The story behind Catherine Street reads like an American history timeline and begins with a Dutch brewer, Harmanus Rutgers, who purchased about a 100 acres of land that stretched from present-day Catherine Street as well as the cross streets East Broadway, Oliver, James, Cherry, Madison and Monroe.

The only daughter of the wealthy Anna Bancker and Johannes De Peyster (who was appointed mayor in 1698), Catherine was part of one of the elite Dutch mercantile families that lived in lower ...

Catherine Street Marker. Inscription. The original shoreline of the 17th century Dutch colony was Pearl Street and Cherry Street. Landfill extended it throughout the maritime period to the present line. As early as 1716, there was a shipyard on the East River at Catherine Street.

Catherine Lane, like Catherine Street in the Lower East Side, is named for Catherine Rutgers, the wife of Henry Rutgers who owned a farm in southeast Manhattan in the early to mid 18th Century. Originally the New York Life Insurance Company building, known for its distinctive clock (out of the picture), dominates the block bordered by Leonard ...