 Two-way block, between 2nd and 3rd Avenues on an otherwise one-way street.Manhattan House, a registeredNew York City Landmark, on the right. | |
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66th Street is a crosstown street in theNew York Cityborough ofManhattan with portions on theUpper East Side andUpper West Side connected acrossCentral Park via the 66th Street transverse. West 66th Street is notable for hosting theLincoln Center for the Performing Arts betweenBroadway andColumbus Avenue.
The street runs westbound, even though even-numbered streets in Manhattan typically go east. Its eastern end on the Upper East Side atYork Avenue oppositeRockefeller University. AtFifth Avenue the street enters Central Park on the 66th Street transverse across the park, sharing it with eastbound traffic. West 66th Street runs through a subsection of the Upper West Side namedLincoln Square. Once it crossesWest End Avenue, the street ends at Riverside Boulevard in theRiverside South neighborhood.
Founder's Hall, located atYork Avenue at the eastern foot of East 66th Street, was the first building opened on the campus ofRockefeller University. It was the first major philanthropic foundation created byJohn D. Rockefeller Jr. The building was declared aNational Historic Landmark in 1974 and is still used as a laboratory.[1]
Manhattan House, located at 200 East 66th Street, was designated as a New York City landmark in 2007 by theNew York City Landmarks Preservation Commission for its influential mid-century modernist architecture.Benny Goodman,Grace Kelly, architectGordon Bunshaft and other distinguished residents lived there. The street was widened during its construction.[2]
TheCosmopolitan Club is a private women's club located betweenPark Avenue andLexington Avenue. Members have includedWilla Cather,Ellen Glasgow,Eleanor Roosevelt,Jean Stafford,Helen Hayes,Pearl Buck,Marian Anderson,Margaret Mead, andAbby Aldrich Rockefeller. The building was purchased by the club in 1930.[3]
45 East 66th Street is the site of a red-and-white French Gothic 10-story apartment house completed in 1908 for Charles F. Rodgers as designed by architectsHarde & Short.[4][5] The site was added to theNational Register of Historic Places in 1980.[6]
The block between Columbus Avenue andCentral Park West is the address for theABC News Headquarters and was co-namedPeter Jennings Way in 2006 in honor of the late news anchor.[7] TheFirst Battery Armory is in the middle of the block at 56 West 66th Street.[8] The famed Manhattan restaurantTavern on the Green is located off of West 66th Street, at Central Park West.
66th Street is the site of theManhattan New York Temple ofthe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The design for the 38-story structure included retail space at ground level, a church center on lower floors and 325 apartments. In 1972, the plan faced opposition from community organizations and ManhattanBorough PresidentPercy Sutton who protested against the policy onexclusion of blacks from ministerial roles in the church, which was not ended until 1978.[9]
TheLincoln Center for the Performing Arts covers a 16.3-acre (6.6 ha) site located between Broadway andAmsterdam Avenue, from West 60th to West 66th Street. The project, designed to consolidate many of the city's cultural institutions on a single site, was constructed on the site of theSan Juan Hill neighborhood as part of the "Lincoln Square Renewal Project" duringRobert Moses' program of urban renewal in the 1960s. The first structure completed and occupied as part of this renewal was theFordham University School of Law in 1962. TheDauphin Hotel was among the structures demolished as part of the project.
In 1972, theChinese government purchased the 10-story Lincoln Square Motor Inn at Broadway for nearly $5 million, which was turned into the Chinese Mission to theUnited Nations, including offices and residences for its delegation in New York. The location made it the only permanent headquarters of any country to be situated on the West Side of Manhattan.[10] In 1998, the Chinese government swapped the site for buildings located onFirst Avenue and34th Street, in order to be closer to the UN. The site was converted into a 100-apartment extension of the Phillips Club, anextended stay hotel.[11]
Lincoln Towers is an apartment complex that consists of six buildings with eight addresses on a 20-acre (81,000 m2) campus, bounded on the south by West 66th Street, on the west by Freedom Place, on the north by West 70th Street, and on the east by Amsterdam Avenue.
A 1986 plan byDonald Trump would have located aTelevision City Tower, the world's tallest building — 150 stories and 1,910 feet (580 m) tall — at the corner of West End Avenue and 66th Street, as part of his development of the100 acre property along theHudson River between59th Street and72nd Street atop the Penn Central rail yards.[12]
TheWest 65th and 66th Streets Block Association, founded in April 2018, seeks to promote neighborhood harmony, quality of life and safety through collaborative planning, community action, and policy advocacy. The Block Association has brought attention to larcenies at Duane Reade, lobbied for additional bike corrals for the street, and raised concern aboutExtell's plans for a 775 ft tower at 36 West 66th Street.
Richard Tucker Park, covering 0.05 acres (200 m2) is located at the corner of Broadway and Columbus Avenue.[13][14] The park includes a bust of operatic tenorRichard Tucker by sculptorMilton Hebald dedicated on April 20, 1980, consisting of a larger-than-life size bronze sculpture on a 6-foot-high (1.8 m) granite pedestal.[15][16] The original 1978 proposal for a seven-foot statue of Tucker, depicted in the role of Des Grieux in the operaManon Lescaut byGiacomo Puccini, had been opposed by a member ofManhattan Community Board 7, who felt that the piece should have been placed in theMetropolitan Opera Hall of Fame, and not on public property.[17]
Notable current and former residents of 66th Street include:
The66th Street–Lincoln Center station on theIRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line is located at the intersection of 66th Street and Broadway. It is served by the1 and 2 trains.
TheM66 provides crosstown bus service between East 67th Street andYork Avenue on theUpper East Side and West 66th Street andWest End Avenue on the Upper West Side. Eastbound service uses West 65th and East 68th Streets.[26] The route dates back to one established in 1935 by the Comprehensive Omnibus Corporation.[27] The transverse through Central Park is shared with theM72, and the uptownM20 runs west from Central Park West to Columbus Avenue.
40°46′06″N73°58′09″W / 40.7683°N 73.9691°W /40.7683; -73.9691
