The “city” that moved uptown on the Island of Manhattan is a combination of today’s squares, blocks and districts of: Lincoln Center, Fifth Avenue’s retail shops, Times Square, and Herald Square. While they moved uptown through the island together as part of a single wave of development, they are distinct from each other as upper- and middle-class shopping and theater districts.
The next post in this special relaunch series will look at how all of these districts came from Madison Square at 23rd Street, where they were all in much closer proximity during the Gilded Age after the Civil War.
These districts of class-based commercial cultures, what we’re calling “the city,” are distinguished from the two other waves of development that passed uptown. An upper class residential community of homes, churches, clubs and schools came first, neighborhoods of suburban character.
The shops, theaters and other commercial cultures like restaurants, saloons, bars and clubs, that moved in on the residential neighborhoods were themselves followed by a third wave of buildings for commercial business, manufacturing, industry and trade. Each wave was larger than the one before; homes got bigger, stores got larger, and places of “work” got significantly taller.
Below is a schematic of the history. The Midtown Business District of white collar office towers will be addressed in an upcoming post.
Another schematic sets the “waves” of development on the grid. Note that the Garment District completely engulfs Herald Square today, the middle-class shopping district.
History is recorded like fault lines in the built environment. There is a striking difference in the cornice heights where the waves of development meet at 42nd and 59th Streets.
Looking down 7th Avenue from 48th Street; Times Square into the Garment District
Looking up Fifth Avenue from 55th Street; the retail shopping district into Museum Mile
The drawn arrows are the POVs of the images above. Notice the well-lighted blocks are in the “city” blocks of commercial culture looking into the blocks of commercial business (the Garment Distrcit) and residential (Museum Mile) in the respective images.
Finally, to conclude this first post of the relaunch, there was a working class theater and shopping district as well: the Bowery. Without the agency, opportunity and wherewithal of the other classes, the working class Bowery district of shopping and entertainments never relocated uptown as the others did.
