The Manhattan Center is a performance venue located at West 34th Street between 8th and 9th Avenue that houses two recording studios, a Grand Ballroom, and the famous Hammerstein Ballroom. A viable venue choice for New York City, the Center has hosted numerous galas, music and television performances, and cultural events that range from vaudevilles to concerts. This renowned performance venue is just a five-minute walk from Macy's Herald Square.
Nikola Tesla passed away at the age of 86 on January 7, 1943, during a stay at the Hotel New Yorker. At the time of his death, Tesla had incurred an incredible amount of debt. The cause of his death was coronary thrombosis caused by a blood clot. During his life, Tesla was a renowned inventor, engineer, and physicist. However, critics claimed that Tesla often exaggerated the potential of his inventions to help raise funds among investors. Still, he proved to be a talented inventor, but despite his talent and ambition, some of his ideas such as the smartphone and the death ray were impossible for him to complete. The hotel placed plaques honoring Tesla near the entrance of the New Yorker Hotel and on the door of the room in which he passed, room #3327.
In 1910, work began on the United States General Post Office on 8th Avenue, across the street from the recently finished Pennsylvania Station. Three years later, and at a cost of more than five million dollars, the building was finished. Designed by the architect firm, McKim, Mead and White, the Classical style of the new post office mirrored that of the Pennsylvania railroad terminal across the road. It boasts one of the longest colonnaded facades in the world, and is well known for Ira Schnapp’s Trajan-style carved quotation from the Histories by Herodotus: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” The post office opened for business in September 1914 and was the largest in the country; operating twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the building was extended to 9th Avenue, under direction of the postmaster, General James A. Farley. From that point on the whole structure was known as the James Farley Post Office.
Once known as Pennsylvania train station, a portion of the station first opened on August 29,1910. The project cost $114 million. On November 27, 1910, the rest of the building was completed and the station was used during the golden age of railroad passenger travel. In 1906, the railroad honored Alexander Johnson Cassatt, the president of Pennsylvania railroad company, with a statue which was placed in the station arcade. The statue was preserved and relocated to the modern station. A few late presidents of the United States also arrived at Penn Station whenever they traveled by rail. The first Pennsylvania station was constructed in 1904 and demolished on October 28, 1963. It was considered the largest building in the world ever built at one time.
Constructed in 1968 and Located in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, Madison Square Garden remains one of the most iconic arenas in the United States. This structure is the fourth New York arena to bear the famous name, with the first Madison Square Garden being opened in 1879 and located next to Madison Square. The first arena included shows by P.T. Barnum as well as pivotal public meetings and political events.
Dating back to the establishment of Macy's flagship store in 1902, Macy's Herald Square now includes an entire block and remains one of the most iconic shopping destinations in the world. This ten-story department store became the first to adopt the modern escalator. The store sponsors the Thanksgiving Day Parade and was featured in the classic film "Miracle on 34th Street." Known as "America's Largest Department Store," the store includes ten restaurants and several historic plaques throughout the exterior and interior of the building.
The James Gordon Bennett Monument in Herald Square is dedicated to the founder of the New York Herald newspaper and his son, James Gordon Bennett, Jr., who managed the paper after his death. The monument includes bronze sculptures of Minerva and two owls, which were part of the Herald building (now destroyed) designed by Stanford White in 1890.
Gimbels was one of the most successful department stores of the early twentieth century, though it failed when contending with Macy’s in becoming the foremost department store chain in the city. Today, the building is known as the Manhattan Mall, and no trace of Gimbels remains other than some faded lettering on one side of the structure and a magnificent aged copper skybridge that crosses over West 32nd Street.
In the years following the Civil War, the areas along Broadway and Fifth Avenue became home to numerous fashionable businesses and residences. One of those was the Grand Hotel, which was commissioned by Elias Higgins in 1868. Higgins was a successful carpet manufacturer who expanded into real estate, often building impressively elegant structures. As its name suggests, the Grand Hotel was an opulent white marble structure. As the theater district shifted northward, new luxury hotels and theaters were built beyond this neighborhood. By the turn of the century, Times Square became the location of the city's leading hotels and the Grand Hotel became something less worthy of its moniker as vice-filled what was then known as the Tenderloin District. Thanks to preservationists, the building once again offers a grand facade and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1979.
On May 1, 1939, a button was pressed in Washington, D.C. by President Herbert Hoover that turned on the lights to the world's tallest building at the time. The Empire State building, though now the fifth tallest building in the United States and the thirty-fourth tallest in the world, is still one of the most well-known structures in New York City. Standing at 102 stories tall, it's impossible to not find this gargantuan structure located on 5th Avenue. Visitors can view the Big Apple from the famous Observation Deck on the 86th floor.
The historic B. Altman's Department store, which occupied an entire city block between 5th and Madison Avenues and 34th and 35th Streets, was the third location for the now-defunct retail giant. Constructed in 1905 in the Renaissance Revival style, the Fifth Avenue side opened in 1906 to critical acclaim, with the Madison Avenue side completed in 1914. The building was given landmark status by New York City in 1985, just four years before the store went bankrupt and ceased operations in 1989. The Science, Industry and Business Library (SIBL) of the New York Public Library system, located on the Madison Avenue side of the former store, was initiated in 1991 and opened to the public in 1996. It is a premier public business library with electronic resources, print materials and services for both start-ups and established businesses. A recent plan to sell the space and move its collection to the main library location (Schwarzman Building) on 42nd Street was abandoned, but the library's future remains uncertain.
The Silent Protest Parade, organized by W.E.B. Du Bois and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, saw 8000 to 10,000 African Americans march along Fifth Avenue on July 28, 1917. The march was organized as a protest to fight against the endemic violence against Black Americans in 1917. The worst instance and leading cause of the protest was the East St. Louis Race Riot that led to the deaths of over 200 African Americans in Illinois.
The Colony Arcade Building in New York's Midtown is a historically significant structure within the Garment District. The three-block-long building was completed in 1913 and housed a number of tenants, most of which were millinery firms. These companies occupied the upper floors were skilled workers produced hats and apparel that was distributed throughout the United States. The ground floor was home to a women's tea room and a restaurant and bar for men which helped the district's developers increase foot traffic in the district as part of their strategy to increase the value of their real estate holdings. The building, which has been the home of the Refinery Hotel since 2012, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The hotel features a bar and lounge known as Winnie's, a reference to entrepreneur Winifred McDonald who leased the bottom floor of the building over a century ago and operated the tea room and restaurant.
The Engineers' Club Building is a New York City Landmark and is on the State and National Register of Historic Places. It is an early example of a high-rise clubhouse building, looks almost exactly as it did over 100 years ago, and is a visual reminder of the prominence of the social club and the bachelor apartment at the turn of the 20th century, as well as of the commercial transformation of Midtown Manhattan and New York State's role as an engineering center of the United States. In addition, the club boasted prominent historical figures including Andrew Carnegie, President Herbert C. Hoover, Thomas Edison, Charles Lindbergh, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Henry Clay Frick, H.H. Westinghouse, and Nikola Tesla. In fact, when Tesla received the Edison Medal on May 18, 1917, it was in the Engineers' Club Building that his formal dinner reception was held. When the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007, a commemorative plaque was placed on the building by the Co-op Board.
Bryant Park is a privately run public park located in New York City's Manhattan borough. It is located between Fifth and Sixth Avenues and 40th and 42nd Streets, directly across from the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building of the New York Public Library. With the park's gigantic lawn, it is an ideal place to host concerts, movie nights, or even to relax after a long day's stroll of the city. Visitors may also enjoy the park's carousel among its seating for food and relaxation. Once winter hits, the park is turned into its winter iteration: the Bank of America Winter Village.
The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building is a part of the New York Public Library, consisting of four major research libraries and almost 90 branch libraries located throughout the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island. The Beaux-Arts building, located on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, houses outstanding collections in humanities and social sciences, as well as a children's collection. The building is being restored to its original purpose of providing library services for "the free use of all the people." Among the 15 million items and artifacts are medieval manuscripts, ancient Japanese scrolls, baseball cards, dime novels, and comic books.
Grand Central Terminal, also known as Grand Central Station or Grand Central, is a railroad terminal located at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. Serving nearly 200,000 commuters each day, it is one of the busiest train stations in the world. Within the concourse of the Terminal, on top of the information booth, is the iconic four faced brass clock with an estimated worth between $10-20 million.
The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco-style skyscraper located in the Turtle Bay neighborhood of Midtown Manhattan and was the former headquarters of the Chrysler Corporation. Designed by William Van Alen, it stands at a towering 1,046 feet tall and was the world's tallest building before being surpassed by the iconic Empire State Building in April 1931. It is the tallest brick building in the world, although it contains a steel frame. When Walter Chrysler commissioned the building, he dedicated it to "world commerce and industry."
This Tour is a Walking Tour.
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This short walking tour takes you to some of the most famous and historical sights located within Midtown Manhattan!! Starting at the Chrysler Building, the tour will feature such marvels as Grand Central Station, the main branch of the New York Public Library, Bryant Park, the Empire State Building, Macy's at Herald Square, and Madison Square Garden.
