Marketfield Street is a short one-way, one-block-long alleyway in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City. The street begins as a southern branch of Beaver Street, then veers east and north, ending at Broad Street. Alternative past names include Exchange Street, Field Street, Fieldmarket Street, Oblique Road, and Petticoat Lane.[1]
The name Marketfield Street is a translation from the Dutch.[2][3] The street originally ran to the Dutch livestock market, Marcktveldt, located near where Battery Park is now, which was then outside the walls of the city.[1][4] The market operated from 1638 to 1647. In 1641, the Governor-General of New Netherland, Willem Kieft, opened the colony's first cattle market there.[1][5]
By 1680, mainly poor people were living on Marketfield Street.[6] In 1688, the city's first French Huguenot church was built there.[7][8]
In September 1776, Marketfield Street was part of the area devastated by the Great Fire of New York, which engulfed the southwestern tip of Manhattan.[9] In 1821, a hurricane hit the East Coast, destroying the street's dock.[10] In 1821, Marketfield Street, which overlooked the Hudson River, had a single name throughout its length,[11] but by the 1830s, the street was renamed "Battery Place" from Bowling Green to the Hudson River.[1] The 1882 construction of the New York City Produce Exchange demolished the block of the street that contained the French church.[1]