In the Hollywood-inspired imaginations of people who don’t live here, New York City is a place with shadowy alleys around every corner where danger lurks.
Though the city past and present certainly has its dark pockets and little-traveled lanes, Gotham never really had many alleys, even in its earliest days. The creators of the 1811 Commissioner’s Plan, which laid out the street grid, wisely knew that real estate would be too valuable to intentionally leave undeveloped.
Some 18th and early 19th century alleys became true streets, others got wiped off the map. A few continue to exist. I’m a fan of Theater Alley, beside Park Row near City Hall, was once home to Manhattan’s theater district. Three-block Cortlandt Alley makes for an evocative cut-through from Franklin Street to Canal Street.
Then there’s Mechanics Alley. In the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge approach and flanked by exhausted tenements and squat commercial spaces, this mostly abandoned strip of rough asphalt used to run from Cherry Street to Monroe Street, according to the 1850 street map above.
Today, it reaches three full blocks to Henry Street between Market and Pike Streets. Though it tripled its size by subsuming another now-forgotten lane a few blocks up, Mechanics Alley is about as marginalized as a street can get. It’s possible to walk up and down it several times in the middle of the day and not spot another human.
The lack of foot traffic makes sense in this patch of Lower East Side. Stuck between two bridges and steps from the East River, it’s no longer a densely populated part of Manhattan. But how did Mechanics Alley come to be in the busy post-colonial city, when this neighborhood was teeming with people? How did it get its name, which suggests cars and garages?
It all has to do with the waterfront. In the late 18th century, shipbuilding yards “covered the waterfront all the way to Corlears Hook, attracting carpenters, smiths, shipwrights, coopers, chandlers, joiners, sail makers and rope makers,” stated reporter Daniel Schneider in a 2000 New York Times column.
According to Schneider, Mechanics Alley began appearing on maps in the early 19th century. At the time, these and other artisans and craftsmen were called mechanics, he wrote. “New York was one of many American cities to have a Mechanics Row, Alley, or Place near the waterfront, usually where ships were built and repaired,” he explained.
Sure enough, Manhattan had another Mechanics Alley—actually Mechanics Place—which spanned second and third streets on the east side of Avenue A, per Valentine’s Manual of Old New York in 1922.
Avenue A wasn’t exactly on the waterfront. But this main street in today’s East Village was close enough to what used to be called the Dry Dock District, a 19th century center of shipbuilding along the East River where thousands of dockworkers, shipbuilders, and mechanics once lived and worked.
A second Mechanics Place existed off Rivington Street between the now-demapped Lewis and Goerck Streets, states oldstreets.com.
Another author advanced a different idea of how this alley got its name. “Though no documentation exists for the name of this short alley, it may be associated with the early history of the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen,” wrote Sanna Feirstein in Naming New York: Manhattan Places and How They Got Their Names.
“Formerly founded in 1785 and still in existence today, the Society’s original mission was to advance and protect the political and economic interests of American craftsmen,” explained Feirstein. “Though their first meeting hall was at Broadway and Park Place, they owned land in the Chatham Square area, giving rise to the speculation that their organization may be the basis for this alley’s name.”
The mechanics may be gone, along with the riverfront industries that relied on their skills. Their organizations have moved away as well; the General Society occupies a beautiful building on 44th Street.
But ghostly Mechanics Alley, marked up with graffiti and mostly hidden beside a bridge approach, is a monument to the tradesmen and craftsmen who helped build the modern city.
[Second image: NYPL Digital Collections; sixth image: LOC]
Tags: How Mechanics Alley Got Its Name, Lower East Side Alleys, Mechanics Alley Lower East Side NYC, Mechanics Alley New York City, New York City Alleys, The Last Alleys in New York City, The Story of Mechanics Alley NYC
Ephemeral New York 
July 18, 2022 at 6:59 am |
Great post, Esther! William Parker, the father of Eliza Parker Tredwell (matriarch of what is now the Merchant’s House Museum), worked as a gilder and glassmaker after the Revolution. He moved his family around this area over the years, and was a member of the GSMT until his membership was revoked because he couldn’t afford the dues. No doubt he knew Mechanics Alley well!
July 18, 2022 at 1:59 pm |
Thanks Ann, and I love this little anecdote concerning one of my favorite New York City families!
July 18, 2022 at 8:22 am |
Where I grew up in New Rochelle, we had a narrow Mechanic Street which no doubt served the building trade, likely carriages and wagons, as the waterfront was a couple of miles away. It was very narrow until a 1950s “slum clearance project” widened it for use as a major access road out of downtown to the then-new New England Thruway. The name was ultimately lost as well, becoming Memorial Highway. No memorial to the mechanics, I guess….
July 18, 2022 at 2:00 pm |
I wish they kept the name, it would inspire people to look up what it meant, who the “mechanics” were. Memorial Highway doesn’t really mean anything unless a name or entity worth memorializing is attached!
July 18, 2022 at 3:00 pm
I wish they had, too – I keep looking for the “Mechanic Street” sign when I get back to NR – not that often, of course. Then again, the entirety of downtown NR is radically different from when I was growing up.
July 20, 2022 at 11:57 am |
Paul – would Mechanic Street have been adjacent to the (short-lived) NYB&W railway? Any chance the name was related to the rail ops?
July 20, 2022 at 9:03 pm
No; it was perpendicular to the New Haven RR, running sounth from there to Main Street. I’m a big NYW&b afficianado, though!
July 21, 2022 at 11:01 am
i too enjoy the old Wiggle and Bump – used to dig in an old midden pile just south of the Quaker Ridge station off Stratton Rd. (now the Brookwood housing development).
July 21, 2022 at 2:50 pm
The Quaker Ridge station is still occupied by descendents of the family that bought it shortly after the railroad was abandoned. On my bucket list is getting inside to see the place if I can; I tried a few years ago, but it was suggested to wait a few months and ask again, but then real life intervened.
I can’t believe they put a luxury apartment building in the railroad cut at the North Avenue station. Interestingly, my best friend from my teen years lived in a house next to the right-of-way on Disbrow Circle, just southwest of the station. So many changes in Wykagyl….
July 21, 2022 at 4:19 pm
Good ol’ Wacky Gill. Used to work at the A&P and Gristedes just nearby…
July 18, 2022 at 5:06 pm |
Not having alleys was perhaps not the best design. It results in all buildings being serviced from the street, resulting in congestion, and worse, the use of the sidewalk for garbage storage and pickup.
July 20, 2022 at 2:57 am |
Yes, very true. But New York has been all about making money since the very beginning, and the officials planning the street grid were probably landowners who wanted to make the most cash possible when it came time to sell.
July 20, 2022 at 11:46 am |
Mechanic was also another word for joiners, housewrights and carpenters. In the 18th and 19th centuries it didn’t mean Car Mechanics. Streets were named Mechanic Street if a lot of joiners or housewrights lived on them.
July 20, 2022 at 7:37 pm |
Cities in other countries are lined with what we might call “alleys.” As Lance says, they allow buildings to be serviced from behind or the side rather than from the street. They no doubt contribute to the pleasant experience of walking the streets of cities like Paris and Florence.