The Two Bridges neighborhood is bounded by the
East River,
East River Greenway,
FDR Drive, and
South Street to the south; East Broadway to the north;
Montgomery Street to the east; and St. James Place,
Pearl Street, and
Brooklyn Bridge to the west. However, the Two Bridges Urban Renewal district lies between
Manhattan Bridge and
Williamsburg Bridge to the north. The neighborhood has two sections: the area between the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan Bridge that borders Chinatown, and an area to the east of the Manhattan Bridge that borders the
Lower East Side. To the west of the Two Bridges neighborhood is the
Civic Center and the
Financial District. In 2013, real estate developer
Extell headed by
Gary Barnett acquired a former
Pathmark grocery store site at 227 Cherry Street east of the Manhattan Bridge. In 2014, Extell announced that it would build a 68-story market-rate condo tower and a separate 13-story affordable development on the site. The HBO series
Flight of the Conchords was based in the Two Bridges neighborhood. While Democratic candidate
Kamala Harris carried New York City's Borough of Manhattan in the
2024 presidential election, a lone
precinct in Two Bridges went for her Republican opponent,
Donald Trump, by a 16 vote margin out of roughly 500 votes cast. The result marked Trump's sole precinct victory in Manhattan out of any of his three presidential runs.
Etymology One of the first uses of the term to describe the area was employed by the naming of the Two Bridges Neighborhood Council in 1955.
Two Bridges Historic District In September 2003, the Two Bridges Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The district is a nine-block area, roughly bounded by
East Broadway, Market Street,
Cherry Street, Catherine Street,
Madison Street, and St. James Place. The district includes the following landmarks on state and federal historic registers: •
First Cemetery of
Congregation Shearith Israel •
Knickerbocker Village housing development •
Mariners Temple •
The Sea and Land Church •
St. James Church •
William and Rosamond Clark House •
Alfred E. Smith House (in which New York Governor
Al Smith was born)
Earlier ethnic populations For much of the 20th century, the area was mainly populated by European immigrants such as
Jewish,
Italian,
Irish, and
Greeks. Later on, an influx of
Latin American immigrants also settled into the area especially from
Puerto Rico.
Little Fuzhou Little Fuzhou (, ), or Fuzhou Town (), a prime destination for immigrants from the
Fujian Province of China, is centered on the street of
East Broadway in Two Bridges. During the 1980s an influx of Fuzhou immigrants flooded East Broadway, and a Little Fuzhou enclave evolved on the street. With a large Fuzhou population, East Broadway is often referred to as
Little Fuzhou by Fuzhou immigrants. The Fuzhou immigrants often speak Mandarin along with their Fuzhou dialect. The Fuzhou immigrants were the only major non-Cantonese Chinese group to largely settle in Manhattan's Chinatown. This is due to the Mandarin-speaking enclaves being too expensive for Fuzhouese, and since many Fuzhou immigrants came without immigration paperwork and were forced into low paying jobs. A considerable number of Fujianese clan associations can be found in and around the street, many of which are even specified by clans from certain villages of Fuzhou region. For example, the members of "Fujian Fuqi Association" are from Fuqi Village,
Changle County, Fuzhou, Fujian Province. The Fukien American Association is also located here. Restaurants, markets and intercity bus lines run by Foochowese concentrate in East Broadway. A statue of
Lin Zexu, who was also a Fuzhouese, was erected in
Chatham Square in 1997. However, since the 2000s and especially since the 2010s, there has been rapid gentrification in the area, which is now causing the Fuzhou-speaking enclave to decline in favor of an increasing population of wealthier white professionals moving into the area. Meanwhile, another satellite Fuzhou community has emerged in Brooklyn's Sunset Park and is currently continuing to grow rapidly far surpassing the original Fuzhou-speaking enclave here in Two Bridges as well as overwhelmingly marginalizing the Fuzhou enclave in Two Bridges as the primary center of Fuzhou culture and settlement for the new incoming Fuzhou immigrants.
Gentrification Since the 2000s, gentrification has hit the area with rising property values and rent prices, which have been slowly pushing out the working-class populations as well as communities of Chinese-speaking immigrants (including Fuzhou-speaking immigrants). Hispanic residents and other non-white populations are now undergoing rapid decline to an increasing population of wealthier white professionals. ==Demographics==