Less than a half-mile north of Broad Street, a brook flowed into the East River, its path marked today by Maiden Lane. The stream had its origins at Nassau Street and its mouth at Pearl Street. In colonial times, it was known as Maagde Paatje, Dutch for “a footpath used by lovers along a rippling brook,” according to “The WPA Guide to New York City.” Other historians have a less romantic theory for Maiden Lane`s name: that the river that ran there was used for washing sheets. As the city crept north, the stream was buried and covered with a paved road in 1698.
