Harlem-Lane from Central Park to Manhattanville, lithograph published by Major & Knapp for D. T. Valentine’s Manual, 1865

The lithograph depicts a scene on Harlem Lane, an old country road that began as an Indian trail. Its path extended in a northwesterly direction from roughly 107th Street between Fourth and Fifth Avenues to 123rd Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, where it branched into Kingsbridge Road and Manhattan Street. Although the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811 eliminated Harlem Lane, Andrew H. Green decided to maintain and widen both the diagonal route and Manhattan Street in order to provide better access to the river. In 1866 the state legislature gave the Central Park Commission, which he chaired, the authority to incorporate portions of Harlem Lane and the meandering Kingsbridge Road into a new thoroughfare, St. Nicholas Avenue. Following the path of two country roads, the avenue breaks Manhattan’s orthogonal plan as it runs obliquely from the northern border of Central Park and Sixth Avenue to 124th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, where it turns northward and snakes to 155th Street. AR