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Park Avenue
(formerly Fourth Avenue) is a wide boulevard that carries traffic north and south. Park Avenue is noted for its perennially high real estate prices and affluent reputation, especially as it runs through the Upper East Side. The avenue carried the tracks of the New York and Harlem Railroad starting in the 1830s. The railroad originally built an open cut through Murray Hill which was covered with grates and grass between 34th and 40th Street in the early 1850s. A section of this "park" was renamed Park Avenue in 1860. In 1867 the name applied all the way to 42nd Street. When Grand Central Depot was opened in the 1870s the railroad between 56th and 96th Street were sunk out of sight and in 1888, Park Avenue was extended to Harlem River. In 1936, an elevated structure was built around Grand Central Terminal to allow automobile traffic to pass the station unimpeded. In October 1937, a part of the Murray Hill Tunnel was reopened for road traffic. In 1959, the City Council changed the name of Fourth Avenue between 17th and 32nd Streets to Park Avenue South. In 1963, the Pan Am Building was built straddling Park Avenue atop Grand Central Terminal, with a tunnel through it to accommodate the automobile bridge. |
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- Park Ave
- Park Ave
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