Houston Street

Houston Street is a large thoroughfare running east - west through the downtown area of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It serves as the dividing line between Greenwich Village and SoHo on the West Side[?] and the East Village[?] and the Lower East Side[?] on the East Side[?].

The street was widened in the late 19th century, which resulted in numerous small empty lots on both sides of the street where buildings were demolished. These lots are now used by vendors and some have been turned into community gardens[?].

The name of the street confuses many people from outside of New York because the 'OU' is pronounced like 'house', whereas the same letters in the name of the city of Houston, Texas are pronounced like 'huge.' This is due to the fact that Houston Street was named for a Georgia politician, William Houstoun[?] (1755-1813) (note that the spelling is different), long before the fame of Sam Houston who is honored by the name of the Texas city.