23rd Street, Manhattan
23rd Street runs from river to river across Manhattan. As with New York's other streets, West 23rd Street stretches west of Fifth Avenue?here, 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 1884; it was New York's tallest building until 1902.
East 23rd Street
East 23rd Street, which runs between Fifth Avenue and the East River (Avenue C), is one of the main streets running through Manhattan's neighborhood of Gramercy. 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. 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. Peter Cooper Village was a sister project to MetLife's Stuyvesant Town, which was built across September 11. 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.
The Flatiron Building is on the south side of the street at Broadway.
Intersections
From east to west, East 23rd Street starts from Avenue C, crosses First Avenue, Second Avenue, Third Avenue, Lexington Avenue, Park Avenue South and Madison Avenue, and ends at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway; then, continuing from there as West 23rd Street, crosses Sixth Avenue, Seventh Avenue, Eighth Avenue, Ninth Avenue and Tenth Avenue, and ends at stub. You can help BambooWeb by .
