42nd Street (Manhattan)

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For the film of this name, see 42nd Street (film). For the Broadway musical of the same name, see 42nd Street (musical). For the nightclub in Manchester (UK), see 42nd Street Nightclub.
42nd Street, NYC. The Chrysler Building is clearly visible.
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42nd Street, NYC. The Chrysler Building is clearly visible.

42nd Street is a major crosstown street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, known for its theaters, especially near the intersection with Broadway at Times Square. It is also the name of the region of the theater district (and, at times, the red-light district) near that intersection. 42nd Street has held a special place in New York lingo since at least the turn of the twentieth century. The street lines some of New York's most important buildings, the United Nations, Chrysler Building, Grand Central Station, Times Square, and the Port Authority Bus Station from west to east.

The Lincoln Highway, conceived in 1913 as America's first transcontinental highway, officially started at Times Square and ran west on 42nd Street to reach the Weehawken Ferry. After crossing the Hudson River to Weehawken, New Jersey, it continued about 3,000 miles across the country to San Francisco, California.

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[edit] History

The former Longacre Square was renamed to honor The New York Times which established its offices and printing plant nearby. For a long period in the mid-20th century, the area of 42nd Street near Times Square was home to peep shows and other activities often considered unsavory. A comedian once said, "They call it 42nd Street because you're not safe if you spend more than forty seconds on it."

A popular 1933 movie musical named 42nd Street, set in pre-Depression Manhattan, colorfully described the bawdy mixture of Broadway shows and prostitution during the early 20th century. In 1980, it was turned into a successful Broadway musical, which was revived in 2001 in a theater that was itself on 42nd Street. The following is an excerpt from the musical:

In the heart of little old New York
you'll find a thoroughfare;
It's the part of little old New York
that runs into Times Square…

From the early 1960s until the late 1980s, 42nd Street was the cultural center of American grindhouse theatres, which spawned an entire subculture. The book Sleazoid Express, a travelogue of the 42nd Street grindhouses and the films they showed, describes in detail the unique blend of people who made up the theatregoers, including of black pimps, low-grade mafioso, transvestites, Latino gangsters, "rough trade" homosexuals, aggressive lesbians, trench coat clad perverts, and thrill seeking squares.

In the late 1980s, the grindhouses were all shut down in a series of late-night raids by the New York City Police Department, under the orders of Mayor Ed Koch as a part of his resolution to clean up the city's seedier elements.

[edit] Recent changes

In the late 1990s, city government encouraged a clean-up of the Times Square area. The block of 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues again became home to a "legitimate" theater, along with shops and eateries that transformed the street into a showplace thronging with out-of-towners once again.

[edit] Public transit

Every subway station that crosses 42nd Street is an express stop:

The IRT 42nd Street Shuttle runs under 42nd Street between Broadway/Seventh Avenue (Times Square) and Park Avenue (Grand Central Terminal); the IRT Flushing Line begins at 41st Street/Seventh Avenue, runs between 41st and 42nd from Sixth Avenue to Park Avenue, curves onto 42nd Street between Park and Lexington Avenues, and continues under the East River to Queens. Each line stops at Times Square and Grand Central; the Flushing Line also stops at Fifth Avenue-Bryant Park.

Additionally, MTA New York City Transit's M42 bus runs the length of 42nd Street between the Circle Line ferry terminal on the Hudson River and the headquarters of the United Nations on the East River, and its M104 bus runs from the UN headquarters via Times Square before turning north along Broadway to 125th Street. There was never a crosstown streetcar line on 42nd Street; however the Forty-Second Street and Grand Street Ferry Railroad used 42nd Street west of Tenth Avenue.

[edit] Places along 42nd Street

Places located along 42nd Street include (from west to east):

[edit] Intersections from east to west

[edit] See also

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Manhattan Numbered Streets (New York City)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39
40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59
60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79
80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99
100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119
120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139
140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159
160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179
180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199
200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219
220
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Bi-Directional Streets of Midtown Manhattan
West End
West Side Highway		 110th Street
Central Park North
Central Park South
59th Street
57th Street
42nd Street
34th Street
23rd Street
14th Street
Houston Street		 East End
FDR Drive
WSH (12) | Riverside | 11 (West End) | 10 (Amsterdam) | Dyer | 9 | 8 or CPW | 7 | 6 or Lenox | 5 | Madison | Park (4) | Lexington | 3 | 2 | 1 | A or York | B or East End | C | D | FDR
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