St. Mark's Historic District

You are currently walking through the St. Mark's Historic District, an enclave that defies the rigid geometry of the rest of Manhattan. While the vast majority of New York City follows a strict north-to-south grid, Stuyvesant Street cuts across this district at a sharp, diagonal angle. This street was laid out in seventeen eighty-seven, decades before the city adopted its official master plan, and it remains the only true east-to-west street in Manhattan. Its orientation serves as a permanent physical reminder of the land's original life as a seventeenth-century Dutch farm, long before the city grid grew around it.