1923

Manhattan: Park Avenue - 41st Street

Pershing Square, Park Avenue, east side, from 42nd to 41st Streets, showing the newly completed Pershing Square Building on the site of the old Grand Union Hotel, the new Bowery Savings Bank to the left at 110 East 42nd Street and the Pershing Square Viaduct and Third Avenue Elevated station in the foreground. The old Grand Union, shown in a 1914 picture of this block, was shortly thereafter pulled down, while the new Lexington Avenue subway station and the junction with the old line were constructed under Park Avenue in this block. Then about the time of the Armistice this block was named Pershing Square, after General John J. Pershing, and the automobile viaduct built to conduct traffic from 40th Street and Park Avenue over 41st and 42nd Streets and around on the west side of the Grand Central Station to Vanderbilt Avenue and 45th Street. When the New York Central building is built in 1928 traffic will be divided at the point shown here, and a double viaduct built through to 46th Street and Park Avenue. The Elevated spur shown here was originally a temporary terminal of the Third Avenue line, but for many years has served as a shuttle from the Grand Central Station to the main Elevated line at Third Avenue and 42nd Street. It is about to be demolished, at the time of this picture. On the S.E. corner of 42nd Street is 103 Park Avenue, an office building built about 1900, and beyond it may be seen part of the newer Architects' Building (1916) 1923. Gift of E. M. Jenks.

Photo from the New York Public Library - Milstein Collection