Mulberry Street (Manhattan)

Street in Manhattan, New York

Mulberry Street

Mulberry Street in 2012

North end| Bleecker Street
South end| Worth Street
East| Mott Street
West| Baxter Street
Mulberry Street, c. 1900

Mulberry Street is a principal thoroughfare in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. It is historically associated with Italian-American culture and history, and in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was the heart of Manhattan's Little Italy.

The street was listed on maps of the area since at least 1755. The "Bend" in Mulberry, where the street changes direction from southeast to northwest to a northerly direction, was made to avoid the wetlands surrounding the Collect Pond. During the period of the American Revolution, Mulberry Street was usually referred to as "Slaughter-house Street", named for the slaughterhouse of Nicholas Bayard on what is now the southwest corner of Mulberry and Bayard Streets, which was located there until the summer of 1784, when it was ordered to be removed to Corlaer's Hook.[1]

Mulberry Bend, formed by Mulberry Street on the east and Orange Street on the west, was historically part of the core of the infamous Five Points; the southwest corner of Mulberry Bend formed part of the Five Points intersection for which the neighborhood was named. Aside from Mulberry, the other four streets forming Five Points were Anthony Street (now Worth Street), Cross Street (now Mosco Street), Orange Street (now Baxter Street), and Little Water Street (which no longer exists).[2]

## Location

[edit]

Mulberry is located between Baxter and Mott Streets. It runs north to south, through the centers of Little Australia and Little Italy, parallel to Mott Street one block to the east, is bound on the north by Bleecker Street in NoHo and on the south by Worth Street in the Civic Center. Near the southern portion of Mulberry Street, the street enters Chinatown, where it is lined with Chinese green grocers, butcher stores, and fishmongers.[3]

Further south past Bayard Street, on the west side of the street, lies Columbus Park, which was created in 1897.[4] The southwest corner of the park (away from Mulberry Street) is the site of the original Five Points intersection. The east side of the street is now lined with Chinatown's funeral homes.[citation needed]

### Mulberry Bend

[edit]

"Bandit's Roost", a Mulberry Street back alley, photographed by Jacob Riis in 1888, a target of police efforts in the 1880s and 1890s

Main article: Mulberry Bend

The street was named after the mulberry trees that once lined Mulberry Bend,[5] the slight bend in Mulberry Street. "Mulberry Bend is a narrow bend in Mulberry Street, a tortuous ravine of tall tenement-houses ... so full of people that the throngs going and coming spread off the sidewalk nearly to the middle of the street ... The crowds are in the street because much of the sidewalk and all of the gutter is taken up with vendors' stands."[6]

For the urban reformer Jacob Riis, Mulberry Bend epitomized the worst of the city's slums: "A Mulberry Bend Alley" contrasted with "Mulberry Bend becomes a park" were two of the photographs illustrating Jacob Riis's call for renewal in The Battle with the Slum (1902).[7] In response to reformers such as Riis, the city in the 1890s bought out many of the slumlords and replaced tenements with Columbus Park.[8]

### Notable buildings

[edit]

The Puck Building stands near the north end of the street on the southwest corner of Houston Street. Further south is Saint Patrick's Old Cathedral, standing in its churchyard. The Church of the Most Precious Blood, at 113 Baxter Street, was built by Italians, who as new immigrants were not allowed to worship in the main Churches of Transfiguration nor St. Patrick's Old Cathedral. Below Prince Street (no. 247) is the former Ravenite Social Club, where wire taps acquired evidence that sent John Gotti to prison.[citation needed]

The Italian American Museum is at 155 Mulberry and Grand Street in the building that used to house the Italian immigrant bank Banca Stabile.[9][10][11][12]

* Black Horse Tavern Mulberry And Park St.

* Saint Patrick's Old Cathedral (1815)

* St. Philip's Church, Mulberry St.

## Culture

[edit]

### Social structure

[edit]

The New York Times sent its reporters to characterize the Little Italy/Mulberry neighborhood in May 1896:

> They are laborers; toilers in all grades of manual work; they are artisans, they are junkman, and here, too, dwell the rag pickers....There is a monster colony of Italians who might be termed the commercial or shop keeping community of the Latins. Here are all sorts of stores, pensions, groceries, fruit emporiums, tailors, shoemakers, wine merchants, importers, musical instrument makers....There are notaries, lawyers, doctors, apothecaries, undertakers.... There are more bankers among the Italians than among any other foreigners except the Germans in the city.[13]

* Children sleeping in Mulberry Street (1890)

* Produce stand on Mulberry Street

* Tai Chi practiced on Mulberry Street

* Feast in Little Italy on Mulberry

### Feast of San Gennaro

[edit]

Main article: Feast of San Gennaro § In the United States

Festival of the Feast of San Gennaro on Mulberry Street in 2006

During the Italian-American festival of the Feast of San Gennaro each September, the entire street is blocked off to vehicular traffic for the street fair. The San Gennaro Feast began in 1926 and continues as of 2024[update]. It is the largest Italian-American Festival in New York and possibly the United States.[citation needed]

## In popular culture

[edit]

Manhattan's Mulberry Street has been the subject of books, films, and music. For example:

Books

* The King of Mulberry Street, by Donna Jo Napoli. A young boy in the 1890s travels alone from Napoli (Naples), Italy to New York, where he settles on Mulberry Street.

Music

* Billy Joel's song "Big Man on Mulberry Street" is a jazz-influenced song from his album The Bridge (1986).[14]
* Twenty One Pilots' "Mulberry Street" from their album Scaled and Icy.

## See also

[edit]

* Little Australia

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Staff (April 1, 1896). "Abattoirs; History of New-York Slaughter-Houses — Interesting and Curious Data" (PDF). The New York Times.
2. ^ Herman, Michele "Five Points" in Jackson, Kenneth T., ed. (2010). The Encyclopedia of New York City (2nd ed.). New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-11465-2., p.456
3. ^ Chin, RK. "A Journey Through Chinatown: Mulberry Street". RK Chin Web Gallery. Retrieved April 16, 2015.
4. ^ "Columbus Park". New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Retrieved October 27, 2007.
5. ^ Naureckas, Jim. "Mulberry Street: A New York Songline". New York Songlines. Retrieved April 16, 2015.
6. ^ Logan, Harlan (1894). "The Bowery and Bohemia". Scribner's Magazine. p. 458.
7. ^ Max Page devotes a section to "Jacob Riis and the 'leprous houses' of Mulberry Bend" in The Creative Destruction of Manhattan, 1900–1940, 2001:73 ff
8. ^ Fernando, Nisha (2007). Culture and Identity in Urban Streets: A Case Study of Chinatown, New York City. p. 111\. ISBN 9780549437819.
9. ^ Mallozzi, Vincent M. (September 8, 2008). "In Little Italy, a Former Bank Will Now Hold Italian Immigrants' Memories". The New York Times.
10. ^ Warerkar, Tanay (January 17, 2018). "First look at Little Italy's revamped Italian American Museum". Curbed NY. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
11. ^ Kaufman, Joanne (October 13, 2021). "Bricks Return With Style in New High-End Buildings". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
12. ^ "Home". Italian American Museum. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
13. ^ Staff (May 31, 1896). "Little Italy in New-York". The New York Times. p. 32.
14. ^ "Billy Joel, AXS TV, Jazz Fest Release 'Big Man On Mulberry Street' Performance". BillyJoel.com. May 20, 2013.

## Further reading

[edit]

* Frunza, Bogdana Simina (2008). Streetscape and Ethnicity: New York's Mulberry Street and the Redefinition of the Italian American Ethnic Identity.
* Gabaccia, Donna R. (2007). "'Inventing' Little Italy (2006 SHGAPE Presidential Address)". Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. pp. 7–41\. JSTOR 25144462.
* Pozzetta, George E. (1979). Harney, Robert F.; Scarpaci, J. Vincenza (eds.). "The Mulberry District of New York City: The Years before World War One". Little Italies in North America. Toronto: The Multicultural History Society of Ontario. pp. 7–40.

## External links

[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mulberry Street (Manhattan).

Wikiquote has quotations related to Mulberry Street.

* New York Songlines: Mulberry Street, a virtual walking tour
* Mulberry Street Storefronts \- photographs of buildings and stores along Mulberry St from Chinatown through Little Italy
* "Mulberry Street, New York City". World Digital Library. 1900.

* v
* t
* e

Streets of Manhattan

* Commissioners' Plan of 1811
* List of eponymous streets in New York City
* List of numbered streets in Manhattan

North–south|

| Major avenues|

* 1st Av
* 2nd Av
* 3rd Av
* Lexington Av
* Park Av
* Madison Av
* 5th Av
* Broadway
* 6th Av (Av of the Americas)
* Lenox Av
* 7th Av (Fashion Av)
* 8th Av
* 9th Av
* 10th Av
* 11th Av
* 12th Av

|

Financial District|

* South
* Pearl
* Broad
* William
* Nassau
* Theatre Alley
* Whitehall
* Canyon of Heroes
* State
* West

Lower East Side|

* Allen
* Pike
* Baxter
* Centre Market Pl
* Bowery
* Centre
* Division
* Chrystie
* Coenties Slip
* Eldridge
* Elizabeth
* Essex
* Forsyth
* Lafayette
* Doyers
* Rivington
* Ludlow
* Mott
* Mulberry
* Orchard
* Park Row
* Spring
* Cherry

Lower West Side|

* Cortlandt Alley
* Trinity Pl
* Church
* Greenwich
* Hudson
* Jones
* MacDougal
* Patchin Pl
* Sullivan
* Gay
* Thompson
* Varick
* Washington
* W Broadway
* LaGuardia Pl
* Weehawken
* West Side Hwy
* Bank
* 13th Av

East Village / Gramercy|

* Ave D
* Ave C
* Ave B
* Ave A
* Asser Levy Pl
* Shevchenko Pl
* Irving Pl
* 4th Av
* Union Square E
* Park Av S
* University Pl
* Union Square W

Midtown|

* Beekman Pl
* Sutton Pl
* Park Av Viaduct
* Park Av Tunnel
* Vanderbilt Av
* Rockefeller Plz
* 6½ Av
* Great White Way
* Shubert Alley
* Dyer Av
* Hudson Blvd

Upper East / Upper West|

* East End Av
* York Av
* Museum Mile
* East Dr
* Center Dr
* West Dr
* Central Park W
* Columbus Av
* Amsterdam Av
* West End Av
* Riverside Dr

Harlem / Wash. Hts.|

* Pleasant Av
* Lenox Av (Malcolm X Blvd)
* Powell Blvd
* Douglass Blvd
* Morningside Dr
* Audubon Av
* St. Nicholas Av (Duarte Blvd)
* Claremont Av
* Ft. Washington Av
* Cabrini Blvd
* Sylvan Pl
* Tiemann Pl

East–west|

| Financial District|

* Bridge
* Stone
* Marketfield
* Beaver
* Exchange Pl
* Wall
* Albany
* Liberty
* Cortlandt St/Wy
* Maiden La
* Dey
* Fulton
* Vesey
* Ann

|

Downtown|

* Spruce
* Roosevelt
* Chambers
* E Broadway
* Henry
* Madison
* Cherry
* Worth
* N Moore
* Broome
* Canal
* Hester
* Grand
* Delancey
* Stanton
* Houston
* Vandam
* Bleecker
* Bond
* Great Jones
* 4th
* Waverly Pl
* Washington Square N
* Astor Pl
* Washington Mews
* Stuyvesant
* Macdougal Alley
* 8th
* St. Mark's Pl
* Greenwich Av
* Christopher
* Charles
* 14th

Midtown|

* 23rd
* 34th
* 42nd
* 45th (George Abbott Way)
* 47th
* 50th
* 51st
* 52nd (Swing Alley / St of Jazz)
* 53rd
* 54th
* 55th
* 57th
* 59th (Central Park S)

Uptown|

* 66th / Peter Jennings Way
* 72nd
* 74th
* 79th
* 85th
* 86th
* 89th
* 93rd
* 95th
* 96th
* 110th (Cathedral Pkwy / Central Park N)
* 116th
* 125th (Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd)
* 130th (Astor Row)
* 132nd
* 133rd
* 139th (Strivers' Row)
* 145th
* 155th
* Bogardus Pl
* Dyckman
* Plaza Lafayette

Intersections|

| Circles|

* Columbus
* Duke Ellington
* Frederick Douglass

|

Squares|

* Chatham
* Cooper
* Duarte
* Duffy
* Foley
* Gramercy Park
* Grand Army Plz
* Hanover
* Herald
* Hudson
* Jackson
* Lincoln
* Madison
* Mulry
* Pershing
* Petrosino
* Sherman
* Stuyvesant
* Times
* Tompkins
* Union
* Verdi
* Washington
* Zuccotti Park

* Italics indicate streets no longer in existence.
* All entries are streets, circles, or squares unless otherwise noted
* See also: Manhattan address algorithm

* v
* t
* e

Chinatown, Manhattan

Manhattan, New York City

Green spaces|

* Columbus Park
* Collect Pond Park
* Sara Delano Roosevelt Park

Education|

* Shuang Wen School
* Pace University High School

Religion|

* Church of the Transfiguration
* Eldridge Street Synagogue
* Mariner's Temple
* Sea and Land Church
* St. James Roman Catholic Church
* St. Joseph Church

Culture|

| Museums|

* Asian American Arts Centre
* Museum of Chinese in America

|

Community|

* Charles B. Wang Community Health Center
* Chinese Community Center
* Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association

Businesses|

* Chinatown Fair
* Chinatown Ice Cream Factory
* Hop Kee
* Jing Fong
* Nom Wah Tea Parlor
* Pearl River Mart
* Wo Hop
* Yu & Me Books

Other buildings|

* 51 Market Street
* 97 Bowery
* 254–260 Canal Street
* Alfred E. Smith House
* Bowery Savings Bank Building
* Confucius Plaza
* Edward Mooney House
* Stephen Van Rensselaer House

| Former|

* Atlantic Garden
* Bull's Head Tavern

|

Transportation|

| Subway stations|

* Canal Street
* Grand Street
* East Broadway

|

Streets|

* Allen Street
* Baxter Street
* Bowery
* Chatham Square
* Chrystie Street
* Division Street
* Doyers Street
* East Broadway
* Elizabeth Street
* Forsyth Street
* Henry Street
* Madison Street
* Mott Street
* Mulberry Bend
* Mulberry Street

Related topics|

* Five Points
* The Old Brewery
* The Tombs

See also: Manhattan Community Board 2, Manhattan Community Board 3

* v
* t
* e

Lower East Side

Manhattan, New York City

Green spaces|

* Coleman Playground
* East River Greenway
* East River Park
* Hamilton Fish Park
* Lowline
* Pier 42
* Sara Delano Roosevelt Park
* Seward Park

Education|

| Current|

* Bard High School Early College
* NEST+m
* Seward Park Campus

|

Former|

* Etz Chaim Yeshiva

Religion|

* Adath Jeshurun of Jassy Synagogue
* Beth Hamedrash Hagodol
* Bialystoker Synagogue
* Chapel of Free Grace
* Christ Church Lutheran
* Church of Our Lady of Sorrows
* Congregation Chasam Sopher
* Eldridge Street Synagogue
* First Roumanian-American Congregation
* Kehila Kedosha Janina
* Meserich Synagogue
* Podhajcer Shul
* St. Augustine's Church
* St. Mary Church
* St. Rose of Lima Old Church
* St. Teresa Church
* Sea and Land Church

Culture|

| Community /
museums|

* Hebrew Free Burial Association
* Henry Street Settlement
* International Center of Photography
* Lower East Side Conservancy
* Lower East Side History Project
* Lower East Side Tenement Museum
* University Settlement Society of New York

|

Food /
nightlife|

* 63 Clinton
* Attaboy
* Cake Shop NYC
* Clinton Street Baking Company & Restaurant
* Colors
* Contra
* Dhamaka
* Dimes
* Dirt Candy
* Double Chicken Please
* Economy Candy
* Essex Market
* Ivan Ramen
* Katz's Delicatessen
* King Tut's Wah Wah Hut
* Kossar's Bialys
* Mercury Lounge
* Rothko
* Russ & Daughters
* Shopsin's
* Sin-é
* Una Pizza Napoletana
* Yonah Schimmel's Knish Bakery

Arts|

* ABC No Rio
* Angel Orensanz Center
* Blade Study
* Bluestockings
* Dixon Place
* Envoy Enterprises
* Foley Gallery
* The Lodge Gallery
* Orchard
* Rivington Street Wall
* Shin Gallery
* Tibor de Nagy Gallery

Theater|

* Folksbiene
* Rockwood Music Hall
* Metrograph
* National Theatre
* The Slipper Room
* WOW Café

Former|

* Allen & Delancey
* Bar Uchū
* Ichimura at Uchū
* Luna Lounge
* Milk & Honey
* Ratner's
* wd~50

Other buildings|

* 97 Bowery
* 247 Cherry
* Alfred E. Smith Houses
* Baruch Houses
* Blue Condominium
* Bowery Savings Bank Building
* Cooperative Village
* Essex Crossing
* Hernandez Houses
* Jarmulowsky Bank Building
* Knickerbocker Village
* One Manhattan Square
* Rivington House
* Rivington Street municipal bath
* Rutgers Houses
* Vladeck Houses
* Westchester House

Transportation|

| Subway stations|

* Bowery
* Delancey Street/Essex Street
* East Broadway
* Grand Street
* Second Avenue

|

Streets|

* Allen Street
* Bowery
* Broome Street
* Chatham Square
* Cherry Street
* Chrystie Street
* Delancey Street
* Division Street
* East Broadway
* Eldridge Street
* Elizabeth Street
* Essex Street
* Forsyth Street
* Grand Street
* Henry Street
* Hester Street
* Ludlow Street
* Madison Street
* Mott Street
* Mulberry Street
* Orchard Street
* Rivington Street
* South Street
* Stanton Street

History|

* The Bugs and Meyer Mob
* Ludlow Street Jail
* Williamsburg Bridge Trolley Terminal
* Yiddish Black Hand

Related topics|

* East Village/Lower East Side Historic District
* Little Fuzhou
* Little Germany
* Yiddish Theatre District

See also: Manhattan Community Board 3

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