Canal Street is a major east–west street of over 1 mile (1.6 km) in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States, running from East Broadway between Essex and Jefferson Streets in the east, to West Street between Watts and Spring Streets in the west. It runs through the neighborhood of Chinatown, and forms the southern boundaries of SoHo and Little Italy as well as the northern boundary of Tribeca. The street acts as a major connector between Jersey City, New Jersey, via the Holland Tunnel (I-78), and Brooklyn in New York City via the Manhattan Bridge. It is a two-way street for most of its length, with two unidirectional stretches between Forsyth Street and the Manhattan Bridge.
Stores and vendors dot Canal Street, hawking merchandise
Broadway crossing the canal in 1811
The Citizens Savings Bank building at 58 Bowery on the corner of Canal Street in Chinatown, currently an HSBC bank branch and also a New York City Landmark
The former Loew's Canal Street Theatre at 31 Canal Street, a New York City Landmark
Lower Manhattan, also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York, is the southernmost part of Manhattan, the central borough of New York City. The neighborhood is the historical birthplace of New York City and for its first 225 years was the entirety of the city. Lower Manhattan serves as the seat of government of both Manhattan and the entire City of New York. Because there are no municipally defined boundaries for the neighborhood, a precise population cannot be quoted, but several sources have suggested that it was one of the fastest-growing locations in New York City between 2010 and 2020, related to the influx of young adults and significant development of new housing units.
Lower Manhattan, including Wall Street, anchoring New York City's role as the world's principal fintech and financial center, with One World Trade Center, the tallest skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere
New Amsterdam, centered in what eventually became Lower Manhattan, in 1664, the year England took control and renamed it New York
Peter Stuyvesant
Cooper Union at Astor Place, one of Lower Manhattan's most storied buildings, where Abraham Lincoln gave his famed Cooper Union speech on February 27, 1860