EFE.- Fifth Avenue, where such emblematic places in New York as Central Park, the Empire State Building, the Trump Tower and the Rockefeller Center are located, has just turned 200 years old and is in good health, as it is still the stage of all the great parades that pass through the Big Apple and numerous films.
In ‘La Quinta’ Carrie Bradshaw (‘Sex and the City’) could be seen visiting her favorite store Saks, as Audrey Hepburn had done before in ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’; to Spiderman saving Mary Jane Watson from St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 2002 and taking her to the mythical Rockefeller Center, or to the ‘Ghostbusters’ investigating paranormal apparitions in the Public Library
The avenue, at 10 kilometers, is one of the longest in Manhattan. It starts north of the popular Washington Square Park and goes up to 143rd Street in Harlem. It was born as part of an urban plan and its first section was inaugurated on November 1, 1824, in what is now known as Greenwich Village, precisely two centuries after the city was founded.
Even then it was the avenue of the city’s wealthiest families, and its connection with luxury and power always marked its character: suffice it to say that Donald Trump chose it to build Trump Tower long before he became president.
With the designation of Fifth Avenue, wealthy families – railroad magnates, mining magnates, bankers, department store owners – hired the most famous architects to build their palaces between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, imitating European models, whether they were Renaissance, Rococo and Neo-Gothic.
The first mansions rose around Washington Square and up to 14th Street, and then included centers of worship such as the city’s first Presbyterian church, which still stands.
Wealth, luxury and glamor
Thus these palaces – many of which were demolished to make way for apartment buildings – were built for the Astors, Carnegies, Vanderbilts, Posts or Fricks during what Mark Twain called ‘the golden age of prosperity’, an era in which that great families competed to build the most luxurious building.
And they spared no expense: the mansion to which Marjorie Merriweather Post, heiress of the Postum cereal emporium, moved in 1916, had 54 rooms.
And hundreds of palaces competed with Marjorie’s in those early years of the 20th century, each one more extravagant. It was the time of The Great Gatsby, although that novel is set on Long Island and not on the Fifth.
In that golden age, Fifth Avenue was the place to go for a walk, “to see and be seen,” and New Yorkers dressed in their best clothes. The rich residents of La Quinta opposed tooth and nail to the nascent New York subway passing through there and spoiling their avenue with its smells, its noise and its masses of workers.
At the same time as the first automobiles, Fifth Avenue was filled with the first luxury hotels, as it extended northward: the Saint Regis that opened its doors in 1904, the Gotham (now the Peninsula) in 1905 and the famous Plaza in 1907. Another film much loved by the general public was filmed in the latter, ‘Home Alone’.
Luxury brands found a home on Fifth Avenue, between 34th and 59th streets, where their display cases dazzle visitors with their exclusive merchandise. Among them are department stores such as Bergdorf Goodman, which opened in 1928, and Saks Fifth Avenue, the Bulgari, Cartier or Tiffany jewelers or the Prada, Gucci and Versace boutiques, turning the avenue into a global shopping center for years. Apple would later join.
Rockefeller Center and the Cathedral
One of the great attractions of the Fifth is the Rockefeller Center (built between 1931 and 1939), which attracts millions of people every year, especially to see its traditional Christmas tree and skate on its ice rink. Next to Rockefeller, Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, a neo-Gothic extravaganza in the city of skyscrapers, is another must-see landmark in the Big Apple.
A little further up begins “the museum mile”, with galleries as famous as the Metropolitan, the Guggenheim, the city museum or the Barrio museum. From its windows you can see Central Park in all its splendor.
Fifth Avenue has also been the itinerary for ‘community’ parades for more than a hundred years, the most traditional being Italian, Irish or Hispanic, involving thousands of participants who once a year show off their double identity. in this city that welcomes all the cultures of the world.
Fifth Avenue is now turning 200 years old, facing its first redesign in several decades to widen its sidewalks, shorten pedestrian crossings, reduce the number of traffic lanes and provide this famous street with better lighting, according to the Mayor’s plans.
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