Oloff Stevensen Van Cortlandt was a man who owned a brewery on Brouwers Street ("brouwer" is the dutch word for brewer). He later came to have a large and powerful family of landowners and mayors. Brouwers Street was named this because of all of the breweries located on it. In the 1650s, heavy delivery wagons sunk into the mud on the street. So Oloff helped get the city to pave the street in stone, renaming it Stone Street, and making it the first paved street in America.

*Picture from "Stone Street..."

Blair, Cynthia. (2003). 1657: Stone Street is City’s First Paved Street. Newsday. Retrieved January 5, 2004, from: http://www.newsday.com/other/special/ny-ihny0801story.htmlstory

• This is a short article, but it is purely on the first stone pavement, in New York City. It provided all the details that I needed, and a picture.