Where Vesey and Greenwich Streets and West Broadway come together is a low, rough-hewn rock house. It has been used as a shoe store since the early part of the century. On its roof is a monster boot bearing the date of 1832, which took part in the Croton water parade and a dozen other celebrations. In pre-revolutionary days, when the ground where the building stands was all Hudson River, and the water extended as far as the present Greenwich Street, according to tradition, this was a lighthouse. There have been many changes in the outward appearance, but the foundation of solid rock is the same as when the waters swept around it.
Greenwich Street follows the line of a road which led from the city to Greenwich Village. This road was on the waterside. It was called Greenwich Road. South of Canal Street, west of Broadway, was a marshy tract known as Lispenard's Meadows. Over this swamp Greenwich Road crossed on a raised causeway. When the weather was bad for any length of time, the road became heavy and in places was covered by the strong tide from the river. At such times travel took an inland route, along the Post Road (now the Bowery) and by Obelisk Lane (now Astor Place and Greenwich Avenue).
St. Peter's Church, at the southeast corner of Barclay and Church Streets, the home of the oldest Roman Catholic congregation in the city, was built in 1786, and rebuilt in 1838. The congregation was formed in 1783, although mass was celebrated in private houses before that for the few scattered Catholic families.
The two blocks included between Barclay and Murray Streets, West Broadway and Church Street, were occupied until 1857 by the buildings and grounds of Columbia College. That part of the Queen's Farm lying west of Broadway between the present Barclay and Murray Streets--a strip of land then in the outskirts of the city--in 1754 was given to the governors of King's College. During the Revolution the college suspended exercises, resuming in 1784 as Columbia College under an act passed by the Legislature of the State. In 1814, in consideration of lands before granted to the college which had been ceded to New Hampshire in settlement of the boundary, the college was granted by the State a tract of farming land known as the Hosack Botanical Garden. This is the twenty acres lying between Forty-seventh and Forty-ninth Streets, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. At that time the city extended but little above the City Hall Park, and this land was unprofitable and for many years of considerable expense to the college. By 1839 the city had crept past the college and the locality being built up the college grounds were cramped between the limits of two blocks. In 1854, Park Place was opened through the grounds of the college from Church Street to West Broadway (then called College Place). Until about 1816 the section of Park Place west of the college grounds was called Robinson Street. In 1857 the college was moved to Madison Avenue, between Forty-ninth and Fiftieth Streets, and in 1890 it was re-organized on a university basis.