10. Commercial Streets of Lower Manhattan

A map of commercial named streets in Lower Manhattan
Image via Mapbox

Back to the very beginning, many streets of Lower Manhattan were named for old Dutch colonial trade practices. Some examples include Beaver and Pearl Streets in the Financial District. Others take the name of indigenous local species, like Pine Street which is named after a pine wood that was on the Dutch farm the street went through. We can assume streets like Cedar Street and Cherry Street likely had similar origins.

Some streets names from the Dutch period that no longer exist that fall into this category include Brewer Street (originally Brouer), Marketfield Street (originally Marketveld) and Mill Street (now William Street, though a Mill Lane still exists and is one of the shortest streets in New York City). There was originally also a Beaver Path, which is now where 1 Broadway is.