Gay Street, a short street

Street

A street is a paved public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, but is more often paved with a hard, durable...

 that marks off one block

City block

A city block, urban block or simply block is a central element of urban planning and urban design. A city block is the smallest area that is surrounded by streets. City blocks are the space for buildings within the street pattern of a city, they form the basic unit of a city's urban fabric...

 of Greenwich Village

Greenwich Village

Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...

 in the New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 borough

Borough (New York City)

New York City, one of the largest cities in the world, is composed of five boroughs. Each borough now has the same boundaries as the county it is in. County governments were dissolved when the city consolidated in 1898, along with all city, town, and village governments within each county...

 of Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

.

This street, originally a stable alley, was probably named for an early landowner, not for the sexuality of any denizens. Nor is it likely, as is sometimes claimed, that its namesake was Sidney Howard Gay, editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard; he would have been 19 when the street was christened in 1833. The mistaken association with an abolitionist is probably because the street's residents were mainly black, many of them servants of the wealthy white families on Washington Square. Later it became noted as an address for black musicians, giving the street a bohemian reputation.

A newspaper dated May 11, 1775, had a classified ad for one R. Gay, who lived on the Bowery

Bowery, Manhattan

Bowery , commonly called "the Bowery," is a street and a small neighborhood in the southern portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan...

, and who advertised a gelding

Gelding

A gelding is a castrated horse or other equine such as a donkey or a mule. Castration, and the elimination of hormonally driven behavior associated with a stallion, allows a male horse to be calmer and better-behaved, making the animal quieter, gentler and potentially more suitable as an everyday...

 for sale.

Since it was once too narrow to be a full-fledged street, the City of New York widened it in 1833; as a result Federal houses

Federal architecture

Federal-style architecture is the name for the classicizing architecture built in the United States between c. 1780 and 1830, and particularly from 1785 to 1815. This style shares its name with its era, the Federal Period. The name Federal style is also used in association with furniture design...

 of 1826-1833 line the west side of the street, while on the east side, following a hiatus caused by the Panic of 1837

Panic of 1837

The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis or market correction in the United States built on a speculative fever. The end of the Second Bank of the United States had produced a period of runaway inflation, but on May 10, 1837 in New York City, every bank began to accept payment only in specie ,...

, the houses are of 1844-1860, with remnants of Greek Revival detailing in doorways and window surrounds.

The street extends from Christopher Street

Christopher Street (Manhattan)

Christopher Street is a street in the West Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is the continuation of 9th St. to the west of its intersection with 6th Ave. The Stonewall Inn is located on Christopher Street, and, therefore, the street was at the center of New York's...

 one block south to Waverly Place

Waverly Place

Waverly Place is a narrow street in the Greenwich Village section of New York City, in the borough of Manhattan. Waverly changes direction roughly at its midpoint, turning from a north-by-northwest/south-by-southeast street to a northwest/southeast street...

, between and roughly parallel to Sixth

Sixth Avenue (Manhattan)

Sixth Avenue – officially Avenue of the Americas, although this name is seldom used by New Yorkers – is a major thoroughfare in New York City's borough of Manhattan, on which traffic runs northbound, or "uptown"...

 and Seventh

Seventh Avenue (Manhattan)

Seventh Avenue, known as Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard north of Central Park, is a thoroughfare on the West Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is southbound below Central Park and a two-way street north of the park....

 Avenues. It runs through the site of a brewery owned by Wouter van Twiller

Wouter van Twiller

Wouter van Twiller was an employee of the Dutch West India Company and the Director-General of New Netherland from 1633 until 1638...

, who succeeded Peter Minuit

Peter Minuit

Peter Minuit, Pieter Minuit, Pierre Minuit or Peter Minnewit was a Walloon from Wesel, in present-day North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, then part of the Duchy of Cleves. He was the Director-General of the Dutch colony of New Netherland from 1626 until 1633, and he founded the Swedish colony of...

 as Governor

Governor

A governor is a governing official, usually the executive of a non-sovereign level of government, ranking under the head of state...

 of New Netherland

New Netherland

New Netherland, or Nieuw-Nederland in Dutch, was the 17th-century colonial province of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands on the East Coast of North America. The claimed territories were the lands from the Delmarva Peninsula to extreme southwestern Cape Cod...

 in 1633. The name first appeared officially in the Common Council

Common Council

Common Council may refer to:* The Court of Common Council, an elected body of the City of London Corporation* Buffalo Common Council, the legislative branch of the Buffalo, NY City Government...

 minutes for April 23, 1827, which record a health inspector's complaint against a privy belonging to one A. S. Pell of Gay Street.

The 1943 movie, A Night to Remember

A Night to Remember (1943 film)

A Night to Remember is a mystery comedy film starring Loretta Young and Brian Aherne. It was directed by Richard Wallace, and is based on the novel The Frightened Stiff by Kelley Roos...

portrays 13 Gay Street as the address of the building where most of the action, including a murder, occurs. In 1996 Sheryl Crow made a video on Gay Street for the song " A Change Would Do You Good".