The Market's Neighbors

Some of the ships came in from foreign ports to the West Side docks of Manhattan carried exotic animals to supply the pet shops and distributors south of the Washington Market. In May 1946, the Market was the scene of mayhem when 75 macaques rhesus monkeys (called macacus monkeys in the NYT article) imported from India escaped their cage in a five-story pet emporium on Fulton Street and ran riot through the market. Cops, animal control officers and neighborhood kids rounded up the miscreants but at the time of The New York Times report on the incident, five fugitives were still on the loose.

To the east and south of the market on Cortlandt and Greenwich Streets was Radio Row, where a large number of small electronics shops did business. Barclay Street, near St. Peter's, the city's first Catholic congregation, specialized in ecclesiastical supply shops. Both Radio Row and the church supply shops were evicted later for the construction of the World Trade Center. See links above for photos. St Peter's church is still there and played a role on 9/11.

Canal, Lafayette and Centre Streets were home to Machine Shop row where dealers sold machine tool parts and equipment to the city's manufacturing firms. The dealers were beefing this week about government policy that gave first dibs to vets on war surplus parts and equipment, cutting out the middleman. They claimed the policy was unfair to vets.