Newspaper Row

Park Row, paralleling Broadway on the east side of City Hall, has undergone a remarkable series of transformations. From a mere cowpath marking the boundaries of Dutch bouweries, or farms, it briefly became Chatham Street. New York was then a British city, and Chatham Street was a mere extension of the Broadway theatre district.

The Park Theatre, at 25 Park Row off Ann Street, was the focus of New York theatre activity in the years immediately following the Revolutionary War. It survived from 1798 to 1820 when it burned down, then to 1848, when it burned down again! Ironically, it survived the 1835 fire that threatened St. Paul's Chapel and destroyed shops and warehouses from Pearl Street to Broadway. Only the carriage drive of the Park Theatre remains, marked with the enigmatic street sign "Theatre Alley," which continually puzzles even native New Yorkers.

In the years immediately before the Civil War, Park Row became informally known as "Newspaper Row" because all of the city's great dailies had their offices on Park Row opposite City Hall. In fact, the New York Tribune office, Horace Greeley's newspaper located where Pace University now stands, became the starting place of the nativist disturbances that ultimately became the Draft Riots of 1863. Greeley's statue is presently on the City Hall grounds immediately across the street.