Delancey Street (Manhattan)

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Image:Best Deal on the Bowery.jpg Delancey Street is one of the main thoroughfares of Manhattan's Lower East Side, running east from the Bowery to connect to the Williamsburg Bridge to Brooklyn. Businesses range from delis to check-cashing stores to bars. Delancey Street has long been known for its discount and bargain clothing stores. Famous establishments include the Bowery Ballroom, built in 1929, Ratner's kosher restaurant (now closed), and the Essex Street Market, which was built by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia to avoid pushcart congestion on the neighborhood's narrow streets. As the Lower East Side becomes gentrified, more upscale retail and nightlife establishments have moved in. Delancey Street is named after James De Lancey, Sr., whose farm was located in what is now the Lower East Side.

The Template:NYCS F, Template:NYCS J, Template:NYCS M and Template:NYCS Z subway trains stop on Delancey at Essex Street. The J, M, and Z trains also stop at Delancey Street near the Bowery. The M9, M14 and M15 buses stop at Delancey Street, and the B39 bus traverses the Williamsburg Bridge.

Delancey Street used to be one of the main shopping streets in the Jewish Lower East Side. Today the neighborhood around Delancey is a mix of young professionals and artists along with working class African Americans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Chinese. Delancey Street is considered by many to be the unofficial northern border of Manhattan's Chinatown. Shopping bargains can still be found along Delancey Street, mostly at chain stores such as Payless ShoeSource, Hyperactive, and Gem Value Stores. A Starbucks opened on Delancey Street in 2005, signaling the further gentrification of the neighborhood.

From west to east, Delancey Street starts from the Bowery, intersects Chrystie Street, Forsyth Street, Eldridge street, Allen Street, Orchard Street, Ludlow Street, Essex Street, Norfolk Street, Suffolk Street, Clinton Street, Attorney Street, Ridge Street, Pitt Street, Columbia Street (Bialystoker Place), and Lewis Street, and ends at the FDR East River Drive. The street is known as Kenmare Street west of the Bowery.

There is also a Delancey Street, of no particular distinction, in London NW1, England

In art

The 1988 film Crossing Delancey is a romantic comedy focusing on the different shades of urban life in the area.