Tracking defunct Fitzroy Road through Chelsea

Most of the city is rectangular now, but New York used to be crossed by bending roads that followed the natural landscape.

Few survived after the street grid was established in 1811.

That includes Fitzroy Road, named for Charles Fitzroy, a British lieutenant who married the daughter of local landowner Sir Peter Warren.

Fitzroy Road, closed in the 1830s, once led from Greenwich Village to Chelsea and then met with Bloomingdale Road.

A 1920 New York Times article says it began on today’s 14th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

From there, it ran north to 20th Street, where it turned northwest across present-day Eighth Avenue, then back along Eighth Avenue to 23rd Street. That’s where it started veering back and forth from the east to west side of Eighth Avenue until 42nd Street.

At first, it doesn’t seem like any remnant of Fitzroy Road survives. But the same 1920 Times article notes that up until a few years ago—meaning the early 1900s—some vestiges existed.

And perhaps they still do. There’s an unnamed alley running in interrupted spurts between pre-1900 buildings from 15th Street (below, inaccessible thanks to a door and brick wall) and 21st Street (above, behind a gate) just east of Eighth Avenue.

Could these alleys be pieces of former horse paths—or perhaps they’re the last bits of colonial-era Fitzroy Road?

Tags: alleys of New York City, Chelsea street map, Fitzroy Road, New York City streets, New York grid system, New York street, old Greenwich Village streets, old New York streets, Sir Peter Warren