Park Avenue (Manhattan)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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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 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 (Manhattan) 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 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 run in a tunnel underneath Park Avenue (the Park Avenue Tunnel). At 97th, the tracks come above ground, rising onto the other 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.

History
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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 between 56th and 96th Street 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.