Slice of Life NYC-Canal Street

Canal Street in lower Manhattan is a major east-west route through Manhattan between New Jersey and Brooklyn via the Holland Tunnel and Manhattan... more

by Regina Geoghan

Title

Slice of Life NYC-Canal Street

Artist

Regina Geoghan

Medium

Photograph - Photography-digital

Description

Canal Street in lower Manhattan is a major east-west route through Manhattan between New Jersey and Brooklyn via the Holland Tunnel and Manhattan Bridge. Canal Street runs though the neighborhood of Chinatown and forms the southern boundaries of SoHo and Little Italy and nothern boundary of Tribeca. In the early 19th Century, a canal was built to drain Collect Pond into the Hudson River. The pond was filled in 1811 and Canal Street was built following the path of the canal. Note the firehouse and engine in the scene. Engine Company #9, The Chinatown Dragonfighters, is the oldest company in the New York City Fire Department. The Company originated in 1731, during Colonial times, with two hand pumpers that were brought to New York from London. Before the pumpers were available, the only way to fight fires in the old wooden city buildings was by hand using buckets of water. Engine 9 was located at East Broadway for more than 100 years and moved to the present headquarters at 77 Canal Street in 1969, where the quarters are shared with h Ladder Company 6 and Satellite-1. The neighborhood of Chinatown is home to the largest population of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere. It is one of the oldest ethnic Chinese neigborhoods outside of Asia, with the first reported immigrant reported to have come in the mid -1800s, Chinatown is a major tourist attraction for visitors to New York City.

Uploaded

November 18th, 2014