Astor Place was originally a
powwow point for the various
Lenape tribes of
Manhattan and was called Kintecoying or, "Crossroads of Three Nations". Astor Place was once known as
Art Street. From 1767 through 1859,
Vauxhall Gardens, a country resort, was located on this street. The area belonged to
John Jacob Astor, and Astor Place was renamed after him soon after his death, in 1848. This location made the gardens accessible to the people of both the Broadway and Bowery districts. Astor Place was the site of the
Astor Opera House, at the intersection of Astor Place, East 8th Street, and Lafayette Street. Built to be
the fashionable theater in 1847, it was the site of the
Astor Place Riot of May 10, 1849. Anti-British feelings were running so high among New York's Irish at the height of the
Great Famine that they found an outlet in the rivalry between American actor
Edwin Forrest and the English
William Charles Macready, who were both presenting versions of
Macbeth in nearby theatres. The protest in the streets against Macready became so violent that the police fired into the crowd. At least 18 died, and hundreds were injured. The theater itself never recovered from the association with the riot and was closed down shortly afterwards. The interior was demolished, and the building was turned over to the use of the
New York Mercantile Library. From 1852 until 1936, Astor Place was the location of Bible House, headquarters of the
American Bible Society. In the mid- to late-19th century, the area was home to many of the wealthiest New Yorkers, including members of the
Astor,
Vanderbilt, and
Delano families. Editor and poet
William Cullen Bryant, and inventor and entrepreneur
Isaac Singer lived in the neighborhood in the 1880s. By the turn of the century, however, warehouses and manufacturing firms moved in, the elite moved to places such as
Murray Hill, and the area fell into disrepair. The neighborhood was revitalized beginning in the late 1960s and 1970s. called for some changes to be made to Astor Place beginning in 2013. The street would end at Lafayette Street rather than continuing east to
Third Avenue. This allowed the expansion of the "Alamo Plaza", where the
Alamo Cube is located, south to the southern sidewalk of Astor Place between Lafayette Street and Cooper Square, and the creation of an expanded sidewalk north of the Cooper Union Foundation Building. The Astor Place subway entrance plaza was also redesigned, and Fourth Avenue south of East 9th Street and the western part of Cooper Square was converted to be used by buses only, with a new pedestrian plaza created on Cooper Square between East 5th and 6th Streets. The traffic pattern of the area changed significantly, with Astor Place from Lafayette Street to Third Avenue becoming East Eighth Street eastbound, and the formerly bidirectional Cooper Square bus lane becoming northbound-only. was first proposed in 2008, then abandoned and re-proposed in 2011. Construction started in September 2013, and the work was completed in November 2016. ==Points of interest==