Fifth Avenue: History of America’s Street of Dreams

New York’s Fifth Avenue, America’s ‘Street of Dreams’ is one of the most remarkable thoroughfares in the world. Shown on the Commissioners’ map of 1807 emerging from a country road, then in the proposed grid plan of 1811 as one of the major boulevards, Fifth Avenue by the end of the century was synonymous with a lavish fashionable life, grand mansions, and services catering to the wealthy. Above Washington Square, in the 1840s and 50s, mainly speculative brownstone rowhouses marched steadily northwards. The merchants of the port, the social fabric of the City, after the Civil War shunned the more aggressive arrivistes such as Alva Vanderbilt and Marietta Stevens who employed European-influenced architects and decorators to build and furnish grand mansions in contrast to their brownstone neighbours. And then, it was all gone. Swept away in the shadow of tall buildings, the New York house was no longer the ultimate symbol of identity. All that exquisite and substantial work quickly fell before the wrecker’s ball. This book seeks to recreate Fifth Avenue as it grew, flourished and failed. Over 200 archive photographs help tell the story of Fifth Avenue’s 19th- and early 20th-century architecture and society.