Park Avenue (Manhattan)
Park Avenue (formerly
Fourth Avenue) is a wide boulevard that carries traffic north and south in
Manhattan in
New York City. Throughout most of its duration, it runs parallel to
Madison Avenue to the west and
Lexington Avenue to the east. The thoroughfare is noted for its perennially high
real estate prices and affluent reputation, especially as it runs through the
Upper East Side.
The flowers and greenery in the median of Park Avenue are maintained by the Fund for Park Avenue.
Begonias are a flower of choice for the Funds gardeners because there is no automatic watering system and they can cope with hot sun.[
1]
The road that becomes Park Avenue originates as the
Bowery. From 8th Street to
14th Street, it is known as
Fourth Avenue. Above 14th Street, it becomes a north-south thoroughfare. From 14th Street to 17th Street, it forms the eastern boundary of
Union Square and is known as
Union Square East; its southbound lanes merge with
Broadway for this distance. From 17th Street to 32nd Street, it is known as
Park Avenue South, and, for the remainder of its distance, it is known as
Park Avenue.
Between
33rd Street and
40th Street, its two center lanes, one in each direction, descend into the
Murray Hill Tunnel. Immediately across from 40th Street, these center lanes rise onto an elevated structure that goes over and around
Grand Central Terminal, carrying each direction on opposite sides of the building, which takes up the space formerly occupied by Park Avenue from
42nd Street to 45th Street. The bridge, one of two structures in Manhattan known as the Park Avenue Viaduct, returns to ground level at 46th Street after going through the
Helmsley Building (also referred to as the New York Central Building or by its address, 230 Park Avenue).
As Park Avenue enters
Midtown north of Grand Central, it is distinguished by many glass-box skyscrapers that serve as headquarters for corporations such as
JPMorgan Chase,
Citigroup, and
MetLife.
From Grand Central to 97th Street,
Metro-North Railroad tracks (formerly of the
New York Central Railroad) run in a tunnel underneath Park Avenue (the
Park Avenue Tunnel). At 97th, the tracks come above ground, rising onto the other Manhattan structure known as the Park Avenue Viaduct. The first street to pass under the viaduct is 102nd Street; from there to the
Harlem River the railroad viaduct runs down the middle of Park Avenue.
Park Avenue ends north of 132nd Street, with connections to the
Franklin D. Roosevelt East River Drive. The name is continued on the other side of the river in
the Bronx by the street just east of the railroad; see
Park Avenue (Bronx).
The following corporations are headquartered on Park Avenue:
*
Altria*
Bankers Trust*
Bloomberg L.P.*
Bristol Myers Squibb*
Citigroup*
Colgate-Palmolive*
JPMorgan Chase & Co.*
Major League Baseball*
MetLife*
Mutual of America*
ING Clarion*
Needham & Company*
Vivendi SA*
Seligman*
Consulate General of Japan |
The railroad tunnel in 1941 |
Park Avenue was originally known as Fourth Avenue and carried the tracks of the
New York and Harlem Railroad starting in the
1830s. The railroad originally built an open cut through
Murray Hill, which was covered with grates and grass between 34th and 40th Street in the early
1850s. A section of this "park" was renamed Park Avenue in
1860. In
1867, the name applied all the way to
42nd Street. When
Grand Central Depot was opened in the
1870s, the railroad tracks between 56th and 96th Streets were sunk out of sight, and, in
1888, Park Avenue was extended to the Harlem River.
In
1936, an elevated structure was built around
Grand Central Terminal to allow automobile traffic to pass the station unimpeded. In October
1937, a part of the
Murray Hill Tunnel was reopened for road traffic.
In
1959, the City Council changed the name of Fourth Avenue between 17th and 32nd Streets to Park Avenue South. In
1963, the
Pan Am Building was built straddling Park Avenue atop Grand Central Terminal, with a tunnel through it to accommodate the automobile bridge.
{{Avenues of New York City |West =
Madison Avenue |Avenue = Park Avenue |East =
Lexington Avenue |
