Origins
Below is a re-draft, drawn in 1916, of the Castello Plan of New Amsterdam of 1660. New Yorkers familiar with the downtown area will notice that it actually has not changed that much. The main lateral avenue seen below is Broadway, beginning at Fort Amsterdam and running North (right as seen below) through the defensive rampart at Wall St. Wall Street runs down (East) to the water where it intersects with Pearl Street, which is where the slave market stood and where Captain Kidd had his house. We'll take you by all these locations on our tour of Lower Manhattan.

The street with the canal running through it is Broad Street. The Canal branches out at Beaver Street, running West towards Bowling Green and North where it almost reaches Exchange Place. The first bridge over the canal became Bridge Street, and the stubby peninsula to the lower left of the Fort represents Whitehall, where Governor Peter Stuyvesant carried out Manhattan's first reclamation project upon which to build his governor's mansion. It is now home to the Whitehall Ferry.

The Water Gate at Pearl & Wall Streets - 1691

Shoreline Expansion
These tiny, crooked streets remain the core Lower Manhattan today. The island has grown outward by landfilling huge tracts of riparian land. Three more avenues would be added below Pearl Street, and the entire World Trade Complex would be created above the seaward wall on the West side of the island. Click here to see how the shoreline expanded over the years.