 Tompkins Square Park lines Avenue A between East Seventh Street and East 10th Street. | |
 | |
| Owner | City of New York |
|---|---|
| Maintained by | NYCDOT |
| Length | 1.1 mi (1.8 km)[1] |
| Location | Manhattan,New York City |
| South end | Houston |
| North end | 14th Street |
| East | Avenue B |
| West | First Avenue |
| Construction | |
| Commissioned | March 1811 |
Avenue A is a north–south avenue located inManhattan,New York City, east ofFirst Avenue and west ofAvenue B. It runs fromHouston Street to14th Street, where it continues into a loop road inStuyvesant Town, connecting toAvenue B. Below Houston Street, Avenue A continues asEssex Street.
It is considered to be the western border ofAlphabet City in theEast Village. It is also the western border ofTompkins Square Park.
Under theCommissioners' Plan of 1811 that established the Manhattan street grid, the avenues would begin withFirst Avenue on the east side and run throughTwelfth Avenue in the west. East of First Avenue the plan provided four additional lettered avenues running from Avenue A eastward toAvenue D wherever they could be fitted.[2]
While First Avenue was the easternmost avenue in most of Manhattan, several discontinuous sections were designated asAvenue A north of present-day Alphabet City.
As late as 1943, Avenue A went as far north as 25th Street.[3] In 1947, with the construction ofStuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, a short section of Avenue A from 23rd to 25th Streets inKips Bay, Manhattan, was cut off from the existing section below 14th Street. The two-block section was renamed in 1954 afterAsser Levy, one of the firstJewish citizens of New York City, and a strong and influential advocate forcivil liberties.[4][5] The eastern side of Asser Levy Place contains theAsser Levy Recreation Center,[6][7] which includes theAsser Levy Public Baths, built in 1905-08.[8][9]
Asser Levy Place closed in October 2013 to become part of the Recreation Center[10] The park now contains concrete Ping-Pong tables, a track and field, exercise equipment, and painted children's games such as hopscotch. It is being built byNew York City Department of Parks and Recreation to replace the western end of theRobert Moses Playground at42nd Street andFDR Drive being sold to theUnited Nations, in preparation for a futureEast River Greenway phase on the FDR Drive, underneath theUnited Nations headquarters between East 38th and 60th Streets.[10][11]
Beekman Place, located at theheadquarters of the United Nations, runs as a short street between Mitchell Place/49th Street and 51st Street. Though not part of the original Avenue A in the 1811 plan, it is named after the Beekman family (members of whom includeWilhelmus Beekman, whose namesakes also include downtown's Beekman Street andWilliam Street), who were influential in New York City's development.[12]
Sutton Place was also formerly designated as Avenue A; in its original length it ran between East 53rd and 92nd Streets.Effingham B. Sutton constructed a group of brownstones in 1875 between 57th and 58th Streets, and is said to have lent the street his name, though the earliest source found byThe New York Times dates back to 1883. TheNew York City Board of Aldermen approved a petition to change the name from "Avenue A" to "Sutton Place", covering the blocks between 57th and 60th Streets.[13][14]
In 1928, a one-block section of Sutton Place north of East 59th Street, and all of Avenue A north of that point, was renamedYork Avenue in honor of World War One US Army SergeantAlvin York, who won theMedal of Honor for an attack in theMeuse-Argonne Offensive on October 8, 1918.[14][15] This section is the only former section of Avenue A to still use the Avenue A address system (as it only has four-digit building numbers).
The northernmost section of Avenue A, stretching between East 114th and 120th Streets inEast Harlem, was renamed Pleasant Avenue in 1879.[6][16] The addresses on Pleasant Avenue are not continuous with those on Avenue A (which would be in the 2000-series if they were continuous).
TheM14A SBS bus travels Avenue A fromEast 11th to Houston Streets (which becomesEssex Street), then east alongGrand Street to theFDR Drive on theEast River coastline. TheM8 also runs on Avenue A south of East 10th Street to East 9th Street (westbound) or from St. Marks Place (eastbound).[17]
On the same position on the Manhattan street grid:
Other lettered avenues in Alphabet City, Manhattan:
.In 1928, Sutton Place from 59th to 60th Street, and Avenue A north of 60th, were renamed York Avenue in honor of Sgt. Alvin C. York (1887-1964), a World War I hero from Tennessee and a recipient of the Medal of Honor.
