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How Houston Happened
Houston Street — that's HOW-stun, for the first-time visitors — has seen many changes since it was mapped as the southern boundary of Manhattan's famous street grid under the Commissioners' Plan of 1811. In fact, the 1811 plan was the first time the street, named for William Houstoun, was spelled "Houston." The misspelling stuck.
Houstoun was the Georgia-born son of Sir Patrick Houstoun, a Scottish aristocrat and member of the state's colonial Government. The younger Houstoun represented Georgia at the Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention of 1787, where he met Mary Bayard, of the prominent Manhattan family, whom he married in 1788. The original segment of Houstoun's namesake street was part of the Bayard family's property. Over the ensuing decades, Houston was merged with neighboring thoroughfares (North Street on the east side; Hammersley Street on the west) until it spanned the breadth of the entire island.
This walk covers the tumultuous early decades of the 20th century, when subway construction and increased automobile traffic molded Houston into its current form. Let's take a look!
Start
19 stops•2.9km•36 min
Hamilton Fish Pool
Start here! At the eastern end of Houston, near the southeast corner of Pitt Street, is the Hamilton Fish Recreation Center. The park, first designated in 1900, is named for the former governor of New York and US Secretary of State, and features a WPA-era public pool where the US Swimming team trained ahead of the 1952 Helsinki Olympics.
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250 East Houston Street
This miniature East Houston flatiron stood as early as the 1850s, at the intersection of Avenue A/Essex Street.
The slender building, which can be spotted in the 1948 film noir classic "The Naked City," was razed in 1955 when Houston was widened to accommodate two-way traffic.
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Katz’s Delicatessen
Katz's, the legendary delicatessen at Ludlow and Houston, today sits at the southwest corner — as it has since the mid-1930s.
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Ludlow and East Houston Streets
Houston has long figured in the various reconfigurations of the Manhattan map, starting in 1811 with the Commissioners' Plan.
In this photo, you'll notice that the NW corner of Ludlow and East Houston is occupied by a five-story tenement with a Romanian barbershop in its storefront — and not Katz's familiar single-story restaurant.
Both the original Katz's location, on the east side of the block, and the tenement at 203 E. Houston were cleared in advance of subway construction in the mid-1930s.
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183 East Houston Street
The tenement with the rounded corner at Orchard and E. Houston is still standing (albeit with some upper-story alterations), but the rest of the street scene has been transformed.
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Russ & Daughters
Take a peek in the window of Russ & Daughters, another East Houston institution. The appetizing shop has been open since 1914, and moved into its current location in 1920. If you look closely, you'll notice the deli case from this late 70s-early 80s photo is still in use today!
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161 East Houston Street
Prior to the Houston Street widening, another Lower East Side thoroughfare was reshaped to accommodate vehicular traffic. Beginning in the late 1920s, dozens of tenements lining Allen Street were razed to make room for a second roadway and median park. (At left, rubble is still visible from the recently-demolished 163-165 East Houston.)
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137 East Houston Street
Another landmark of Lower East Side Jewish cuisine is two blocks west of Russ & Daughters. The Yonah Shimmel Knish Bakery has been serving doughy comfort food here since 1910.
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National Theatre
The National Theatre, on East Houston at the foot of Second Avenue, opened in 1912 and earned a place in the annals of Yiddish cinema and vaudeville.
But during the 1920s, the real action was upstairs: on the sixth floor was the National Winter Garden, an infamous burlesque venue known for offering racier programming than its uptown rivals.
At left, this 1929 photo shows a full block of tenements, soon to be razed. The city acquired the land between Chrystie and Forsyth Streets with the intention of building housing, but the site eventually became Sara D. Roosevelt Park.
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St. Augustine's Chapel
The sacred, next door to the profane: The National's westward neighbor was St. Augustine's Chapel, an Episcopal chapel which opened about 1877 and welcomed congregations of neighborhood worshipers until 1945.
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Houston Street Station, Third Avenue El
Until 1955, the Third Avenue El rumbled over Bowery. Here's the Houston Street Station in June, 1929. (Note that traffic at Houston and Bowery already looked hectic!)
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50 East Houston Street
The 1929 photos included in this walk were taken in preparation for subway construction on the present-day F line — but this was far from the first time Houston was torn up for an infrastructure project. This turn of the century photo shows an eastward view between Mulberry and Mott Streets, documenting the installation of the Fire Department's high pressure water system.
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East Houston Street and Lafayette (Elm) Street
This excavation photo dates to 1900, and the installation of the city's very first subway line. The IRT line ran beneath Elm Street — as Lafayette was previously known — on its way up to 42nd Street.
Lafayette Street is itself a relatively recent creation. It was formed by extending the tony Lafayette Place southward from Great Jones Street to meet Elm Place, which had previously terminated between Prince and Jersey Streets.
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Puck Building
On the south side of Houston is the historic Puck building, so named for Puck Magazine, its original tenant.
When Elm Street was extended and widened to form Lafayette Street in 1899, the Puck Building sat immediately in the right of way for the new street (and the subway line below). To make room, a huge western section — two full bays, out of five facing Houston — was removed under the supervision of architect Albert Wagner. This 1900 cyanotype shows Lafayette Street, with the Puck building's reconstructed western facade at right.
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105 West Houston Street
This 1929 photo was taken shortly before buildings were razed in advance of street and subway construction. Today, the white building at right sits at the corner of Houston.
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St. Anthony of Padua
This 1930 photo of St. Anthony of Padua shows road work underway. Prior to construction a six-story tenement building, No. 123 West Houston, occupied a 96-foot lot north of St. Anthony.
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129 West Houston Street
Across Sullivan Street, 129 West Houston (a.k.a. 162 Sullivan Street) was also razed.
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Sixth Avenue Extension
As had been the case for Lafayette Street and the original IRT line, construction of the new IND lines required extending Sixth Avenue several blocks south — at the expense of dozens of buildings.
In this photo from October 1928, the new Sixth Avenue right of way has been cleared. The buildings in the foreground at left are, somewhat confusingly, 174-178 West Houston Street, at the northwestern corner of the three-way intersection between Sixth Avenue, West Houston, and Bedford Street.
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342 West Street
At the far western end of Houston Street stood Doherty's Hotel, across from Pier 39. In 1930, the New York Central Railroad purchased the building, adding a parcel to the site that would become the High Line's southern terminus: the St. John's Freight Terminal.
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