Up and Down Park Avenue: New York City History with a Penthouse View

The story of a filthy and dangerous train ditch that became one of the swankiest addresses in the world — Park Avenue.

For over 100 years, a Park Avenue address meant wealth, glamour and the high life. The Fred Astaire version of the Irving Berlin classic “Puttin’ on the Ritz” revised the lyrics to pay tribute to Park Avenue: “High hats and Arrow collars/White spats and lots of dollars/Spending every dime for a wonderful time.”

By the 1950s, the avenue was considered the backbone of New York City with corporations setting up glittering new office towers in the International Style — the Lever House, the Seagram Building, even the Pan Am Building.

But the foundation for all this wealth and success was, in actually, a train tunnel, originally operated by the New York Central Railroad. This street, formerly known as Fourth Avenue, was (and is) one of New York’s primary traffic thoroughfares. For many decades, steam locomotives dominated life along the avenue, heading into and out of Cornelius Vanderbilt’s Grand Central (first a depot, then a station, eventually a terminal).

However train tracks running through a quickly growing city are neither safe nor conducive to prosperity. Eventually, the tracks were covered with beautiful flowers and trees, on traffic island malls which have gotten smaller over the years.

By the 1910s this allowed for glamorous apartment buildings to rise, the homes of a new wealthy elite attracted to apartment living in the post-Gilded Age era. But that lifestyle was not quite made available to everyone.

In this episode, Greg and Tom take you on a tour of the tunnels and viaducts that helped New York City to grow, creating billions of dollars of real estate in the process.

LISTEN NOW: UP AND DOWN PARK AVENUE

Park Avenue, looking south of 36th Street, 1900-1905 Library of Congress

Park Avenue and 94th Street, Library of Congress

Park Avenue, late 1800s, Musem of the City of New York

Park Avenue, after St Bart’s came along in 1918 but before these lovely pedestrian areas were destroyed in the late 1920s.

Park Avenue 1927, Department of Transportation

“Photograph shows cars moving along Park Avenue as the road heads towards the tunnels of the Helmsley Building, known then as the New York General Building. Building construction visible to the right. St. Bartholomew’s Church slightly visible on left.” Library of Congress, 1959