Named after 14th Street, where western Manhattan’s regular street grid begins.
The Commissioners’ Plan of 1811 made 14th Street the southernmost of 15 east–west streets to be 100 feet wide, while other streets were 60 feet. North of it the numbered streets form a near-perfect grid; south of it, Greenwich Village keeps an older, less uniform plan. In the city’s early history 14th Street was an upscale address, but it lost that status as the city grew northward.