Fifth Avenue: The Best Address

by Jerry E. Patterson

This social history documents 175 years of America's most glorious main street. Jerry E. Patterson explores the avenue from its beginning, journeying uptown from Greenwich Village to Harlem and highlighting such famous landmarks along the way as the Washington Square Arch, the Flatiron Building, the Empire State Building, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Rockefeller Center, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Patterson's tour of Fifth Avenue is not limited to famous points of interest, but explores the avenue's colorful history as well. The lore surrounding the lives and achievements of notable Manhattanites - from the descendants of the island's earliest Dutch settlers to such luminous American figures as Stanford White, Mark Twain, and Edith Wharton - vividly imbues Fifth The Best Address.

Genres: Nonfiction

224 pages, Hardcover

First published May 15, 1998

Reviews

[Paula · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having just finished the novel NEW YORK and another book about the Vanderbilt family, this book about Fifth Avenue fit right in. In both the novel and the book about the Vanderbilts, Fifth Avenue was featured prominently. Most of the Vanderbilts, as well as the Astors and many other wealthy New Yorkers, built homes on Fifth Ave, and so the book on Fifth added to the history I had just read in the other 2 books.

This book offers a nice history of the Avenue, those who made their homes there over the years, what the homes looked like, and what happened to them (most of them being demolished eventually). They were truly mansions in most cases--imposing on the outside, and very cluttered on the inside, filled to the ceilings with belongings (especially in the case of the Collyer brothers). In some cases, the homes were "saved" by virtue of becoming headquarters of organizations, or even museums, and still exist today. But for the most part, they are gone now, and we can only appreciate the architecture by reading books like this.

I particularly loved the one photo of the row houses on the east side of Fifth Ave. across from the tall walls of the reservoir at 42 Street. At one time I worked in one of the buildings now standing in place of the row houses. Only now the view is not of the reservoir, but of the front of the New York Public Library. And after reading THE WATERWORKS by E. L. Doctorow, it was nice to see an actual photo of the reservoir.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some great photos, and interesting information in a popular history of the great street through the heart of Manhattan.