Named after 14th Street, where western Manhattan’s regular street grid begins.
The Commissioners’ Plan of 1811 made 14th Street the southernmost of 15 crosstown streets 100 feet wide, while other streets were 60 feet wide. West of Third Avenue it marks the southern end of the grid; in Greenwich Village, to the south, an older and less uniform plan applies. The street is also the border between Lower Manhattan and Midtown.