19th century in 1905, with the
Sixth Avenue El on the right that thrived along Sixth Avenue left behind some of the largest retail spaces in the city. Beginning in the 1990s, the buildings began to be reused after being dormant for decades. Sixth Avenue was laid out in the
Commissioners' Plan of 1811. As originally designed, Sixth Avenue's southern terminus was at Carmine Street in Greenwich Village, and it continued northward to 147th Street in Harlem.
Central Park was added to the street grid in 1857 and created an interruption in Sixth Avenue between 59th and 110th Streets. Proposals to extend the street south of Carmine Street were discussed by the city's
Board of Aldermen as early as the mid-1860s. The
IRT Sixth Avenue Line elevated railway (the "El") was constructed on Sixth Avenue in 1878, darkening the street and reducing its real-estate value. In the early and mid-1800s Sixth Avenue passed by the popular roadhouse and tavern,
Old Grapevine, at the corner of 11th Street, which at the time was the northern edge of the city. In late 1887, the
Harlem portion of what was then considered Sixth Avenue was renamed
Lenox Avenue for philanthropist
James Lenox; a century later it was co-named Malcolm X Boulevard, in honor of the slain civil rights leader
Malcolm X.
Early 20th century Starting in 1926, as part of the construction of the
Holland Tunnel, Sixth Avenue was widened and extended from Minetta Lane to
Canal Street. Smaller side streets in the extension's path were also demolished or incorporated into the extended avenue. Construction of the extension resulted in considerable dislocation to existing residents, as ten thousand people were evicted to make way for the Sixth Avenue extension. One historian stated that most of the displaced residents were "Italian immigrants who knew no other home in America". According to the
WPA Guide to New York City, the extension resulted in blank side walls facing the "uninspiring thoroughfare" and small leftover spaces. Dozens of buildings, including the original
Church of Our Lady of Pompeii, were demolished. After the renumbering of the street's properties in 1929, the Sixth Avenue extension was opened to traffic in 1930, and the subway line was completed two years later. Sixth Avenue, the only numbered avenue to extend south of
Houston Street, thus became the southernmost numbered avenue in Manhattan.
House numbering of existing buildings was adjusted. The demolition of the Sixth Avenue elevated railway also resulted in accelerated commercial development of the avenue in
Midtown. Beginning in the 1960s, the avenue was entirely rebuilt above 42nd Street as an all-but-uninterrupted avenue of corporate headquarters housed in glass slab towers of
International Modernist style. Among the buildings constructed was the
CBS Building at
52nd Street, by
Eero Saarinen (1965), dubbed "Black Rock" for its full-height black-granite
piers; Another group of modernist structures along Sixth Avenue in midtown was the "XYZ Buildings" (1971–1974) at
1211,
1221, and
1251 Sixth Avenue. The rest of the avenue followed on November 10, 1963.
Renaming and co-naming on Sixth AvenueThe avenue's official name was changed to
Avenue of the Americas in 1945 by the City Council, at the behest of Mayor
Fiorello La Guardia, who signed the bill into law on October 2, 1945. The intent was to honor "
Pan-American ideals and principles" and the nations of Central and South America, and to encourage those countries to build consulates along the avenue. It was felt at the time that the name would provide greater grandeur to a shabby street and promote trade with the Western Hemisphere. After the name change, round signs were attached to streetlights on the avenue, showing the national seals and coats of arms of the nations honored. However, New Yorkers rarely used the avenue's newer name, The move was criticized as "propaganda" by those who wanted to return to the original name. Most of the old round signs with country emblems were gone by the late 1990s, and the ones remaining, which were only present between Canal Street and Washington Place in Greenwich Village and in Midtown around 57th Street began showing signs of age.
Late 20th century to present In the mid-1970s, the city "spruced up" the street, including the addition of patterned brick crosswalks, repainting of streetlamps, and new pedestrian plazas. Special lighting, rare throughout the rest of the city, was also installed. The administration of Mayor
Ed Koch added a
protected bike lane to Sixth Avenue between Eighth Street/
Greenwich Avenue and Central Park South; the lane carried 200 cyclists an hour at peak times. The barriers between the bike lane and the vehicular lanes were removed in November 1980.
Manhattan Community Board 2 voted in 2014 to request a feasibility study for a protected bike lane on Sixth Avenue. The protected bike lane between 35th Street and Central Park South was reinstated in October 2020, following advocacy from cyclists. At the time, Sixth Avenue had two discontinuous segments of bike lanes, separated by a 20-block stretch with no bike lane. The southern segment ran from Franklin Street to Canal Street, while the northern segment ran from Eighth Street to Central Park South. and plans for a bike lane between these two intersections were announced in October 2024. The same month, as part of a reconstruction of the parallel
Fifth Avenue in Midtown, Mayor
Eric Adams proposed widening Sixth Avenue's bike lane for two-way bike traffic. ==Notable buildings and events==