Information about Fifth Avenue (Manhattan)

“Fifth Avenue” redirects here. For other meanings, see Fifth Avenue (disambiguation).

Street sign at corner of Fifth Avenue and East 57th Street

Fifth Avenue, early morning photograph, looking south from Thirty-eighth Street

Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the center of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. Lined with expensive park-view real estate and historical mansions, it is a symbol of wealthy New York. Between Thirty-fourth and Fifty-ninth streets, it is also one of the premier shopping streets in the world, on par with Oxford Street in London, the Via Montenapoleone in Milan, the Via Condotti in Rome and the Champs-Élysées in Paris. It is one of the most expensive streets in the world, on a par with Paris, London, Rome and Tokyo lease prices: the "most expensive street in the world" moniker changes depending on currency fluctuations and local economic conditions from year to year.[1]

Fifth Avenue originates at Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village and runs northwards through the heart of Midtown, along the eastern side of Central Park, through the Upper East Side and Harlem, where it terminates at the Harlem River at 142nd Street.

Fifth Avenue carries one-way traffic downtown (southbound) from 135th Street to Washington Square Park. Where Fifth Avenue had two-way traffic over most of its course until the early 1960s, it now allows two-way traffic north of 135th Street only. From 124th Street to 120th Street, Fifth Avenue is cut off by Marcus Garvey Park, with southbound traffic diverted around the park via Mount Morris Park West.

Fifth Avenue is the dividing line for streets in Manhattan. It, for instance, separates East Fifty-ninth Street from West Fifty-ninth Street. As the zero-numbering point for its street addresses, numbers increase in both directions as one moves away from Fifth Avenue, with 1 East Fifty-ninth Street on the corner at Fifth Avenue, and 300 East Fifty-ninth Street located three blocks to the east of it.

History

Fifth Avenue, 1878: illustration from The Wickedest Woman in New York: Madame Restell, the Abortionist by Clifford Browder

Fifth Avenue, 1918, photograph from the Library of Congress Collection

The Guggenheim Museum at Eighty-ninth Street

The high status of Fifth Avenue was confirmed in 1862, when Caroline Schermerhorn Astor settled on the southwest corner of Thirty-fourth Street, and the beginning of the end of its reign as a residential street was symbolized by the erection, in 1893, of the Astoria Hotel on the site of her house, later linked to its neighbor as the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (now the site of the Empire State Building). Fifth Avenue is the central scene in Edith Wharton's 1920 Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Age of Innocence. The novel describes New York's social elite in the 1870s and provides historical context to Fifth Avenue and New York's aristocratic families.

Originally a narrower thoroughfare, much of Fifth Avenue south of Central Park was widened in 1908, sacrificing its wide sidewalks to accommodate the increasing traffic. The midtown blocks, now famously commercial, were largely a residential district until the turn of the twentieth century. The first commercial building on Fifth Avenue was erected by Benjamin Altman who bought the corner lot on the northeast corner of Thirty-fourth Street in 1896, and demolished the "Marble Palace" of his arch-rival, A. T. Stewart. In 1906 his department store, B. Altman and Company, occupied the whole of its block front. The result was the creation of a high-end shopping district that attracted society ladies and the upscale stores that wished to serve them. Lord & Taylor's flagship store is still located on Fifth Avenue near the Empire State Building and the New York Public Library.

In the early part of the 1900s, the very rich of New York migrated to the stretch of Fifth Avenue between Fifty-ninth Street and Ninety-sixth Street, the stretch where Fifth Avenue faces Central Park. This area contains many highly notable apartment buildings, many of them built in the 1920s by architects such as Rosario Candela and J. E. R. Carpenter. A very few post-World War II structures break the unified limestone frontage, notably the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum between Eighty-eighth and Eighty-ninth Streets.

Notable sights

Fifth Avenue starts just south of 8th Street at Washington Square Park

Many landmarks and famous buildings are situated along Fifth Avenue in Midtown and the Upper East Side. In Midtown are the Empire State Building,^[1] the New York Public Library, Rockefeller Center, and Saint Patrick's Cathedral. The stretch of Fifth Avenue from the 80s through the 90s (i.e., from 82nd Street to 105th Street) has so many museums that it has acquired the nickname Museum Mile and includes such institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. That area was known in the early twentieth century as Millionaire's Row after the many mansions built there, as the richest New Yorkers moved their residences north to face Central Park. Earlier, several opulent Vanderbilt houses and other mansions were built in the 50s and in even earlier times farther south. The New York Academy of Medicine is located at 103rd Street, and Mount Sinai Hospital is located at 98th Street.

Here are Tiffany, Cartier, and Bergdoff Goodman. Between Thirty-fourth Street and Sixtieth Street, Fifth Avenue is a popular retail center, with various luxury stores facing that street, most notably F. A. O. Schwarz on Fifty-eighth Street. Other famous Fifth Avenue retailers, no longer in existence, were B. Altman and Company, Bonwit Teller, and Peck & Peck.

Located on 720 Fifth Avenue is the Abercrombie & Fitch flagship store. Between East Fifty-eighth and East Fifty-ninth Street is Apple's 32-foot glass cube, which serves as an entrance for its completely-underground flagship retail store.

Parade route

Fifth Avenue is the traditional route for many celebratory parades in New York City; thus, it is closed to traffic on numerous Sundays in warm weather. These are distinct from the ticker-tape parades held on the "Canyon of Heroes" on lower Broadway, and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade held on Broadway from the Upper West Side downtown to Herald Square.

Bicycling route

Bicycling on Fifth Avenue ranges from safe with a bike lane south of Twenty-third Street ^[2] to scenic along Central Park, to dangerous through Midtown with very heavy traffic during rush hours.

The Apple Store on Fifth Avenue

References

1. ^ which supplanted the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
2. ^ New York City Cycling Map

External links

Downtown	South St Essex St Orchard St Ludlow St Allen St Forsyth St Pearl St/Bowery Mott St Mulberry St Centre St Lafayette St Broad St Nassau St Broadway West Broadway Patchin Pl Varick St Hudson St Greenwich St Washington St Weehawken St
Midtown	East River Dr/FDR Dr Av D Av C/Loisaida Av Av B/East End Av Av A/Sutton Pl/York Av 1^st Av 2^nd Av 3^rd Av Lexington Av 4^th Av/Park Av Vanderbilt Av Madison Av 5^th Av/Museum Mile 6^th Av/Av of the Americas/Lenox Av/Malcolm X Blvd 7^th Av/Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd 8^th Av/Central Park West/Frederick Douglas Blvd 9^th Av/Columbus Av/Morningside Dr Dyer Av 10^th Av/Amsterdam Av 11^th Av/West End Av Riverside Dr 12^th Av/West Side Hwy 13^th Av Henry Hudson Pkwy
Uptown	Harlem River Dr Audubon Av St. Nicholas Av/Juan Pablo Duarte Blvd Ft Washington Av Cabrini Blvd

East-West

Downtown	Bridge St Wall St Liberty St Fulton St Ann St Park Row Chambers St Cherry St Henry St Worth St East Broadway N. Moore St Beach St Canal St Hester St Grand St Delancey St Rivington St Stanton St Houston St 1-14: (1^st St, Bleecker St, 2^nd St, 3^rd St/Great Jones St, West 4^th St, 6^th St, Waverly Pl/Washington Sq North, Washington Mews, Astor Pl, Gay St, 8^th St/St. Mark's Pl, Christopher St, Stuyvesant St, West 10^th St, 13^th St, 14^th St)
Midtown	15-59: (17^th St, 23-42: (23^rd St, 24^th St, 25^th St, 26^th St, 27^th St/Club Row, 28^th St, 29^th St, 30^th St, 31^st St, 32^nd St/Korea Way, 33^rd St, 34^th St, 35^th St, 36^th St, 37^th St, 38^th St, 39^th St, 40^th St, 41^st St, 42^nd St), 47^th St, 50^th St, 52^nd St, 53^rd St, 57^th St, 59^th St/Central Park South)
Uptown	66^th St 72^nd St 79^th St 85^th St 86^th St 96^th St 110^th St/Central Park North 112^th St 116^th St 118^th St 122^nd St 125^th St Astor Row 132^nd St Trans-Manhattan Expwy 181^st St 187^th St Bogardius Pl Dyckman St Beak St

Fifth Avenue is the name of many streets in cities built on a grid system. Different other things were named after Fifth Avenue (Manhattan).

Fifth Avenue (Manhattan), a major thoroughfare in the center of the borough of Manhattan, New York City, United States.

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street is a public thoroughfare in the built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about.
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1: Manhattan 2: Brooklyn 3: Queens 4: The Bronx 5: Staten Island]]
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Manhattan is a borough of New York City, New York, USA, with New York County. With a 2000 population of 1,537,195^[2] living in a land area of 22.96 square miles (59.
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City of New York
New York City at sunset

Flag
Seal
Nickname: The Big Apple, Gotham, The City that Never Sleeps
Location in the state of New York
Coordinates:
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Oxford Street is a major thoroughfare in London, England in the City of Westminster. With over 300 shops, it is Europe's largest shopping street.^[1]

It runs for approximately a mile and a half from Marble Arch at the north east corner of Hyde Park, through Oxford
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London
Canary Wharf is the centre of London's modern office towers
London shown within England
Coordinates:
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Constituent country England
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Via Montenapoleone is an elegant street in Milan, Italy, famous for fashion and jewelry shops. It is the most important street of the Milan's Fashion District (Italian
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MILAN (French: Missile d´infanterie léger antichar = Anti-Tank Light Infantry Missile) is a European anti-tank guided missile. Design of the MILAN started in 1962. It was ready for trials in 1971, and was accepted for service in 1972.
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Comune di Roma

Flag
Seal
Nickname: "The Eternal City"
Motto: "Senatus Populusque Romanus" (SPQR) (Latin)
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Arrondissement VIIIe
Quarter Champs Elysées. Faubourg du Roule.
Begins Place de la Concorde
Ends
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Ville de Paris

City flag City coat of arms

Motto: Fluctuat nec mergitur
(Latin: "Tossed by the waves, she does not sink")

The Eiffel Tower in Paris, as seen from the esplanade du Trocadéro.
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Washington Square Park
The Washington Square Arch, at the park's center.
Type municipal

Coordinates Coordinates:
Size 9.
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Greenwich Village (IPA pronunciation: [ˌgrɛnɪtʃ 'vɪlɪdʒ]), also called simply the Village
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Midtown is an area of Manhattan, New York City home to world-famous commercial buildings as Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall, and the Empire State Building.
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Central Park
A Central Park landscape
Type Municipal (New York City)
Location Manhattan
Coordinates
Size 843 acres (3.4 km²) (1.
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The Upper East Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, USA, between Central Park and the East River.

The 1.
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Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, long known as a major black cultural and business center. After being associated for much of the twentieth century with black culture, but also crime and poverty, it is now experiencing a social and economic
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Harlem River is a navigable tidal strait in New York City, USA that flows 8 miles (13 km) between the East River and the Hudson River , separating the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx.
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one-way street is a street on which vehicles can only move in one direction. On this type of street a sign is posted showing which direction the vehicles can move in: commonly an upward arrow, or on a T junction where the main road is one-way, an arrow to the left or right.
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Marcus Garvey Park, or Mount Morris Park as it is referred to by the people in the neighborhood, is located in Harlem in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The 20.
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Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor (September 22, 1830–October 30, 1908) was a prominent American socialite of the last quarter of the 19th century. Famous for being referred to as simply "the Mrs.
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Waldorf-Astoria Hotel is a famously luxurious hotel in New York. It has been housed in two historic landmark buildings of New York City. The first, designed by architect Henry J. Hardenbergh, was on the Fifth Avenue site of the Empire State Building.
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Added to NRHP: November 17, 1982 ^[3]

NRHP Reference#: 82001192

The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in New York City, New York on the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street.
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Edith Wharton

Born: January 24 1862
New York City, New York
Died: July 11 1937 (aged 75)
Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt, France
Occupation: Novelist, short story writer, designer

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The Age of Innocence

1920 first edition
Author Edith Wharton
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Novel
Publisher Grosset and Dunlap
Publication date July to October 1920

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Central Park
A Central Park landscape
Type Municipal (New York City)
Location Manhattan
Coordinates
Size 843 acres (3.4 km²) (1.
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B. Altman and Company was a New York City-based department store founded in 1865 by Benjamin Altman. It officially closed on December 31, 1989. One of the first American department stores to open out-of-town branches, Altman's eventually opened locations in Pennsylvania (St.
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Alexander Turney Stewart, (October 12, 1803 – April 10, 1876), was an Irish American entrepreneur turned multi-millionaire who made his fortune in what was at the time the most extensive and lucrative dry goods business in the world.
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Fifth Avenue (manhattan)