Great Jones Street

For other uses, see Great Jones Street (disambiguation) and Jones Street.

The Beaux Arts firehouse at 44 Great Jones Street houses Engine Company #33 and dates from 1898–1899. It was designed by Ernest Flagg and has been a New York City Landmark since 1968.[1] (photo taken July 14, 2007)

Great Jones Street is a street in New York City's NoHo district in Manhattan, essentially another name for 3rd Street between Broadway and the Bowery.

The street was named for Samuel Jones, a lawyer who became known as "The Father of The New York Bar" due to his work on revising New York State's statutes in 1789 along with Richard Varick, who had a street in SoHo named after him. Jones was a member of the New York State Assembly from 1796 to 1799, and he also served as the state's first Comptroller.[2]

Jones deeded the site of the street to the city with the stipulation that any street that ran through the property had to be named for him. However, when the street was first created in 1789, the city already had a Jones Street in Greenwich Village, named after Gardner Jones, Samuel Jones's brother-in-law.[2][3] The confusion between two streets with the same name was broken when Samuel Jones suggested that his street be called Great Jones Street.[2][4] An alternative theory suggests that the street was called "Great" because it was the wider of the two Jones Streets.[3]

  1. ^ New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission; Dolkart, Andrew S.; Postal, Matthew A. (2009). Postal, Matthew A. (ed.). Guide to New York City Landmarks (4th ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-470-28963-1. p.62
  2. ^ a b c Moscow, Henry (1978). The Street Book: An Encyclopedia of Manhattan's Street Names and Their Origins. New York: Hagstrom Company. ISBN 978-0-8232-1275-0., p.56
  3. ^ a b Boland, Ed, Jr. "F.Y.I.". The New York Times (March 17, 2002). Accessed October 8, 2007. "In 1789 a street was opened there, but New York already had a Jones Street in Greenwich Village. So the new street was named Great Jones Street because it was wider than the norm."
  4. ^ Gordon, John Steele "A Thoroughly Unfair Quiz About New York", The New York Times (August 10, 1985). Accessed October 8, 2007. "When neither man would yield the honor of having a street named for him, Samuel settled the issue—and one-upped his brother-in-law—by saying, 'Then make mine Great Jones Street.'"