79th Street (Manhattan)

79th Street is a major two-way street on the Upper East Side and Upper West Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It runs in two major sections: between East End and Fifth Avenues on the Upper East Side, and between Columbus Avenue and Henry Hudson Parkway on the Upper West Side. The two segments are connected by the 79th Street transverse across Central Park, as well as one block of 81st Street.

79th Street
The Harry F. Sinclair House at 2 East 79th Street
Maintained byNYCDOT
Length2.4 mi[1] (3.9 km)
Width100 feet (30.48 m)
LocationManhattan
Postal code10024 (west), 10075 (east)
Coordinates40.7768°N 73.9632°W / 40.7768; -73.9632
West end NY 9A / Henry Hudson Parkway in Riverside Park
East end FDR Drive in Yorkville
North80th Street
South78th Street
Construction
Commissioned1811

On the West Side, the street is entirely within the boundaries of ZIP Code 10024; on the East Side, the street is part of ZIP Code 10075.[2]

Description

On the Upper East Side, East 79th Street stretches from East End Avenue, passing the New York Public Library Yorkville Branch to Fifth Avenue. where the entrance to the 79th Street Transverse is flanked by The 79th Street transverse crosses Central Park between Children's Gate at Fifth Avenue, and Hunter's Gate at Central Park West and 81st Street on the Upper West Side. 79th Street does not exist between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue, due to the superblock of Manhattan Square, largely occupied by the American Museum of Natural History. West of Columbus Avenue, 79th Street continues and terminates in Riverside Park at a traffic circle directly after the exit/entrance ramps for the Henry Hudson Parkway, under which sit the 79th Street Boat Basin and its cafe.

History
Lucerne Apartments, 201 West 79th Street, at Amsterdam Avenue (Harry B. Mulliken, architect, as Hotel Lucerne, 1903–04)
The Palladian style NYPL Yorkville Branch Library at 222 East 79th Street (James Brown Lord, 1902) fits between modest townhouse facades; bronze owls stand in the mezzanine windows
The Greek Consulate occupies the former George L. Rives residence, 67–69 East 79th Street (Carrère and Hastings, 1907–08) [3]
St. Monica's Roman Catholic Church, 1881–83[4]

The street was designated by the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 that established the Manhattan street grid as one of 15 east-west streets that would be 100 feet (30 m) in width (while other streets were designated as 60 feet (18 m) in width).[5]

The interchange on the Hudson River and the boat basin was first proposed in 1934 and was constructed by 1937 during the tenure of Robert Moses as Parks Commissioner. It was part of the "79th Street Grade Crossing Elimination Structure" which created a grand architectural multi-level entry and exit from the Henry Hudson Parkway while eliminating a grade crossing of the New York Central Railroad's West Side Line by covering it over and creating the Freedom Tunnel.[6] Designed by Gilmore David Clarke, the Works Projects Administration provided $5.1 million for the project, which also included an underground parking garage, a restaurant, and the marina.[7]

Transportation

On the west side, the 79th Street station on the New York City Subway's IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line is located at the intersection of 79th Street and Broadway, it is served by 1 train during the daytime and 1 and ​2 trains during late nights. The 81st Street-Museum of Natural History station of the IND Eighth Avenue Line is located at 81st Street and Central Park West, and is served by trains that are local at all times.

On the east side, the 77th Street station on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line, two blocks south, is served by 6 and <6>​ trains during the daytime and 4 and ​6 trains during late nights.[8]

The M79 SBS crosstown bus route runs from between the 79th Street Boat Basin and East End Avenue at all times.[9][10]

Notable locations
  • At Broadway stands The Apthorp (Clinton and Russell, architects, 1908), one of the West Side's classic apartment blocks, and the First Baptist Church in the City of New York (George M. Kaiser, architect, 1891).
  • Between 6th and 7th Avenues, on the line of West 79th Street as it was drawn through what became Central Park was the south end of the Receiving Reservoir, a vital storage part of the Croton Aqueduct of 1842. Water was piped down from Westchester County, over the Harlem River and down the west side to the Receiving Reservoir, located between 79th and 86th Streets and Sixth and Seventh Avenues in an area then known as Yorkville.[11] The Reservoir was a fortress-like building 1,826 feet (557 m) long and 836 feet (255 m) wide, and held up to 180 million US gallons (680,000 m3) of water, 35 million US gallons (130,000 m3) flowed into it daily from northern Westchester.
  • Former mayor Michael Bloomberg lives in a five-story townhouse on East 79th Street, between Madison Avenue and Fifth Avenue.[12] Other notable residents of 79th Street include or have included; Tom Wolfe, Art Garfunkel[13] and Eliot Spitzer.[14] Socialite Nan Kempner lived on 79th Street at Park Avenue.[15]
  • The south side of the block between Fifth and Madison is protected as a rare unbroken row of townhouses. It begins at the corner of Fifth with the French Renaissance Harry F. Sinclair House (1897–98), now housing the Ukrainian Institute.
  • The New York Society Library, at 53 East 79th street, is the city's oldest (1754) circulating library; it occupies a double-width townhouse built for John S. and Catherine Dodge Rogers, (Trowbridge & Livingston, 1916–18).[16]
  • On the street grid, East 79th Street leads to an unnumbered southbound-only entrance to the FDR Drive at East 78th Street. East 79th Street is also the southern end of East End Avenue, which runs north-south to 90th Street.
The 79th Street Boat Basin

References

Notes

  1. Google (January 8, 2017). "79th Street" (Map). Google Maps. Google. Retrieved January 8, 2017.
  2. 10021 Zip Code Split, Representative Carolyn Maloney press release. Accessed August 1, 2008.
  3. landmarks Preservation Commission: Description and analysis Archived 2009-03-20 at the Wayback Machine May 19, 1981
  4. "St. Monica's parish history". Archived from the original on 2009-06-16. Retrieved 2008-12-20.
  5. Morris, Gouverneur, De Witt, Simeon, and Rutherford, John [sic] (March 1811) "Remarks Of The Commissioners For Laying Out Streets And Roads In The City Of New York, Under The Act Of April 3, 1807", Cornell University Library. Accessed June 27, 2016. "These streets are all sixty feet wide except fifteen, which are one hundred feet wide, viz.: Numbers fourteen, twenty-three, thirty-four, forty-two, fifty-seven, seventy-two, seventy-nine, eighty-six, ninety-six, one hundred and six, one hundred and sixteen, one hundred and twenty-five, one hundred and thirty-five, one hundred and forty-five, and one hundred and fifty-five--the block or space between them being in general about two hundred feet."
  6. "West Side Traffic to Run on 4 Levels - Grade Elimination Structure at 79th St. Announced as Part of Park Plan - Motorists to be Aided - Express Highway Will Pass Over Central Tracks With Pedestrian Arcade Below.", The New York Times, June 15, 1934. Accessed August 2, 2008.
  7. Henry Hudson Parkway.
  8. "Subway Map" (PDF). Metropolitan Transportation Authority. October 21, 2019. Retrieved January 18, 2018.
  9. MTA Regional Bus Operations. "M79 bus schedule" (PDF).
  10. "Manhattan Bus Map" (PDF). Metropolitan Transportation Authority. July 2019. Retrieved December 1, 2020.
  11. Acitelli, Tom. "The Sit-Down:Morrison Heckscher, On the Park" Archived 2008-10-20 at the Wayback Machine, The New York Observer, March 25, 2008. Accessed August 1, 2008. "And the receiving reservoir of the Croton Aqueduct System—on a high plot of land between 79th and 86th streets, between Sixth and Seventh avenues, right outside my office there—that was completed in 1842."
  12. Richard Lezin, Jones (November 11, 2001). "Billionaire Next Door Is a Regular Kind of Guy". The New York Times. Retrieved August 1, 2008.
  13. Arnold, Hallie. "One more drug offense could land Garfunkel in jail" Archived 2007-08-11 at Archive.today, Kingston Daily Freeman, August 31, 2005. Accessed August 1, 2008. "Garfunkel, who lives on East 79th Street in Manhattan, pleaded guilty in that case and paid a $100 fine and a $100 surcharge."
  14. Hakim, Danny; and O'Connor, Ahmad. "Spitzer to Resign Soon; Paterson Set as Successor", The New York Times, March 12, 2008. Accessed August 1, 2008. "Mr. Spitzer, who had been holed up at his apartment at Fifth Avenue and 79th Street in Manhattan since issuing an apology on Tuesday, emerged at about 11:15 a.m."
  15. Haden-Guest, Anthony. "Vanity fare: She is the legendary New York socialite: stick thin, fabulously wealthy and dressed head to toe in couture. Here, Nan Kempner reveals why she hates fat people... but loves high fashion and junk food", The Observer, August 12, 2001. Accessed August 1, 2008. "There are two paintings by the great Surrealist René Magritte in the living room of the apartment where Kempner lives with her broker husband, Thomas, on Park Avenue and 79th Street."
  16. Christopher Gray, "The New York Society Library: The John S. Rogers House", 2008


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