Canal Street (Manhattan)

The Canal Street (English: Canal Street ) is a main road in the south of New York City's borough of Manhattan.

Location

The Canal Street crosses Lower Manhattan and New Jersey opens the west across the Holland Tunnel and the East Brooklyn over the Manhattan Bridge and Interstate 78 to the northern boundary of the TriBeCa district and the southern boundary of the SoHo district. The Canal Street also forms the backbone of Chinatown and is also the border of Little Italy.

History

The name of Canal Street refers to an actual channel, which was built here in the early 19th century, to direct the Collect Pond into the Hudson River.

The Collect Pond was initially a pond and fresh water reservoir, which was fed by its own source. As a resident craftsmen, companies and butcher then directed their waste in the Collect Pond, this was a source of infection and disease, making the construction of the canal was necessary. After the completion of the canal of the pond in 1811 was made up of what this area of Manhattan but still swampy made ​​, as there are many natural sources was here who could now flow nowhere. The Canal Street was completed in 1820 and followed the winding path of the channel.

The historic townhouses and apartment buildings that sprang up along Canal Street, quickly became dilapidated. The eastern part of Canal Street was located in the vicinity of the notorious Five Points, so that there land values ​​, the living conditions were much lower and much worse in the vicinity of this slum.

In the early 20th century, this was the gem trade around Canal Street and the Bowery, but then moved to the middle of the century into the 47th Street, today's Diamond District. In the 1920s, the Citizens Savings Bank built on Canal Street in the Bowery with views of the Manhattan Bridge Plaza their headquarters, which is a landmark in this area today. After the end of Radio Row in the 1960s was the portion about the Sixth Avenue main hub for electric parts in New York City for over 25 years.

Today, Canal Street is a busy shopping area full of shops and street vendors in the West, banks and jewelry shops to the east. Many tourists and local residents are here every day on the road, use the food stalls and simple shops, perfume, handbags, hardware, etc. at very reasonable prices for sale. Often these things are gray imports or cheap imitations of branded products ( electronics, clothing, accessories) that are sold as originals - sometimes in back rooms. Black produced DVDs and CDs are sold illegally in makeshift stalls, from suitcases or spread blankets. Even regular police raids can not prevent this.