1933

Manhattan: Barrow Street - Commerce Street

Barrow Street, east from Commerce Street. The house at the right is 41 Commerce Street. The point of view is the old boundary line between the Trinity Church Farm on the west and the Herring Farm on the east. This part of Barrow Street is the older part, laid out around 1800 under the name of Reason Street, a name characteristic of the age of Romanticism and of the French Revolution. Other streets in this part of town were named Commerce Street, Art Street, and Science Street, of which only the first named survives as such. The Villager credits the name Reason Street to Thomas Paine's "Age of Reason" (see Grove Street). May 20, 1933

Photo from the New York Public Library - Milstein Collection