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 of 1826-1833 line the west side of the street, while on the east side, following a hiatus caused by the Panic of 1837, the houses are from 1844 to 1860, with remnants of Greek Revival detailing in doorways and window surrounds.[3]
The street extends from Christopher Street one block south to Waverly Place, between and roughly parallel to Sixth and Seventh Avenues. It runs through the site of a brewery owned by Wouter van Twiller, who succeeded Peter Minuit as Governor of New Netherland in 1633. The name first appeared officially in the Common Council 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 1942 movie A Night to Remember portrays 13 Gay Street as the address of the building where most of the action, including a murder, occurs. The opening shots of Cyndi Lauper's video for "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" were shot on Gay Street in September 1983. In 1996, Sheryl Crow made a video on Gay Street for the song "A Change Would Do You Good."
On Good Friday, April 14, 2017, an anonymous person chained a wooden cross to a street sign on the sidewalk of Gay St. This anonymous person moved the cross to different parts of the street for several days. On April 23, residents of the street painted the cross in bright, rainbow colors, and added the word "Love," to the top of the cross.[4]
See also
Doyers Street, another historically short and crooked street in Manhattan
↑Joyce Gold, From Trout Stream to Bohemia: A Walking Guide to Greenwich Village History (1988:86f); Gold notes that though it is the second shortest street in Greenwich Village, one cannot see its full length because of the angle at the center.
