Eighth Avenue (Manhattan)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Eighth Avenue / Frederick Douglass Boulevard is a north-south avenue on the West Side of Manhattan in New York City, carrying northbound traffic. Eighth Avenue begins in the West Village neighborhood at Abingdon Square (where Hudson Street becoms 8th Avenue at a confusing intersection with Bleecker Street), crosses 14th Street and runs for 44 blocks more through Chelsea, the Garment District, Hell's Kitchen's east end, Midtown and The Theater District before entering Columbus Circle (at 58th Street).
Beyond Columbus Circle, the roadway becomes Central Park West and, north of Central Park, Frederick Douglass Boulevard (though unofficially this stretch of roadway north of Central Park is also sometimes referred to as Eighth Avenue), eventually terminating near the Harlem River at the Harlem River Drive roughly at West 159th Street.
The IND Eighth Avenue Line runs under Eighth Avenue.
Since the 1990s, Eighth Avenue in Chelsea has been a center of the city's gay community, with bars and restaurants catering to gay men. The portion from 42nd to 50th Streets was a red-light district in the 1970s and 1980s.
Points of interest on or within one block of Eighth Avenue include:
- The Hotel Chelsea (on 23rd Street between Seventh and Eighth)
- The Fashion Institute of Technology (at 26th/27th Streets)
- Madison Square Garden and Penn Station (between 31st and 33rd Streets)
- James Farley Post Office
- The New York Times Building at 40th Street
- The Port Authority Bus Terminal (between 40th and 42nd Streets)
- One Worldwide Plaza
- Hearst Tower
