Grand Street (Brooklyn) - History

History

When Williamsburg was an independent town (and, later, city), Grand St. was its first main east-west commercial street which acted as a dividing line between the Northside of town and the Southside. Street numbering originated here with North 1st St, North 2nd St (now Metropolitan Avenue) and so on running parallel to Grand to the north and South 1st St, South 2nd St and so on progressing to the south. Its initial segments from the East River were first named Washington Street and then Dunham Street. It was extended to the southeast to Roebling Street in 1812 and to the then village line between Rodney & Keap Streets in 1830. Soon after, the street was extended to Union Avenue in the new third ward of Williamsburg and bent on an angle to the east in order to pass through the property of several prominent land owners. Grand street was opened from Bushwick Avenue to Metropolitan Avenue in 1858.

In the 19th century, before the construction of the Williamsburg Bridge, the Grand Street Ferry connected Grand Street, Brooklyn to Grand Street, Manhattan. The Grand Street Line was a streetcar line along the road. Two Long Island Rail Road stations existed along the street in both boroughs. Grand Street (LIRR Evergreen station) along the Evergreen Branch near Willamsburg from 1868 to 1885, and Grand Street (LIRR Main Line station), a station in Elmhurst along Main Line that also served the Rockaway Beach Branch from 1913 to 1925.

At some point between the construction of the Williamsburg Bridge and 1913 (it appears on a 1913 map of Brooklyn), Grand Street was connected to the bridge plaza from the elbow bend near Union Avenue by the Grand Street Extension (now named Borinquen Place) and this became the main flow for car traffic. In 1950, Grand Street was severed by the BQE between Marcy Avenue and Rodney Street.