High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Canal Street is a major street in New York City, crossing lower Manhattan to join New Jersey in the west (via the Holland Tunnel I-78) to Brooklyn in the east (via the Manhattan Bridge). It forms the main spine of Chinatown, and separates it from Little Italy. It also forms the northern boundary of the Tribeca neighborhood and the southern boundary of SoHo. Canal Street takes its name from an actual canal that was dug in the early 1800s to drain the contaminated and disease-ridden Collect Pond into the Hudson River. The pond was filled in 1811, and Canal Street was completed in 1820 following the angled path the canal had. The elimination of Collect Pond actually made the surrounding land even marshier, as the area had many natural springs that now had nowhere to drain.