Named after 96th Street, a wide crosstown street of the 1811 grid.
96th Street is one of the fifteen 100-foot-wide crosstown streets mapped in the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811. The 97th Street transverse links its two halves across Central Park, whose entrance at West 96th Street is called the Gate of All Saints. On the West Side, the street is regarded as the southern border of Manhattan Valley.