72nd Street (Manhattan)
1 West 72nd Street, The Dakota. | |
Location | Manhattan |
---|---|
West end | NY 9A / Henry Hudson Parkway / Riverside Boulevard |
East end | Dead end near York Avenue |
North | 73rd Street |
South | 71st Street |
72nd Street is one of the major bi-directional crosstown streets in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Where the west end of 72nd Street curves into the south end of Riverside Drive, the memorial to Eleanor Roosevelt stands in Riverside Park. At this end of the street is the landmarked Beaux-Arts Chatsworth Apartments (344 West 72nd Street, John E. Scharsmith, architect, 1902–04, Annex, 1905–06).[1]
History
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).[2]
Landmarks
At 72nd Street, Broadway crosses Amsterdam Avenue, creating a small triangular space, Verdi Square; across the street to the south lies Sherman Square.
72nd Street is one of the few streets to go through Central Park, connecting the Upper West Side via Women's Gate, Terrace Drive and Inventors Gate, with the Upper East Side. However, Terrace Drive is often closed to vehicular traffic and therefore the crosstown M72 bus crosses the park at 65th Street.
The Dakota apartment building is located on the corner of West 72nd Street and Central Park West. Before automotive traffic, broad cross-streets offered desirable sites for prominent residences; the mansion at the southeast corner of Fifth Avenue was the first of the Gilded Age mansions to be replaced by an apartment block, 907 Fifth Avenue, and McKim, Mead, and White’s Charles L. Tiffany mansion (1882) at the northeast corner of Madison Avenue was replaced by an apartment block (19 East 72nd Street, Rosario Candela, architect[3]), but the Rhinelander Mansion, occupied now by Ralph Lauren, is still located on the southeast corner.
At Third Avenue, the Tower East apartment block (1960) set a new model for high-rise residences, a slab tower set back from the street front and isolated on a low base.[4]
On October 11, 2006, the Belaire Apartments, a 50-story apartment complex located at 524 E. 72nd Street between York Avenue and the FDR Drive, was the site of a plane crash involving Cory Lidle's aircraft.
Tunneling for the new Second Avenue Subway began in 2010; in the future, the Q train will stop at 72nd Street station. Meanwhile, the closest subway stops for 72nd Street on the Upper East Side are the 68th and 77th Street stations (6 <6> trains during the day and 4 6 trains during the night) of the IRT Lexington Avenue Line.
Transportation
72nd Street is a major stop on several lines of the New York City Subway system.
- 72nd Street at Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue served by the 1 2 3 trains
- 72nd Street at Central Park West served by the A B C trains
- 72nd Street at Second Avenue is under construction as part of the Second Avenue Subway (Q train)
The M72 provides crosstown bus service to Upper East Side – York Avenue (eastbound) or West Side – Freedom Place (westbound) via 72nd Street.
Intersections
From east to west:
- York Avenue
- First Avenue
- Second Avenue
- Third Avenue
- Lexington Avenue
- Park Avenue
- Madison Avenue
- Fifth Avenue – East 72nd Street becomes West 72nd Street
- Central Park West
- Columbus Avenue
- Amsterdam Avenue
- Broadway
- West End Avenue
- Riverside Drive
- Henry Hudson Parkway on-ramp (northbound only)
Notable residents
- Manny Acta, major league baseball manager, 524 East 72nd Street
- Robert Agostinelli, self-made billionaire financier, 36 East 72nd Street
- Allan Arbus, actor, 319 East 72nd Street
- Arthur Ashe, tennis player, 360 East 72nd Street
- Ivan Boesky, stock trader, 524 East 72nd Street
- Carol Higgins Clark, mystery author, 524 East 72nd Street
- Thomas E. Dewey, two-time Governor of New York, 141 East 72nd Street[5]
- Marc Eidlitz, builder, 123 East 72nd Street
- Joan Fontaine, British-American actress, 160 East 72nd Street[6]
- Alex Gard, cartoonist
- George Gershwin, composer and pianist, 132 East 72nd Street[7]
- Hugh J. Grant, mayor of New York City, 20 East 72nd Street
- Margaux Hemingway, model and actress, 12 East 72nd Street
- Louise Huff, actress, 155 East 72nd Street
- John Lennon, musician, songwriter, 1 West 72nd Street
- Barbara Margolis, prisoners' rights advocate, 30 East 72nd Street
- David Margolis, industrialist, 30 East 72nd Street
- Louis Marshall, lawyer, 47 East 72nd Street
- James Merrill, poet, author of "164 East 72nd Street"
- Yoko Ono, artist, activist, 1 West 72nd Street
- George Plimpton, writer, editor, New York City fireworks commissioner, 541 East 72nd Street
- Marvin R. Shanken, publisher, 524 East 72nd Street
- Winthrop H. Smith, investment banker
- Harold Stanley, cofounder of Morgan Stanley, 4 East 72nd Street[8]
- John Steinbeck, writer, 190 and 206 East 72nd Street[5]
- James Stillman, businessman, 9 East 72nd Street
- Aileen Osborn Webb, patron of crafts
Wikimedia Commons has media related to 72nd Street (Manhattan). |
Notes
- ↑ Landmarks Preservation Commission: Chatsworth Apartments
- ↑ 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."
- ↑ The Upper East Side Book: 19 East 72nd Street.
- ↑ The upper East Side Book: Tower East
- 1 2 Patrick Bunyan. All Around the Town: Amazing Manhattan Facts and Curiosities. Retrieved March 17, 2014.
- ↑ Don Bachardy. Stars in My Eyes. Retrieved March 17, 2014.
- ↑ Howard Pollack. George Gershwin: His Life and Work. Retrieved March 17, 2014.
- ↑ "Harold Stanley, 77, is Dead". The New York Times. May 15, 1963. Retrieved 12 December 2015.
Coordinates: 40°46′20″N 73°57′58″W / 40.7721°N 73.9662°W