Before the neighborhood and housing communities of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village were built on the east side of Manhattan in the 1940s, the "Gas House District" occupied the area. According to our friends at Untapped Cities:
the area was formerly known as the Gas House District, named because of the two giant, circular gas storage tanks, or “gashouses.” In the late 19th and early 20th century, this Gas House District was a cheap place to live, with tenement prices being very low, as a result, it was a magnet for poor immigrants coming in from Ireland in the mid-19th century, and then Germans, Easter Europeans, Italians and Armenians by the 1920s.
Check out the accompanying article for more history on the former "Gas House District" in Manhattan.
via Untapped Cities
Matt Coneybeare
Editor in Chief
Matt enjoys exploring the City's with his partner and son. He is an avid marathon runner, and spends most of his time eating, running, and working on cool stuff.
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