It was, in point of fact, a trading station only, occupied by those who met there to exchange goods with the natives of Hobokan (116), a terminal to which the people of the East Jersey mountain regions brought skins and meat, to be ferried directly across the river to Sapohanikan. The name denotes its position "over against the pipe-making place," and thus indicates its character as a convenient spot for communication rather than for residence.

We may assume that the path from this place was a well-trodden and probably widened way on which the bearers of bundles of furs, carcasses of moose and deer, baskets of oysters, and strings of fish, passed one another on their way to and from their distant homes. The line of this pathway was directed by the physical conditions of the tract over which it passed to a connection with the main trail at Astor place.

From the landing place it probably proceeded east over the line of Gansevoort street to the head of Greenwich avenue. This is the old Monument lane of the Colonial period, INDIAN PATHS which proceeds in a straight line toward Washington Square.