First Avenue is a north-south thoroughfare on the
East Side of the
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
borough
A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely.
History
In the Middle Ag ...
of
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
, running from
Houston Street northbound to
127th Street. At
125th Street, most traffic continues onto the
Willis Avenue Bridge over the
Harlem River, which continues into
the Bronx
The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New ...
. South of Houston Street, the roadway continues as
Allen Street
Allen Street is a street in the New York City borough of Manhattan which runs north-south through the Lower Manhattan neighborhood of Chinatown and the Lower East Side. It is continued north of Houston Street as First Avenue. South of Divisi ...
south to Division Street. Traffic on First Avenue runs northbound (uptown) only.
History
Like most of Manhattan's major north-south Avenues, First Avenue was proposed as part of the
Commissioners' Plan of 1811 for Manhattan, which designated 12 broad north-south Avenues running the length of the island. The southern portions of the Avenue were cut and laid out shortly after the plan was adopted. The northern sections of the Avenue would be graded and cut through at various intervals throughout the 19th century as the northward development of the island demanded.
The
IRT Second Avenue Line ran above First Avenue from
Houston Street to
23rd Street before turning west at 23rd and then north onto
Second Avenue. This elevated line was torn down in 1942.
First Avenue has carried one-way traffic since June 4, 1951.
A protected
bike lane was established along the left side of the avenue south of
50th Street in 2011.
Description
First Avenue passes through a variety of neighborhoods.
Starting in the south at Houston Street, First Avenue passes through the
East Village, once a predominantly German and Jewish neighborhood, now a gentrified area populated mostly by
hipsters and
yuppies. First Avenue then runs by two large
urban development
Urban means "related to a city". In that sense, the term may refer to:
* Urban area, geographical area distinct from rural areas
* Urban culture, the culture of towns and cities
Urban may also refer to:
General
* Urban (name), a list of peop ...
projects,
Stuyvesant Town and
Peter Cooper Village, two middle-income housing developments that sit on what used to be the
Gashouse District
A gasworks or gas house is an industrial plant for the production of flammable gas. Many of these have been made redundant in the developed world by the use of natural gas, though they are still used for storage space.
Early gasworks
Coal ...
, an industrial area. These fill the east side of the avenue from
14th to
23rd Streets. The avenue is very wide in this segment, and is separated by a
median
In statistics and probability theory, the median is the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a data sample, a population, or a probability distribution. For a data set, it may be thought of as "the middle" value. The basic f ...
. The New York
Veterans Affairs Medical Center
The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is the component of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) led by the Under Secretary of Veterans Affairs for Health that implements the healthcare program of the VA through a nationa ...
, the
Bellevue Hospital, and
NYU Medical Center
NYU Langone Health is an academic medical center located in New York City, New York, United States. The health system consists of NYU Grossman School of Medicine and NYU Long Island School of Medicine, both part of New York University (NYU), and ...
fill the blocks from there to
34th Street. Between
42nd and
47th streets, the avenue runs past
United Nations Headquarters
zh, 联合国总部大楼french: Siège des Nations uniesrussian: Штаб-квартира Организации Объединённых Наций es, Sede de las Naciones Unidas
, image = Midtown Manhattan Skyline 004.jpg
, im ...
. Here a local bypass, United Nations Plaza, splits from the main road, which runs through the First Avenue Tunnel, rejoining the local street at
49th Street.
Crossing under the
Queensboro Bridge
The Queensboro Bridge, officially named the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge, is a cantilever bridge over the East River in New York City. Completed in 1909, it connects the neighborhood of Long Island City in the borough of Queens with the Upper Ea ...
and entering the
Upper East Side
The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the we ...
, First Avenue runs through a number of residential areas. It serves as one of the main shopping streets of the
Yorkville neighborhood, historically a working class German and Hungarian neighborhood, today a wealthy enclave of upper-class residents. In this district, First Avenue is also known as "Bedpan Alley" (a play on "
Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley was a collection of History of music publishing, music publishers and songwriters in New York City that dominated the American popular music, popular music of the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It origin ...
") because of the large number of
hospital
A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emergen ...
s located nearby.
Crossing
96th Street, First Avenue runs through
Spanish Harlem
East Harlem, also known as Spanish Harlem or and historically known as Italian Harlem, is a neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, New York City, roughly encompassing the area north of the Upper East Side and bounded by 96th Street to the south, Fi ...
, a historically Puerto Rican neighborhood. Before Puerto Rican migration in the 1950s, much of this district was populated by Italians and known as "
Italian Harlem". First Avenue in Italian Harlem was the site of a major open-air pushcart market in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There is still a small Italian enclave in the Pleasant Valley district of East Harlem, between 114th and 120th Streets. The northern reaches of First Avenue, north of roughly
110th Street
110th Street is a street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is commonly known as the boundary between Harlem and Central Park, along which it is known as Central Park North. In the west, between Central Park West/Frederick Doug ...
have also seen a significant increase in Mexican residents.
First Avenue then connects to the
Willis Avenue Bridge, which crosses the
Harlem River at
125th Street and connects to Willis Avenue in
the Bronx
The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New ...
.
Transportation
The
M15/M15+ Select Bus runs on the one-way pair of First and
Second Avenue between
125th Street and
Houston Street. The northbound
M9 runs on it between 20th Street and 29th Street, terminating at
Bellevue Hospital at 26th Street. The
M31,
M50,
M57,
M86+ Select Bus and
M116 serve First Avenue for short segments.
The
BMT Canarsie Line has a
station at
14th Street.
In popular culture
*The opening scene of ''
Ghostbusters II
''GhostbustersII'' is a 1989 American supernatural comedy film directed and produced by Ivan Reitman, and written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. The film stars Bill Murray, Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Ramis, Rick Moranis, Ernie Hudson, and A ...
'' was filmed at the intersection of First Avenue and 77th Street.
*In the ''
Seinfeld'' TV series,
Kramer describes the intersection of First Avenue and
1st Street as the "nexus of the universe". This provided the name for a nightclub called the Nexus Lounge at that location.
Gallery
File:Protected bikelane 1st Av jeh.jpg, Bike lane on First Avenue
File:Second Avenue El - demolition.jpg, Looking south on First Avenue from 13th Street during the demolition of the Second Avenue El in September 1942
File:UN Headquarters 2.jpg, United Nations headquarters
zh, 联合国总部大楼french: Siège des Nations uniesrussian: Штаб-квартира Организации Объединённых Наций es, Sede de las Naciones Unidas
, image = Midtown Manhattan Skyline 004.jpg
, im ...
at First Avenue and 42nd Street
References
External links
*
New York Songlines: First Avenue a virtual walking tour
{{Authority control
*01
East Harlem
East Village, Manhattan
Kips Bay, Manhattan
Midtown Manhattan
Murray Hill, Manhattan
Upper East Side