23rd Street is a broad thoroughfare in the New York City borough of Manhattan, one of the major two-way, east-west streets in the borough's grid. As with Manhattan's other "crosstown" streets, it is divided into its east and west sections at Fifth Avenue. The street runs from Avenue C and FDR Drive in the east to Eleventh Avenue in the west.
23rd Street was created under the Commissioners' Plan of 1811. The street hosts several famous hotels, including the Fifth Avenue Hotel and Hotel Chelsea, as well as many theaters. Several skyscrapers are located on 23rd Street, including the Flatiron Building, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower, and One Madison.
Description As with other numbered streets in Manhattan, Fifth Avenue separates West and East 23rd Street. This intersection occurs in Madison Square, near Madison Square Park, both of which are part of the Flatiron District. West of Sixth Avenue, West 23rd Street passes through Chelsea. East of Lexington Avenue, East 23rd Street runs along the southern boundary of Kips Bay and the northern boundaries of Gramercy and Peter Cooper Village.
Since 1999, an area north of 23rd Street around the park has been referred to as NoMad.
West 23rd Street
West 23rd Street, which runs through the heart of Chelsea, contains many art galleries and several theaters. For much of the late 19th century and early 20th century its western end was the site of the Pavonia Ferry at Pier 63, just north of the current Chelsea Piers.
In 1907, a small lot of land on the north side of 23rd Street, between Twelfth and Eleventh Avenues, was acquired by the Commissioner of Docks and Ferries. The land was transferred to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation in 1915, becoming a public park called the Thomas F. Smith Park, later the Chelsea Waterside Park. In 2000, the westernmost block of 23rd Street was demolished as part of a reorganization of traffic patterns and an expansion of the park. The expanded park contains a dog run, children's playground, basketball court, and soccer green.
Just west of Tenth Avenue, the street passes under the High Line, a elevated linear park built on the structure of the former West Side Line railroad. The High Line contains both a staircase and an elevator entrance from 23rd Street.
On the north side of 23rd Street, just west of the High Line, is "HL23", a residential building that hangs over the narrow linear park. London Terrace is located across Tenth Avenue, occupying the full block to Ninth Avenue between 23rd and 24th Streets.
The Hotel Chelsea, New York City's first co-op apartment complex, was built at 222 West 23rd Street in 1883. The Emunah Israel synagogue, built in the 1860s as a Presbyterian church, is located a few doors to the west at 236 West 23rd.
The block of 23rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues is part of the Ladies' Mile Historic District. Designated a New York City landmark in May 1989, it is an irregularly shaped district consisting of 440 buildings on 28 blocks and parts of blocks, from roughly 15th Street to 24th Street and from Park Avenue South to west of Sixth Avenue.Pearson, Marhorie (ed.) "Ladies' Mile Historic District Designation Report" New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (May 2, 1989)
East 23rd Street
East 23rd Street, which runs between Fifth Avenue and the East River (FDR Drive), is one of the main thoroughfares of Gramercy Park.
The 22-story Flatiron Building is located on the south side of East 23rd Street at the street's intersection with Fifth Avenue and Broadway, occupying the triangular parcel bounded by these two avenues and 22nd Street. The origin of the term "23 skidoo" is said to be from wind gusts caused by the building's triangular shape or hot air from a shaft through which immense volumes of air escaped, producing gusts that supposedly lifted women's skirts.
The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (MetLife), headquartered at 1 Madison Avenue at East 23rd Street, played a significant role in shaping the character of development along East 23rd Street in the early 20th century, constructing six buildings successively along the street and around the block to the corner of 24th. The tallest of these is the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower, built in 1909 at the intersection of 24th Street and Madison Avenue. The tower, with its ornate clocktower faces, was one of Manhattan's first skyscrapers. For four years, until the construction of the Woolworth Building in 1913, it was the tallest building in the world. It also owned a building across the street, which was the location of the 23rd Street Fire that killed 12 firemen. A new apartment building, the current Madison Green, was announced for the site in the 1970s, but the building itself was not constructed until 1982.
Another skyscraper on the street, the sixty-story, One Madison, was built in 2013. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch bought One Madison's top four floors for $57 million.
The Woman's Press Club of New York City was located at 126 East 23rd Street. It existed from 1889 to 1980 as an organization for female journalists and authors.
On the block between First and Second Avenues, the north side of the street is occupied by East Midtown Plaza, a co-op apartment complex that part of the redevelopment resulting from the Bellevue South Urban Renewal Project in the late 1960s. The northeast corner of the intersection with First Avenue is occupied by 400 First Avenue, which was built in the 1930s for the Institute for the Crippled and Disabled. To its east is a large hospital run by the Veterans Health Administration, the Margaret Cochran Corbin Campus of the VA New York Harbor Healthcare System.
Near 23rd Street's eastern end is the Asser Levy Public Baths. Built at the beginning of the 20th century, the baths were named after Asser Levy, one of the city's first Jewish settlers. In 1980, the baths were added to the National Register of Historic Places.
On the south side of East 23rd between First Avenue and Avenue C, Peter Cooper Village was one of MetLife's experiments in middle-income community building until it was bought by Tishman Speyer. Peter Cooper Village was a sister project to MetLife's Stuyvesant Town, which was built across 20th Street to the south.
Stuyvesant Cove Park is located across FDR Drive, along the East River coast. Stretching south to 18th Street, the public space is built on the site of a concrete plant and parking lot. The street ends at the New York Skyports Seaplane Base, which opened in 1962. The seaplane base, which is part of a marina, also contains a parking lot whose entrance and exit is located at the eastern end of 23rd Street.
History
23rd Street was designated in the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, which established the Manhattan street grid, as one of 15 east-west streets that would be in width, as opposed to minor side streets that were designated as in width.Morris, Gouverneur, De Witt, Simeon, and Rutherford, John (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 plan also reserved the of land bounded by 23rd Street, Third Avenue, 33rd Street and Seventh Avenue as the "Grand Parade", an area upon which development was prohibited. Instead, the area was to be used as an open space for military training, as well as an assembly point in the event the city was invaded. At the time, some thought that the Grand Parade might become a "central park" for the city, but the grounds were gradually reduced over the course of time.Mendelsohn, Joyce (1998). Touring the Flatiron. New York: New York Landmarks Conservancy. p.13. By 1847, the open area was , comprising the land of the current Madison Square Park.
Transport infrastructure By the middle of the 19th century, there was a railroad, the Hudson (later West Side) Line, running from the current Hudson Yards area between 30th and 32nd Streets south to Chambers Street. At the time, the city prohibited steam locomotives from operating below 30th Street because of the risk of the train's steam boiler exploding, so passengers from points north were forced to switch to horse-drawn trains. The horse-drawn line's stops were located at 23rd, 14th, Christopher and Chambers Streets.
The West Side Line caused so many accidents between freight trains and other traffic that the nickname "Death Avenue" was given to Tenth and Eleventh Avenues. In 1929 the city, the state, and New York Central agreed on the West Side Improvement Project, a project that eliminated 105 street-level railroad crossings and cost more than US$150 million (about US$ today). A viaduct, the High Line, replaced the street-level tracks and was dedicated on June 29, 1934. The growth of interstate trucking during the 1950s led to a drop in rail traffic throughout the United States, and the viaduct was effectively abandoned in 1980.
The Twenty-third Street Railway, a street railway originally operated as horse cars and later electric traction, was chartered on January 29, 1872. In 1893, the Twenty-third Street Railway was leased to the Houston, West Street and Pavonia Ferry Railroad, which in turn was consolidated into the Metropolitan Street Railway on December 12, 1893. The Metropolitan Street Railway was leased by the Interurban Street Railway on April 1, 1902, and the latter went bankrupt six years later. The Metropolitan Street Railway separated on July 31, 1908, becoming the 23rd Street crosstown bus route. Originally called the M18-15 and then the M26, the route was renamed the M23 in 1989.
During the 1870s, the Sixth Avenue Elevated was built, significantly increasing the number of customers who shopped at stores along the route. Elevated lines with stations on 23rd Street were also constructed along Ninth Avenue in 1867, Third Avenue in 1878, and Second Avenue in 1880. By the middle of the 20th century, they were all demolished. Several New York City Subway stations now serve 23rd Street (see ).
In 1869, Pavonia Ferry opened a terminal on the shore of the Hudson River at Pier 63, which aligned with the western end of 23rd Street. The ferries traveled to Jersey City, located opposite Manhattan. By the beginning of the 20th century, ferries were already aging and deteriorating under heavy use, and in 1942 the terminal itself was demolished. In the late 1980s, boat enthusiast John Krevey converted an old railroad barge on the Hudson River to a floating jetty called Pier 63. A restaurant was opened on the pier. The lightship Frying Pan and the fire vessel John J. Harvey were also originally moored to Pier 63, with both listed on the National Register of Historic Places. See also:
In 2007, the barge was moved to Pier 66 on 26th Street.
Historical architecture On January 1, 1825, the New York House of Refuge, a jail for juvenile delinquents, opened on Broadway between 22nd and 23rd Streets. The jail housed prisoners up to 16 years old who were serving long jail sentences, including boys who were being imprisoned until at least age 21 and girls until at least age 18. During the first 10 years, the jail held 1,120 prisoners. In 1854, the prison moved to Randall's Island in the East River.