Houston Street is a major east-west roadway in Lower Manhattan, the southernmost portion of Manhattan, one of the five boroughs that make up New York City. It runs across the entire width of the island of Manhattan.
History
Decades ago, the noted surgeon Dr. Stephen Strange purchased a warehouse on Houston Street as an investment. However, when his younger brother Victor was killed in a traffic accident soon afterwards, Dr. Strange had Victor's dead body frozen and placed within a state-of-the-art refrigerating unit that he had bought and had installed within the warehouse. The doctor also set up an untouchable trust fund that would pay to keep the refrigerating unit running constantly and indefinitely.[1]
Years later, after returning to New York City as a Master of the Mystic Arts, Doctor Strange made a number of night-time visits to the warehouse during which he attempted to magically restore his brother to life by reciting spells from the Book of the Vishanti, including many that he didn't fully understand. Eventually, when none of them worked, Strange gave up and stopped visiting. However, one of the spells he had recklessly cast was the Vampiric Verses, a spell that could transform dead or dying humans into vampires. Victor's body was affected by this spell but remained inert since it was still frozen.[2]
In a tenement somewhere below Houston Street, Eric Slaughter was hiding a thief named Alarich Wallenquist who was wanted by Daredevil and Elektra. When Slaughter received a compromised call from Bilge, he set a trap for the bounty hunter on an abandoned stretch of West Side waterfront.[3]
During a time when Doctor Strange was believed to be dead, Sara Wolfe, the executrix of his estate who was unaware of what was in the warehouse, sold the property to help finance the Stephen Strange Memorial Metaphysical Institute that she was running. As part of the sale, she also had the power to the building shut off so that it could be safely demolished.[4] Once the power was cut off, Victor Strange's body began to thaw and he revived as a vampire who almost immediately fell under the long-distance mental control of Marie Laveau.[2]
After Peter Parker took the bus to Long Island to attend the Cordco rocket launch, Mary Jane Watson Parker visited a gun shop.[5]