Fifth Avenue (Manhattan) Totally Explained

Everything about 5th Avenue totally explained

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's a symbol of wealthy New York. Between 34th Street and 59th Street, it's also one of the premier shopping streets in the world, on par with Oxford Street in London, the Champs-Élysées in Paris and Via Montenapoleone in Milan.
   It is consistently ranked as one of the most expensive streets in the world, on a par with Paris, London, 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. For several years starting in the mid-1990s, the shopping district between 49th and 57th Streets was ranked as having the world's second most expensive retail spaces on a cost per square foot basis after London's Sloane Street.
   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. Traffic crosses the river on the Madison Avenue Bridge.
   Fifth Avenue is the dividing line for streets in Manhattan. It 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

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

Many landmarks and famous buildings are situated along Fifth Avenue in Midtown and the Upper East Side. In Midtown are the Empire State Building, the New York Public Library, Rockefeller Center, and Saint Patrick's Cathedral. The stretch of Fifth Avenue from the 80s through the 90s (for example, 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.
   Between 34th Street (Manhattan) and 60th Street, Fifth Avenue is lined with luxury retail stores, which include Tiffany & Co., Cartier SA, Burberry, Ermenegildo Zegna, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Brooks Brothers, Prada, Hermès, Salvatore Ferragamo, BVLGARI, Emilio Pucci, Armani Exchange, Coach Inc., Escada, Christian Dior, Victoria's Secret, Lacoste, Fendi, Sephora, Versace, Kenneth Cole, Sak's Fifth Avenue, H. Stern, Takashimaya, Harry Winston, Henri Bendel, Emanuel Ungaro, Peter Fox, Banana Republic, Hugo Boss and Bergdorf Goodman.
   Famous former Fifth Avenue retailers were B. Altman and Company, Bonwit Teller, and Peck & Peck.
   Located in 720 Fifth Avenue is the three-floor Abercrombie & Fitch flagship store. Between East 58th and East 59th Street are FAO Schwarz and Apple's glass cube, which serves as an entrance for its completely-underground flagship retail store.

Traffic flow

Fifth Avenue carries one-way traffic downtown (southbound) from 135th Street to Washington Square Park, with the changeover from two-way traffic taking place on January 14, 1966, at which time Madison Avenue was changed to one way uptown (northbound). Two-way traffic on Fifth Avenue is allowed 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 one of the few major streets in Manhattan along which streetcars didn't run. Instead, Fifth Avenue Coach offered a service more to the taste of fashionable gentlefolk, at twice the fare.

Parade route

Fifth Avenue is the traditional route for many celebratory parades in New York City; thus, it's 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.
The latino literary classic by New Yorker Giannina Braschi, entitled "Empire of Dreams," takes place on the Puerto Rican Day Parade on 5th Avenue.

Bicycling route

Bicycling on Fifth Avenue ranges from safe with a bike lane south of 23rd Street, to scenic along Central Park, to dangerous through Midtown with very heavy traffic during rush hours.

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