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GRANT STREET, named for British Major James Grant (who was defeated by the French in a skirmish at this site), provided a natural boundary for the town plan laid out by George Woods and Thomas Vickroy in 1784. The street ran along the foot of Grant's Hill, which rose abruptly eighty feet above the rest of the Point. An early impetus for building on Grant Street was the construction of the Pennsylvania Main Line Canal, begun in 1826. The Canal entered the city at Eleventh Street via an aqueduct along Grant Street. At Seventh Avenue the canal veered again and finally connected with the Monongahela River through the 810-foot Grant's Hill tunnel. The canal era ended in the 1850s with the coming of the railroad. When the Union Station and train shed were rebuilt after the riot of 1877, they occupied the entire northern end of the Triangle and forced Grant Street to end at Seventh Avenue. At that time, Grant Street was still largely residential and was the site of a number of churches. Only one remains, the First Lutheran Church, built in 1887.
