23rd Street was designated in the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, which established the Manhattan
street grid, as one of 15 east-west streets that would be in width, as opposed to minor side streets that were designated as in width. The plan also reserved the of land bounded by 23rd Street,
Third Avenue,
33rd Street and
Seventh Avenue as the "Grand Parade", an area upon which development was prohibited. Instead, the area was to be used as an open space for military training, as well as an assembly point in the event the city was invaded. At the time, some thought that the Grand Parade might become a "central park" for the city, but the grounds were gradually reduced over the course of time. By 1847, the open area was , comprising the land of the current Madison Square Park.
Transport infrastructure By the middle of the 19th century, there was a railroad, the
Hudson (later West Side) Line, running from the current
Hudson Yards area between 30th and 32nd Streets south to
Chambers Street. At the time, the city prohibited steam locomotives from operating below 30th Street because of the risk of the train's steam boiler exploding, so passengers from points north were forced to switch to
horse-drawn trains. The horse-drawn line's stops were located at 23rd,
14th,
Christopher and Chambers Streets. The West Side Line caused so many accidents between freight trains and other traffic that the nickname "
Death Avenue" was given to Tenth and Eleventh Avenues. In 1929 the city, the state, and New York Central agreed on the West Side Improvement Project, a project that eliminated 105 street-level railroad crossings and cost more than US$150 million (about US$ today). The growth of interstate trucking during the 1950s led to a drop in rail traffic throughout the United States, and the viaduct was effectively abandoned in 1980. In 1893, the Twenty-third Street Railway was leased to the
Houston, West Street and Pavonia Ferry Railroad, and the latter went bankrupt six years later. The Metropolitan Street Railway separated on July 31, 1908, becoming the 23rd Street crosstown bus route. Originally called the M18-15 and then the M26, the route was renamed the M23 in 1989. During the 1870s, the
Sixth Avenue Elevated was built, significantly increasing the number of customers who shopped at stores along the route. Elevated lines with stations on 23rd Street were also constructed along
Ninth Avenue in 1867,
Third Avenue in 1878, and
Second Avenue in 1880. By the middle of the 20th century, they were all demolished. Several
New York City Subway stations now serve 23rd Street (see ). By the beginning of the 20th century, ferries were already aging and deteriorating under heavy use, and in 1942 the terminal itself was demolished. In the late 1980s, boat enthusiast John Krevey converted an old
railroad barge on the Hudson River to a floating jetty called
Pier 63. A restaurant was opened on the pier. The lightship
Frying Pan and the fire vessel
John J. Harvey were also originally moored to Pier 63, with both listed on the
National Register of Historic Places. In 2007, the barge was moved to
Pier 66 on 26th Street.
Historical architecture On January 1, 1825, the
New York House of Refuge, a jail for juvenile delinquents, opened on Broadway between 22nd and 23rd Streets. The jail housed prisoners up to 16 years old who were serving long jail sentences, including boys who were being imprisoned until at least age 21 and girls until at least age 18. During the first 10 years, the jail held 1,120 prisoners. In 1854, the prison moved to
Randall's Island in the
East River. A collection of four-story houses called
London Terrace was built on the block bounded by 23rd Street, 24th Streets, Ninth Avenue, and Tenth Avenue in 1845. London Terrace was rebuilt in 1930, with the houses being replaced with 14 apartment buildings that each had sixteen to eighteen floors. The new complex had a total of 1,670 apartments, housing 5,000 total residents. At the time of construction it was the largest residential complex in the city. at the intersection of Park Avenue and 23rd Street in 1894 In 1857, the merchant
Amos Eno bought a land parcel at the intersection with Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street. He built the luxury
Fifth Avenue Hotel on this site by 1859. The six-story-high structure, which was designed to accommodate 800 guests, became the largest hotel in the world at that time. The hotel served as the headquarters of the
Republican Party and was used by Presidents
Ulysses S. Grant and
Chester A. Arthur. When the
Prince of Wales,
Edward VII, visited the hotel in 1860, the commercial appeal of the adjacent neighborhood was greatly increased. The area bounded by 14th and 23rd Streets between Sixth Avenue and Broadway was soon dubbed
Ladies' Mile. In 1908, the hotel was demolished and replaced by the
Toy Center. By about 1860, Irish immigrants had displaced African-Americans living in
Five Points, the latter of whom later resettled all over Manhattan. A thousand African-Americans eventually settled in an area bordered by 23rd Street on the south, 40th Street on the north, and Sixth Avenue on the east. The
National Academy of Design building opened in 1863 at the intersection of 23rd Street and
Fourth (now Park) Avenue. The building was designed by
Peter Bonnett Wight in a style evocative of
Doge's Palace in
Venice. However, by the beginning of the 20th century, it had been demolished and replaced with the
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower. department store|left In 1878, the
Stern Brothers department store opened between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. The building, designed by
Henry Fernbach, was massive by contemporary standards, standing seven stories high and measuring wide. It became one of the largest
cast-iron structures in New York City. A second notable hotel on the street, the
Hotel Chelsea, was built between 1883 and 1885, The building has been a designated
New York City landmark since 1966, and on the
National Register of Historic Places since 1977. The emergence of many new hotels after the
American Civil War contributed to the increase of
prostitution in the area. By 1876, there were so many brothels in the area bounded by 23rd and
57th Streets, between Fifth and Seventh Avenues, that
New York City Police Department captain
Alexander S. Williams nicknamed this strip of land "
Tenderloin". Referring to the increased number of bribes he would receive for police protection of both legitimate and illegitimate businesses there – especially the many
brothels – Williams said, "I've been having
chuck steak ever since I've been on the force, and now I'm going to have a bit of
tenderloin."
Theaters There were several
Broadway and
Off-Broadway theaters being built along West 23rd Street beginning in the late 19th century. By the turn of the century, the street contained a "Theater Row", which was a prominent fixture in
American theater. 23rd Street remained New York's main theater strip until the
Empire Theatre opened on
Broadway some twenty blocks uptown, ushering in a new era of theater. In 1868,
Pike's Opera House (later the Grand Opera House) was built at Eighth Avenue and 23rd Street for several million dollars. The film company
RKO Pictures converted the building into a
movie theater in 1938. By 1960, it was demolished to make room for the
Penn South residential complex.
Booth's Theatre was opened in 1869 at the intersection with Sixth Avenue. It was sold in 1881 for half the cost of its construction, becoming a dry-goods store. Proctor used innovations such as electric lighting and phonographs in his "continuous daily vaudeville" theater. In 1907, the theater was converted to an RKO cinema, and 30 years later, it was destroyed in a fire. During the late 19th century,
Bryant's Minstrels also performed a
minstrel show in Proctor's Theatre. Modern theaters include the Chelsea Bow Tie Cinemas, on the south side of West 23rd between Seventh and Eighth Avenues; the SVA Theatre, operated by the
School of Visual Arts on the north side of West 23rd one block west; and the Cell Theatre, across the street from the SVA Theatre.
Baruch College, an institution within the
City University of New York system, was a successor to the Free Academy. Founded by businessman and City College alumnus
Bernard Baruch, the campus includes the Lawrence and Eris Field Building at the southeast corner of Lexington Avenue and 23rd Street in Gramercy. The 16-story building, opened in 1929, is the oldest structure that is part of Baruch College. The
New York Public Library contains two
branches on the different portions of 23rd Street: the Muhlenberg branch on West 23rd Street and Seventh Avenue, and the Epiphany branch on East 23rd Street west of Second Avenue. The Epiphany branch, which is located in Gramercy/Kips Bay, opened in 1887 and moved to its current location, a
Carnegie library on 23rd Street, in 1907. It was renovated from 1982 to 1984. The Muhlenberg branch, also a Carnegie library, opened in Chelsea in 1906 and was renovated in 2000.
Incidents On October 17, 1966, the street was the location of New York's deadliest fire until the
September 11 attacks, in terms of firefighters killed. 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. The site is now the location of
Madison Green, a 31-story apartment building. On September 17, 2016,
several bombs detonated in New York and New Jersey. One of these was a
pressure cooker bomb that exploded on West 23rd Street between
Sixth Avenue and
Seventh Avenue, injuring 31 people. A New Jersey resident, Ahmed Khan Rahimi, was later detained in connection with the bombings. == Economy ==