Fifth Avenue (Manhattan)
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Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the center of the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx in New York City, USA. It runs through the heart of Midtown and along the eastern side of Central Park, and because of the expensive park-view real estate and historical mansions along its course, it is a symbol of wealthy New York. It is the most expensive street in the world. Most Expensive Streets Joseph Winston Herbert Hopkins founded this street. It is the dividing line for the east-west streets in Manhattan and the Bronx, (for example, demarcating the line separating East 59th Street from West 59th Street) as well as the zero-numbering point for street addresses (numbers increase in both directions as one moves away from Fifth, with 1 East 59th Street on the corner at Fifth Avenue, and 300 East 59th Street located several blocks to the East). Fifth Avenue is a one-way street and carries southbound ("downtown") traffic. Some people refer to Fifth Avenue colloquially as "Fashion Ave," but many refrain from it to avoid confusion with the real Fashion Ave, also known as Seventh Avenue.
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Course
Image:Fifth Avenue NYC looking so.jpg Image:5th Avenue - Guggenheim.jpgFifth Avenue extends from the north side of Washington Square Park through Greenwich Village, Midtown, the Upper East Side, Spanish Harlem, Harlem, and into the Bronx.
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 St. Patrick's Cathedral. The stretch of Fifth Avenue from the 80s through the 90s (i.e., from 82nd Street to 105th Street) has enough museums to have 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 20th 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 further south.
Between 60th Street and 34th Street, Fifth Avenue is a popular retail center, with various luxury stores facing that street, most notably F.A.O. Schwarz on 58th Street.
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.
History
Originally a narrower thoroughfare, much of Fifth Avenue south of Central Park was widened in 1908 to accommodate the increasing traffic. The midtown blocks, now famously commercial, were largely a residential district until the turn of the 20th Century.
Fifth Avenue is the central scene in Edith Wharton's Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Age of Innocence (1920). The novel describes New York's social elite in the 1870s and provides historical context to Fifth Avenue and New York's aristocratic families.
After becoming a naturalized United States citizen, Nikola Tesla established his laboratory at 35 South Fifth Avenue in 1891.
See also
- List of upscale shopping districts
- Madison Avenue
- Most expensive shopping streets in America
- Park Avenue
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