Avenue of the Americas | |
![]() The "skyscraper alley" of International Style buildings along the avenue looking north from 40th Street to Central Park | |
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Namesake | The Americas |
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Owner | City of New York |
Maintained by | NYCDOT |
Length | 3.7 mi (6.0 km)[1] |
Location | Manhattan, New York City |
South end | Church / Franklin Streets in Tribeca |
Major junctions | Herald Square in Midtown |
North end | Central Park South / Center Drive in Midtown |
East | Fifth Avenue (north of Waverly Pl) |
West | Varick Street (south of Houston Street) Seventh Avenue (Houston Street to 34th Street) Broadway (between 34th and 45th Streets) Seventh Avenue (between 45th and 59th Streets) |
Construction | |
Commissioned | March 1811 |
Sixth Avenue, also known as Avenue of the Americas, is a major thoroughfare in New York City's borough of Manhattan, on which traffic runs northbound, or "uptown". It is commercial for much of its length.
Sixth Avenue begins four blocks below Canal Street, at Franklin Street in Tribeca, where the northbound Church Street divides into Sixth Avenue to the left and the local continuation of Church Street to the right, which then ends at Canal Street. From this beginning, Sixth Avenue traverses SoHo and Greenwich Village, roughly divides Chelsea from the Flatiron District and NoMad, passes through the Garment District and skirts the edge of the Theater District while passing through Midtown Manhattan. Although it is officially named "Avenue of the Americas", this name is seldom used by New Yorkers.[2][3][4]
Sixth Avenue's northern end is at Central Park South, adjacent to the Artists' Gate entrance to Central Park via Center Drive. Historically, Sixth Avenue was also the name of the road that continued north of Central Park, but that segment was renamed Lenox Avenue in 1887 and co-named Malcolm X Boulevard in 1987.[5]
Avenue of the Americas, a name rarely used by New Yorkers
New Yorkers stubbornly resist calling Sixth Avenue by the name it has officially borne since the La Guardia years