6. Stuyvesant Street Remained Despite Efforts To Eradicate It

The red lines represent existing roads on the Stuyvesant property, that connected the various homesteads. Petrus Stuyvesant III, the Governor Peter Stuyvesant’s great-great grandson, laid out his own street-grid system in the area in the years after 1788. His grid was aligned by magnetic north.

Stuyvesant Street managed to escape destruction because at the time, it was a well-established and highly-trafficked thoroughfare. Also given Stuyvesant’s legacy in the city, it was deemed a fair concession to the otherwise predominant street-grid system. To this day, this street is the only truly compass-tested east-west one in Manhattan.