Named after a canal: the street follows a covered-over drainage ditch.
By 1800 the polluted Collect Pond and the marshes around it were blocking the city’s growth northward, so the pond was filled in and a drain was built to the Hudson River. The Common Council then authorised a canal, a ditch 40 feet wide and 8 feet deep. It became an open sewer and was covered over in 1819; Canal Street, completed in 1820, follows its path.