Madison Avenue (Manhattan)
:
For the band, see Madison Avenue (band). |
Madison Avenue, looking north from 40th Street |
Madison Avenue is a north-south avenue in the borough of
Manhattan in
New York City that carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from
Madison Square (at 23rd Street) to the Madison Avenue Bridge at 138th Street. In doing so, it passes through
Midtown, the
Upper East Side (including
Carnegie Hill),
Spanish Harlem, and
Harlem. It is named for and arises from Madison Square, which is itself named for
James Madison, the fourth
President of the United States.
Madison Square Garden takes its name from the former location on the north east corner of
Madison Square at 26th Street and Madison Avenue. (The
New York Life Insurance Building now occupies that entire city block.) It was designed by
Stanford White and had a bronze statue of the Roman goddess Diana on the tower of the sports arena. When it moved to a new building at 50th Street and
Eighth Avenue in
1925 it kept its old name. (Madison Square Garden is now located at Eighth Avenue between 31st Street and 33rd Street).
Between 57th Street and 85th Street, Madison Avenue is identified as "the fashionable road". In this area is where most of the very well known fashion designers and upper class hair salons are located.
Madison Avenue was not part of the original New York City street grid established in
the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, and was carved between
Park and
Fifth Avenue in
1836, due to the effort of lawyer and real estate developer
Samuel B. Ruggles, a graduate of
Yale University who had previously purchased and developed New York's
Gramercy Park in
1831, who was in part responsible for the development of
Union Square, and who also named
Lexington Avenue.
The term "Madison Avenue" serves as a
symbol or
metaphor for
advertising, and Madison Avenue became identified with the advertising industry after the explosive growth in this area in the 1920s.
According to "The Emergence of Advertising in America," an online exhibit at the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History at
Duke University, by the year
1861 there were twenty advertising agencies in New York City, and in
1911, the
New York City Association of Advertising Agencies was founded, predating the establishment of the
American Association of Advertising Agencies by several years.
Madison Avenue is served by the , , , and
NYCT Buses, and the , , , , and express buses.
*
List of toponyms*
Fleet Street* http://www.madisonavenuebid.org/
* http://www.thecityreview.com/madison.html
* http://www.aviewoncities.com/nyc/madisonsquare.htm
* http://www.madisonsquarepark.org/about.asp
* http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/eaa/timeline.html
* http://www.olr.com/newolr/timeline/1811_1869.asp
* http://home.nyc.rr.com/jkn/nysonglines/madison.htm#26st
* http://www.virtualology.com/samuelbulkleyruggles/
{{Avenues of New York City |West =
Fifth Avenue |Avenue = Madison Avenue |East =
Park Avenue |
