When you think of Canal St. these days, you may think of bootleg designer handbags/watches, knock off perfumes, odd retailers, Chinese fish markets, tourists, traffic, Scrap Yard/Bomb The System, art supplies, etc... But way back around 1805, there was actually a canal built on Canal St. with the purpose of draining the nearby polluted Collect Pond into the Hudson River. By 1821, the canal had gotten to the point of smelling so foul that the city covered it up and turned it into an underground sewer.  Water still flows beneath Canal St. to this day. This is also the main reason why there are occasional cave-ins on the street above. There was an “urban exploration video” by Andrew Wonder that recently made its way around the internet. In the video, they briefly explored the west portion of this existing underground waterway. UNDERCITY - http://www.vimeo.com/18280328 (check it out at the 12:00 mark)


“Illustration of west Canal Street in the 1800’s depicting a street about a hundred feet wide with a ditch or open canal in its center concealed with a row of lovely trees shielding the new tenements and businesses surrounding it.” (...and you thought living in Staten Island smelled bad?)


1805 plan of the canal from a park plaque.  It appears that the canal was designed to accommodate a small boat.


Photo of the existing waterway that runs below Canal St. today. (photo stolen from internet)

Up until the early 1840’s, the eastern section of Canal St. that runs from Centre St. to Division St. was originally named Pump St. “One of the principal fountains of the Collect Pond was located at Roosevelt and Chatham Streets and was known as the Teawater Pump, since the locals used it as a freshwater spring for their favorite beverage. A resort known as the Teawater Garden arose in the region. By 1829, though, the resort had disappeared, though it lent its name to Pump Street.” (Forgotten NY)


Map of the old Collect Pond that the canal was originally built to drain.  They later built a prison known as the "Tombs" right over the area where the pond was.  Needless to say, the marshy land cause some horrible conditions (even for a prison.) The original structure was replaced by a large grey guilding in 1902 and is now known as 100 Centre St. aka Manhattan bookings. The "Tombs" nickname still remains today.

On the eastern end of Canal St. sits Seward Park. In 1904, the first permanent, municipally built playground in the United States opened here. The park included the first public bath in a New York park which was demolished in 1936 and replaced by a recreation building in 1941.




Lawn-tennis and volleyball games played by girls in 1905 at Seward Park. There are still tennis courts at this park today.

31 Canal St. (between Ludlow and Essex) was once the entrance to Loew's Canal Street Theatre opened in 1927. It seated up to 2,279 people and is now home to ABC United Trading Corp, an electronics store. If you go around the block north on Ludlow St. you can see the structure of the large theater. They showed movies here up until 1960’s. As of last year in 2010, the Landmark Preservation Commission declared this site a landmark. There are rumors of this site becoming a “hip” hotel in the near future.


Photo of the entrance to the Loew's Canal St. Theater in the 30's and the same entrance about 70-80 years later.


West on Canal St to Allen St from East Broadway showing the 2nd Ave El Canal St. Station and Seward Park to the right c.1930. You can see the Loew's Theater marquee to the right.


You can see the massive side structure of the theater in this 2011 photo looking north on Ludlow St.


Photograph of the landmark "Jarmulowsky Bank Building" on Canal St. and Orchard St. built in 1912.


Photo of Canal St. at 46 Forsyth in 1920 and about 91 years later. The old P.S.65 schoolhouse was replaced with the new Pace University High School building.

As you go further west on Canal St. you run into the Manhattan Bridge Arch and Colonade. This structure was designed by Carrere & Hastings who also designed the New York Public Library in midtown. “This horseshoe-shaped arcade was built in 1910-15 to provide an impressive entrance to Manhattan.”



In the early 90's, the base of the Manhattan Bridge approach was a shantytown known as "The Hill."  Today, it's all cleaned up and transformed into the bike/pedestrian lane ramp to the bridge (reopened in 2007.)  It's pretty crazy to imagine people once living in tepees made of blue tarp and wood there but it was definitely a unique part of town back then.  "The Hill-as the settlement alongside the Manhattan Bridge was known to its residents and neighbors-was small: only about twenty people living in fifteen structures. Of all the city’s current shantytowns at the time, however, this one may have been the most permanent-looking. A majority of the huts were made of wood, and most had locks." (Bowery Boogie)


Photo taken from Ethan Wolff's flickr: Shantytown with teepee on the Chinatown side of the Manhattan Bridge, 1992.


Construction of the Citizens Savings Bank in 1920 on Bowery and Canal St. The landmark building is now occupied by HSBC Bank.


Phone booth at the corner of Bowery and Canal St. in the 70's and the same location in 2011. You might recognize the asian guy sitting on the steps as a neighborhood "crazy guy."


Corner of Mott St. and Canal St. looking south. Little things like that old Chase logo reminds me so much of the 90's. Didn't get my camera out in time and literally just missed a Postal truck in the exact same spot. It would of made an awesome photo for comparison.

At the southwest corner of Mott St. and Canal St., there is a pagoda-like structure that was built in 1950. “This was the headquarters of the On Leong Tong, once one of Chinatown's most feared gangs, with Mott Street as its territory. As late as the 1990s, On Leong leaders were running protection rackets with the Ghost Shadows street gang. Today, it seems to be more what it always pretended to be; an association of Chinatown businessmen.”



The Vietnamese gang Born To Kill had a chapter known as the Canal Street Boys. The gang rose to power around 1986 and they took over the area of Canal St. from Broadway to Lafayette. The gang was heavily involved in extortion, robberies, assaults and murders, killing members of other gangs and bystanders. Most of the gang's members grew up in a culture of guns and drugs in Vietnam. "When the B.T.K. popped up on Canal Street, they were the craziest group that anybody had ever seen." In 1990, 21 year old Thomas Vu (No. 2 man of BTK at the time) was killed in a drive by shooting on Canal St. and Broadway. At Vu’s funeral in New Jersey, a rival group opened fire on over a hundred mourners. BTK returned fire resulting in a shootout at the cemetery with people jumping into open graves for cover.


BTK/Canal St. Boys were one of the few Asian gangs without direct ties to century old Tong gangs. (Click to enlarge)

The leader of BTK was David Thai. Thai admitted publicly to making 13 to 15 million dollars just from the manufacture and sale of counterfeit watches. When Thai was arrested in his home on Long Island, 5,000 counterfeit Rolex watches were found in his basement. In a way, David Thai and his operations birthed the Canal Street counterfeit market and made it a worldwide tourist visit location for bootlegged items. Thai is currently service three consecutive live sentences in federal prison.


David Thai - Leader of BTK


Pre and Post VICIOUS SEVER spot at Mulberry St. and Canal St.


Entrance to the old Chung Kou theater at 202 Canal St. in 1976. The theater was known as Jade Cinema from 1968-1971.


Illustration of the junction of Canal St. & Walker St. in 1860. For you graffiti people, this would be the location of the famed "JAYA" roof over 150 years ago!


Another early photograph of the same location above. Not sure of the year but looks like late 1800's. The "PAINTING" sign on the building is foreshadowing.


Junction of Canal St. and Walker St. in 2008. This has become one of the so-called "most famed rooftops" for street graffiti in NYC.


No matter who hits the spot these days, JAYA will always be the first in 1998. (DIRT roller on top *RIP)

At the northwest corner of Canal St. and Centre St. there is a “building with a red pagoda roof and a facade decorated with dragons and phoenixes. This was the Golden Pacific National Bank, which opened here in 1983 and went under only two years later, taking $17 million in local deposits with it.” In 1989, the former president of the failed bank, Kuang Hsung J. Chuang was only sentenced to 5 years in prison on 22 counts of making false statements to the Federal Reserve, misapplying bank funds and defrauding bank customers.



The Oltarsh Building on the northeast corner of Broadway and Canal was built in 1927 as the 599-seat Major Theatre by David M. Oltarsh, a major in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It was known as Cinema Giglio by 1963 and Canal Cinema in 1978. “Today, much of the exterior still exists of the Major Theater including the marquee although the interior has been converted to retail and flea market like space.” A Verizon store took over the space last year in 2010.


Verizon making use of the old theater marquee out front.


Sorry for the small photo but here you can see the Major Theater in its glory days.

In the Canal St. BMT (N,Q,R) subway station, there is a mosaic by the artist Van Everen (circa 1905-1920) that depicts the corner of Broadway and Canal St. According to Forgotten NY, they believe that Van Everen based the mosaic on an early 1800's woodcut showing the Stone Bridge Tavern. The stone bridge in the foreground carried Broadway over the canal. When the canal was filled in, the bridge was buried under the street. It may still be there, although subway construction may have uprooted it. It’s pretty hard to believe that’s how the intersection of Broadway and Canal used to look!




Early woodcut illustration of the intersection of Broadway and Canal St. The bridge going over the canal at the time was called the "Stone Bridge."


Looking North on Broadway from Canal St. 120 years apart. There seems to be construction of a trolley track in the 1891 photo.


Looking West on Canal St. from Broadway 119 years apart. Some construction workers were nice enough to let me into a hotel that's being built on the corner to mimic the old shot taken from above.


Looking west on Canal St. from Broadway in 1860.


Looking east on Canal St. at Varick St. (Year unknown)


Canal St. at Watts St. in 1999 with graffiti by KERN, MERZ, CES, ENO, SERP, REMO, FETISH and some others I can't make out.


Canal St. at Hudson St. (year unknown)


Looking East on Canal St. from West St. 89 years apart. You can see the Ninth Ave. el tracks in the distance in the 1922 photograph.


Looking West on Canal St. from West St. 89 years apart. There appears to be a large pier structure in the old photograph that no longer exists today.

...And that's all we have for you even though we can go on forever with Canal St.'s rich history. Let's hear some suggestions for the next "D" street to cover.

Sources:
"History of the City of New York: Its Origin, Rise and Progress, vol III", 1877.
www.forgotten-ny.com/streetnecrology/lowereast/lowereast.html
digitalgallery.nypl.org
www.nysonglines.com/canal.htm
www.nytimes.com/1989/03/04/nyregion/a-new-gang-s-violent-role-in-chinatown.html
query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE0DC1539F935A35752C0A967958260&pagewanted=all
query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE1DE1F38F933A05754C0A966958260&pagewanted=all
http://www.lowermanhattan.info/news/smoothing_out_canal_street_99774.asp
www.boweryboogie.com/2011/03/the-shantytown-of-the-manhattan-bridge-approach/