Eighth Avenue (Manhattan)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Eighth Avenue is a north-south avenue on the West Side of Manhattan in New York City, carrying northbound traffic. It is the longest straight road on Manhattan. Eighth Avenue begins in the West Village neighborhood at Abingdon Square (where Hudson Street becomes 8th Avenue at an intersection with Bleecker Street) and runs north for 44 blocks through Chelsea, the Garment District, Hell's Kitchen's east end, Midtown and the Broadway Theatre District before if finally enters Columbus Circle (at 58th Street).
North of Columbus Circle, the roadway becomes Central Park West along Central Park and, north of 110th Street, becomes Frederick Douglass Boulevard. Unofficially, Frederick Douglass Boulevard is sometimes still referred to as Eighth Avenue. Fredrick Douglass Boulevard eventually terminates near the Harlem River at the Harlem River Drive around West 159th Street. While the avenue has different names at different points in Manhattan, it is actually one continuous stretch of road, only changing in name.
The IND Eighth Avenue Line runs under Eighth Avenue.
Since the 1990s, the stretch of Eighth Avenue that runs through Greenwich Village and its adjacent Chelsea neighborhood has been a center of the city's gay community, with bars and restaurants catering to gay men. In fact, New York City's annual gay pride parade takes place along the Greenwich Village section of Eighth Avenue. Also, along with Times Square, the portion of Eighth Avenue from 42nd Street to 50th Street was an informal red-light district in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, before it was controversially renovated into a more family friendly environment under the first mayoral administration of Rudolph Giuliani.
Points of interest on or within one block of Eighth Avenue include:
- The Hotel Chelsea (on 23rd Street between Seventh and Eighth)
- The Fashion Institute of Technology (at 26th/27th Streets)
- Madison Square Garden and Penn Station (between 31st and 33rd Streets)
- James Farley Post Office
- The New York Times Building at 40th Street
- The Port Authority Bus Terminal (between 40th and 42nd Streets)
- One Worldwide Plaza
- Hearst Tower
- Soros Foundation and Open Society Institute headquarters on West 59th Street
