Eldridge Street

Originally called Third Street according to the numbering system for the Delancey Farm Grid, it was named in 1817 for Lt. Joseph C. Eldridge, whose unit was ambushed by Indian allies of the British in Upper Canada during the War of 1812.

[2] It is one of the first synagogues in the United States erected by Eastern European Jews (Ashkenazis).

American lyricist Ira Gershwin was born at 60 Eldridge Street.

[10] Musicians Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon of the American rock band Sonic Youth lived at 84 Eldridge Street in the 1980s.

Danish-American photographer and social reformer Jacob Riis took several photographs of the inmates there and documented their squalid living conditions in his 1890 book How the Other Half Lives.