Delancey Street

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Delancey Street is one of the main thoroughfares of New York City's Lower East Side in Manhattan, running from the street's western terminus at the Bowery to its eastern end at FDR Drive, connecting to the Williamsburg Bridge and Brooklyn at Clinton Street. It is an eight-lane, median-divided street, which is west of Clinton Street, and a service road for the Williamsburg Bridge east of Clinton Street. West of Bowery, Delancey Street becomes Kenmare Street, which continues as a four-lane, undivided street to Lafayette Street.

Delancey Street is named after James De Lancey Sr., chief justice, lieutenant governor, and acting colonial governor of the Province of New York, whose farm was located in what is now called the Lower East Side. There is also a Delancey Street in Camden Town, London, England, a residential street named after another James Delancey, of Marylebone, who had a number of fields west of the High Street.^[1]

Businesses range from delis to check-cashing stores to bars. Delancey Street has long been known for its discount and bargain clothing stores. Famous establishments include the Bowery Ballroom, built in 1929, Ratner's kosher restaurant (now closed), and the Essex Street Market, which was built by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia to avoid pushcart congestion on the neighborhood's narrow streets.

Until the middle 20th century, Delancey Street was a main shopping street in the predominantly Jewish and Irish Lower East Side. Since the late 2000s, the neighborhood around Delancey is more diverse; including African Americans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and Chinese. Gentrification has brought more upscale retail and nightlife establishments.^{[citation needed]}