburg. The stretch through Greenpoint is also called Little Poland for its high concentration of Polish culture and of Polish-named businesses and signage. The northern end was formerly connected to Long Island City, Queens by the Vernon Boulevard Bridge across Newtown Creek and the southern end is at Broadway. The southern part of the avenue is one-way northbound while the portion in Greenpoint is bidirectional. The IND Crosstown Line of the New York City Subway runs under Manhattan Avenue north of McCarren Park, and has two stations, Nassau Avenue and Greenpoint Avenue.
The Bennett Building is a cast-iron building in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. The building is on the western side of Nassau Street, spanning the entire block from Fulton Street to Ann Street. While the Bennett Building contains a primary address of 93-99 Nassau Street, it also has entrances at 139 Fulton Street and 30 Ann Street.
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