South Street Seaport Historic District

This seven-and-a-half-block area of lower Manhattan, with two piers on the East River, extends the South Street Seaport district to its final boundaries. Pearl Street marks the western edge because all land to the east was created by landfill between the late 17th and early 19th centuries. The Brooklyn Bridge bounds it on the north. Buildings are mostly three to six stories of brick, with earlier walls in handmade brick laid in Flemish bond and later ones in machine-made brick. Greek Revival granite store fronts and cast-iron fronts survive. Notable sites include the Captain Joseph Rose House at 273 Water Street, built about 1773 and called the oldest commercial structure in the city, though fire left only parts of its facade. A wooden building at Dover and Water Streets is the last wooden frame structure south of Canal Street. The sealed landfill deposits also give the area archeological importance.