23rd Street (Manhattan)

23rd Street is a large thoroughfare across the New York City borough of Manhattan. It runs from river to river across Manhattan, carrying two-way traffic. As with Manhattan's other streets, West 23rd Street stretches west of Fifth Avenue (at Madison Square Park) and East 23rd Street runs to the east.

In the late 19th century, the western part of 23rd Street was to American theater what Broadway is today.

West 23rd Street

West 23rd Street carves through the heart of Chelsea.

In the late 19th century West 23rd Street was the center of American theater, with the Opera House Palace and Pike's Opera House one block away and Proctor's Theater ("continuous daily vaudeville") across the street from the Hotel Chelsea. 23rd Street remained New York's main theater strip until The Empire opened on Broadway some twenty blocks uptown, ushering in a new era of theater.

The Hotel Chelsea, New York's first co-op apartment complex, was built here in 1883; it was New York's tallest building until 1902. [Chamberlain, Lisa. [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/nyregion/19chelsea.html "Change at the Chelsea, Shelter of the Arts"] , "The New York Times", June 19, 2007. Accessed September 19, 2008.]

East 23rd Street

East 23rd Street, which runs between Fifth Avenue and the East River (FDR Drive), is one of the main streets running through Manhattan's neighborhood of Gramercy Park. 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.

Opposite Madison Square Park on East 23rd Street are two skyscrapers originally built by MetLife. 1 Madison Avenue, with its ornate clocktower face, was one of Manhattan's first skyscrapers. [http://www.skyscraper.org/TALLEST_TOWERS/t_metro.htm] 11 Madison Avenue was intended to be the base of a much taller skyscraper, but the onset of the Depression forced MetLife to scale back its plans. Even so, the building stands today as an Art Deco masterpiece.

On the far east side of East 23rd is Peter Cooper Village, one of MetLife's experiments in middle-income community building (until 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. [http://www.olr.com/timeline/1930_1949.asp]

On October 17, 1966, this street was also witness to New York's deadliest fire in terms of firefighters killed until the September 11, 2001 attacks. The "23rd Street Fire", as it came to be called, began in a cellar at 7 East 22nd Street and soon spread to the basement of 6 East 23rd Street, a five-story commercial building that housed a drugstore at street level. Twelve firefighters were killed; two chiefs, two lieutenants, and six firefighters plunged into the flaming cellar, while two more firefighters were killed by the blast of flame and heat on the first floor. [O'Donnell, Michelle. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9507E3D91E30F934A25753C1A9609C8B63 "Oct. 17, 1966, When 12 Firemen Died"] , "The New York Times", October 17, 2006. Accessed August 7, 2008.]

The Flatiron Building is on the south side of the street at Broadway. 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 was forced to escape and that produced gusts that supposedly lifted women's skirts. [Andrew S. Dolkart. [http://ci.columbia.edu/0240s/0242_2/0242_2_s5_text.html "The Architecture and Development of New York City: The Birth of the Skyscraper - Romantic Symbols"] , Columbia University, accessed May 15, 2007. "In the early twentieth century, men would hang out on the corner here on Twenty-third Street and watch the wind blowing women's dresses up so that they could catch a little bit of ankle. This entered into popular culture and there are hundreds of postcards and illustrations of women with their dresses blowing up in front of the Flatiron Building. And it supposedly is where the slang expression "23 skidoo" comes from because the police would come and give the voyeurs the 23 skidoo to tell them to get out of the area."]

Public transit

Every New York City Subway line that crosses 23rd Street has a local station there:
*23rd Street (N R) on the BMT Broadway Line
*23rd Street (C E) on the IND Eighth Avenue Line
*23rd Street (NYCS Sixth local) on the IND Sixth Avenue Line
*23rd Street (1) on the IRT Broadway-Seventh Avenue Line
*23rd Street (6) on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line

Port Authority Trans-Hudson has a station at 23rd Street as well.

Additionally, MTA New York City Transit's M23 bus runs the length of 23rd Street. This replaced the horse-drawn and later electric-powered Twenty-Third Street Railway. In 2003, the Straphangers Campaign listed the M23 as one of the slowest in the city, winning its "Pokey Award."

Intersections from east to west

*FDR Drive
*First Avenue
*Second Avenue
*Third Avenue
*Lexington Avenue
*Park Avenue
*Madison Avenue
*Fifth Avenue and Broadway - East 23rd Street becomes West 23rd Street
*Sixth Avenue
*Seventh Avenue
*Eighth Avenue
*Ninth Avenue
*Tenth Avenue
*Eleventh Avenue
*West Side Highway (23rd Street has been closed to vehicles west of Eleventh Avenue)

References

ee also

*Manhattan streets, 1-14
*Manhattan streets, 23-42

External links

* [http://www.nysonglines.com/23st.htm New York Songlines: 23rd Street] , a virtual walking tour
* [http://www.hotelchelsea.com/history.php History of the Hotel Chelsea]
* [http://www.nyfd.com/history/23rd_street/23rd_street.html The 23rd Street Fire]