Park Avenue Historic District

You are walking along a street that was once a noisy, dangerous open trench for steam locomotives. In the nineteenth century, this thoroughfare was known as Fourth Avenue, and it served as the primary route for the New York and Harlem Railroad. The trains were so disruptive that they were a constant source of pollution and accidents for the surrounding neighborhood. It was not until a catastrophic railroad disaster in 1903 that the state legislature finally stepped in to ban steam power from Manhattan entirely. This legislative change forced the electrification of the rail lines and paved the way for the massive underground tunnel system that exists beneath your feet today. The city then covered these tracks and transformed the former ventilation gaps into the iconic landscaped malls that now define the center of the avenue.