MANHATTAN, N.Y. — Broadway is arguably one of the most famous thoroughfares on the planet, running for 13 miles through Manhattan and the Bronx and another 18 into Westchester. Only a few hundred feet from Broadway on the west side of Harlem, Manhattanville, is a shorter road called Old Broadway. Residents like Rafael Quinones say not everyone knows exactly where it is.

"They don't know where it's at, they don't know where it's at until you tell them where it's at," said Quinones.

Old Broadway runs from West 125th Street to West 129th Street. Along the way is the Old Broadway Synagogue, which has welcomed worshippers since the early 20s, a reminder of once large Jewish population in Harlem. The street was cut in half in the late 1950s to make way for the NYCHA Manhattanville Houses. It picks up at 131st Street and ends at 133rd, and that's it. So, how did this all happen? Resident Emmanuel Quarshie would love to know.

"I don't understand between the old one and the new one," said Quarshie.

To explain I tracked down the New York Public Library's Curator of Maps Ian Fowler, who says Old Broadway was once part of Bloomingdale Road, a curvy, Native American trail turned into a road by the British in Early 1700s. In 1869, when the city wanted to extend its street grid further north, Bloomingdale Road was made into what we now know as Broadway.

"When the development of the grid got to the Upper West Side, they decided they wanted like the streets and avenues they wanted something that was straighter that was more convenient for commerce, so they created the new Broadway, which connected up to the west side and then cut off the Old Broadway into the two sections that we know today," said Fowler.

As for why Old Broadway wasn't included in the revamp of Bloomingdale Road, Fowler says it may have been a financial decision.

"There's some conjecture that it was kind of a tony area in the 1840s and the 1850s. There were some really nice houses so the thought is it would have been too disruptive to the populous and it would of cost the city too much money to displace them through eminent domain," Fowler said.

In the end, Old Broadway remains as a link to the city's past, and folks here seem to have embraced it.

"Wherever you go you never find Old Broadway unless you are right here. This is Old Broadway. And that's it," said resident Mike C.