Why Is Houston Street Not Pronounced Like the Texas City?

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/26/nyregion/houston-street-pronounce.html

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Q. Most transplants to New York quickly learn that the Lower Manhattan street is pronounced HOW-stun, instead of HUE-stun, like the city. But why is it pronounced that way?

A. Because the city and street trace their names to two very different Mr. Houstons, according to Gerard Koeppel, author of the 2015 book “City on a Grid: How New York Became New York.”

“Houston the city is named after Sam Houston,” i.e., the politician who secured the independence of Texas from Mexico, Mr. Koeppel said. “Our street was named after a fellow named William Houstoun, who was a prominent Georgian, from a long line of Scotsmen.”

Despite Mr. Houstoun’s Southern pedigree, it was his wife, Mary Bayard, also from a Scottish family, who had the kind of clout that earns a person a street named in his honor.

The Bayards owned several large farms in Manhattan. In 1788, Mary’s father, Nicholas Bayard III, ran into financial trouble; to settle it, he had his 100-acre farm in what is now SoHo carved into real estate. The property was converted into 35 whole or partial blocks within seven east-west and eight north-south streets, on a grid pattern. All of the original street names but one — Houstoun — have since been changed.

And even that one has changed a little bit.

Mr. Koeppel is not sure when the second “u” was dropped from William Houstoun’s name, but he has a theory as to why: “Maybe it was because Sam Houston was getting so famous,” he said, and too many people confused the two. If that is the case, tourists could be forgiven for bungling the pronunciation.

In fact, Mr. Koeppel is less likely to find fault with outsiders than with New Yorkers when it comes to understanding the city’s roots. “Basically, New Yorkers don’t really know a lot about their history. Bostonians and Philadelphians do, but New Yorkers tend to pave everything over and rebuild,” he said.