Hester Street, Residential street in the Lower East Side, Manhattan, US
Hester Street is a residential street in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, running from Essex Street to Centre Street, where it becomes Howard Street. Along the way, old brick buildings stand next to newer constructions, and small shops and restaurants line the sidewalks.
The street takes its name from Hester Leisler, whose father Jacob Leisler was executed for treason in 1691. By the late 1800s and early 1900s, it had become a dense immigrant neighborhood, home mainly to Jewish families from Eastern Europe who lived in tenements and ran street stalls.
The Hester Street Fair takes place every Saturday at the corner of Hester and Essex Streets, where vendors sell food and goods much like the pushcart sellers of the past did. A restaurant on the block, Vincent's, is said to have drawn famous regulars like Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett.
The street sits in the Lower East Side of Manhattan and is easy to reach on foot from nearby subway stops. Visiting on a weekend gives you the chance to see the outdoor market in action and find more shops and food vendors open along the sidewalks.
A former stable for police horses on the street was converted into a residential condo, a change that sums up how much the block has shifted over time. The street also once housed the First Roumanian-American Synagogue at number 70, a gathering place for Romanian Jewish immigrants, until a fire damaged the building in 2006.
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