Pike Street / Madison Street			(40.712383,-73.992046)
Billy the Kid's Home		The old NE corner of Allen and Grand Streets, which is now by the pedestrian walkway in the middle of Allen Street	(40.717444, -73.99123)
Before being shot to death in 1881 by Sheriff Pat Garrett, Billy the Kid led a Western gang of cattle thieves. William Bonney left his Allen Street apartment (No. 70 by Grand Street) where he was born in 1859 to escape out West after killing a man in a street fight. This poor Irish neighborhood where he was raised lost a whole strip of buildings when Allen Street was widened, including Bonney’s birthplace.
Pike Street / Allen Street		Pike Street / Allen Street	(40.713155, -73.992501)
Previously called Charlotte Street, Pike Street was re-named after Lamberton, New Jersey-born Zebulon Montgomery Pike Jr. in the 1810s. Pike became famous for his 1806 Pike expedition (similar to the Lewis and Clark Expedition) to the south and west parts of the Louisiana Purchase property. The 14,110-foot Pike's Peak in Colorado was named after Pike, who oddly never set foot on the peak named for him. An 1818 map based on the work of explorer Stephen Long calls the mountain Pike’s Peak, and John C. Fremont popularized the name Pike’s Peak after 1844, but the appellation was not based Pike ever being there. Pike actually climbed either the 11,409-foot Mount Rosa (to the southeast) or the 9,000-foot Cheyenne Peak in Colorado. Pike gave up the climb when he ended up in waist-deep snow for two days without food. Pike grew to adulthood in frontier posts and married Clarissa Harlow Brown in 1801. In 1805, the governor of the Upper Louisiana Territory, General James Wilkinson, ordered Pike to find the source of the Mississippi River, Arkansas River and Red River. Spanish authorities captured Pike, and his documents were confiscated on February 26th, 1807, in northern New Mexico, now part of Colorado. While in custody Pike had access to various maps of the southwest before he was released on July 1st, 1807, at the Louisiana border. "The Expeditions of Zebulon Montgomery Pike to Headwaters of the Mississippi River" was published in 1810. Pike's account of his expedition became famous to all the 19th century American explorers who came after him to explore the southwest and follow the Santa Fe Trail. Pike was promoted to colonel in 1812 and brigadier general in 1813. On his last military campaign, on April 27th, 1813, Pike commanded a successful attack on York (Toronto). The British garrison blew up its ammunition while retreating, and Pike was killed by debris. He was buried in Sackets Harbor, New York. Captain William Henry Allen, the youngest skipper in the Navy during the War of 1812, was a hero who commanded the brig Argus and captured 20 British ships. Allen brought the captured British ship Macedonian into NYC harbor on New Year’s Day, 1813, and received a hero’s welcome. Allen was killed by cannon fire at the age of 29 while roaming the English Channel for enemy ships. After capturing 20 British vessels in a month, the crew celebrated a bit too hard. A wine ship named Pelican caught up and attacked on August 14th, 1813. A cannonball took off his leg, and Captain William Henry Allen died a day later on August 15th. Allen Street’s notorious red light district was the area’s biggest industry, featuring NYC's largest strip of prostitutes who regularly paid off the police and Tammany Hall to exist. The other sections of the red light district were on Chrystie and Forsyth Streets. Fifty feet on the west side of Allen Street was part of the original Allen Street. The Second Avenue elevated railway that began in Chatham Square once ran above it from 1878 until it was taken down in 1942 in an unsuccessful attempt to fix its urban blight. The 138 feet on the east side of Allen Street was added in 1932 at a cost of $8 million, and almost all of it went into the pockets of the real estate interests that owned the destroyed tenements and businesses. The neighborhood was populated by Romanian and Sephardic Jews from Syria, Egypt, Greece, and Turkey. One of the old powerhouses from the Second Avenue El still stands on the NW corner of Allen and Division Streets; its old letters still attached to the building now used as a Chinese food warehouse for Tay Shing Corp. The middle malls of Allen Street and Pike Street are now in the midst of an artistic renovation by the Art Commission. A 6-foot wide path will soon go past historic references identifying famous people who came from the area. The path will also go past colored concrete, glass pavers, giant stones, and plants on both sides. It was going to have 1939 World’s Fair benches, but plans changed to newly designed benches instead.
Sons of Israel		13-15 Pike Street	(40.713598, -73.992303)
The old Congregation Sons of Israel (B'nai Israel Kalwarie) at 13-15 Pike Street, just south of East Broadway was built in 1903-1904. This Classic Revival-styled landmark synagogue designed by Alfred E Badt is where Eddie Cantor had his Bar Mitzvah in 1905. Its religious orientation since 1994 as the Sung Tak Buddist Temple has changed like the neighborhood. No longer home to rabbis and cantors (and Eddie Cantor), it has been replaced by the Cantonese.