Stone Street (Manhattan)

Stone Street is a short street in Manhattan's Financial District. It originally ran from Broad Street to Hanover Square, but was divided into two sections by the construction of the Goldman Sachs building at 85 Broad Street in the 1980's. Today the cluster of historic buildings along Stone, South William, Pearl Streets and Coenties Alley form the Stone Street Historic District.

Stone Street is one of New York's oldest streets. It was originally known by its Dutch name, Hoogh Straet (High Street). Around 1656, Hoogh Straet was shifted about twenty to twenty-five feet (6 to 8 m) to align it with Brouwer Street, the extension of Hoogh Straet west of the Gracht (later, Broad Street), and which in 1658 became the first paved street in Nieuw Amsterdam. Following the British conquest of the colony, the name Hoogh Straet was translated to High Street, and then called Duke Street, for the Duke of York. Leveled in 1771 and surveyed in 1790, it was renamed Stone Street in 1794 as New Yorkers abandoned reminders of British rule.

In 1632, the Dutch West India Company built the first commercial brewery in North America there. The street was later named Stone Street because of its cobblestone paving. During most of the 1700's, the street was called Duke Street. The street's stores and lofts were built for dry-goods merchants and importers, shortly after the Great Fire of 1835, which destroyed many remnants of New Amsterdam.

Most buildings were used as storage. The building at 57 Stone Street was rebuilt in 1903 by C. P. H. Gilbert in Dutch Colonial Revival architecture at the behest of the owner, Amos F. Eno, a son of Amos R. Eno. The buildings to the back on South William Street 13-23 also were reconstructed in the Dutch revival style, evoking New Amsterdam.

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