New York Songlines: 6th Avenue

West:

Central Park

An 853- acre expanse of green in the middle of Manhattan, its 25 million annual visitors make it the most visited public park in the world. Responding to calls from civic leaders like William Cullen Bryant, the city acquired the land in 1853 and held a design contest in 1857, choosing the Greensward Plan of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux (rhymes with "Walks"). After the moving of 3 million tons of earth and the planting of 270,000 trees and shrubs, the park—almost entirely landscaped, despite its naturalistic appearance—opened to visitors in 1859 (though not officially completed until 1873).

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The Ravine

The Ravine is where Trisha Meili, better known as the Central Park Jogger, was found near death on April 20, 1989, in what became Central Park's most notorious crime. The youths charged in her assault were known as the Central Park Five; their convictions were vacated and the city paid them $41 million after DNA evidence indicated that convicted murderer/rapist Matias Reyes was the sole assailant. Donald Trump's calls for the the death penalty for the falsely accused youths helped launch his political career.

Huddlestone Arch

New Yorkers seem to have been quite concerned that the city would be attacked from the north during the War of 1812, building numerous fortifications in this vicinity to guard the Boston Post Road as it came to a pass here. A clearing here marks the site of Fort Fish, named for Nicholas Fish (1758-1833), chair of the Committee of Defense that was doing all of this fortifying. On the spot today is a bench honoring Andrew Haswell Green (1820-1903), who did many things for the city of New York, among them adding four blocks of hard-to-develop land to the north end of Central Park. The bench is the only physical monument to someone who has shaped the city like few others.

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North Meadow

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Farmers Gate

Dana Discovery Center

Built in 1993 but looking much older, this environ- mental and visitors center was designed by Samuel G. White—great-grandson of Stanford White—using Central Park's Victorian-styled Dairy as a model.

Charles A. Dana (1819-1897) was a prominent 19th Century newspaper editor (at the Tribune and Sun) who was assistant secretary of War during the Civil War, serving as Grant's liaison to Washington. But the Center was paid for by the Charles A. Dana Foundation, founded by his son, Charles A. Dana Jr. (1881-1975)—a business executive and lawyer who early in his career helped prosecute Stanford White's killer. It's unclear whether father or son is the namesake of the Center.

There was a boathouse built on this site in 1947 that had fallen into ruin by the 1970s.

Harlem Meer

Lasker Rink

It's named for Loula Lasker (1886-1961), whose estate helped finance construction. She was a founder of the League for Industrial Democracy—best remembered as the progenitor of Students for a Democratic Society—and a vice president of the women's Zionist league Hadassah.

The site of Nutter's Battery, an 1812-era fortification built on the site of a British Revolutionary War outpost (and named for local landowner Valentine Nutter), is marked by a stone circle built in 1945 and rebuilt in 2014.

The East Drive passes over McGown's Pass, where the old Boston Post Road crested the high ground of what's now the north end of Central Park. It's named for Daniel McGown, who ran a tavern nearby.

Fort Clinton is another site fortified during the Revolutionary War (by the Hessians) and later by the defenders of the city in the War of 1812. It was named in 1812 after Mayor DeWitt Clinton (1769-1828), whose championing of the Erie Canal made New York the Empire State. Today the fort is a scenic overlook, marked by two cannons salvaged from the wreck of a British warship, the HMS Hussar, in 1780. In 2013 one of the cannons was discovered to be still loaded with a cannonball and gunpowder, necessitating disarmament by the bomb squad.

The Mount

The tavern seems to have disappeared by 1847, when Mount St. Vincent’s Academy was built on or near the site. With the land dedicated to become part of Central Park, the Sisters of Charity-affiliated school relocated to the Bronx, where it still is found today. Frederick Olmsted lived with his family on the former school grounds from 1859-63 during the creation of the park. At that point it became the Central Park Hospital, aka the US General Hospital or St. Joseph’s Military Hospital, caring for Civil War casualties.

In 1866, following the war, there was again a tavern here, known as Mt. St. Vincent’s Hotel, which burned down and was rebuilt in 1881; it was renamed McGowan's Pass Tavern in 1890 to avoid confusion with the school in the Bronx. It was torn down in 1917. Today the park runs a composting center on the site.

Conservatory Garden

The six-acre garden is divided in three parts with distinct styles. The northern third is in the French mode, noted for its spring tulips and autumn mums; it's centered on the Untermeyer Fountain, featuring Walter Schott's sculpture Three Dancing Maidens.

The center portion is Italianate, showcasing flowering crabapple and wisteria. Its focus is a geyser fountain known as the Conservatory Garden Center Fountain.

The southernmost section is an English-style garden with abundant magnolia and lilac. A pool here presents statues of Mary and Dickon from The Secret Garden.

The wrought iron Vanderbilt Gates mark the entrance to the gardens; originally designed by George B Post for the Vanderbilt mansion at 5th Avenue and 58th Street, they were salvaged and gifted to the park in 1939 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney.

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East:

East Meadow

West:

Onassis Reservoir

The Reservoir is surrounded by a running track, which has been used by such luminairies as Onassis, Bill Clinton and Madonna, and featured in films like Breakfast at Tiffany's, Marathon Man and Hannah and Her Sisters. Surrounding the track is a bridle path—used mainly by runners who prefer dirt to gravel.

John Purroy Mitchel Memorial

This memorial was dedicated in 1926. The gilded bust is by Adolph Alexander Weinman, who did Civic Fame atop the Municipal Building and the pediments of the Jefferson Memorial and National Archive in Washington, DC—as well as those Penn Station eagles that you see around town.

Fred Lebow Statue

South Gatehouse

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East 96th Street Playground

Engineers Gate

It's also known as the Runners Gate, because this is where the Marathon enters the park for its final leg.

While most of the entrances to the park, in keeping with Olmsted and Vaux's wishes, are simple gaps in the perimeter wall, the Engineers Gate is a striking neo-classical structure, designed by Thomas Hastings (co-architect of the NYPL) and Donn Barber in 1926 as part of the John Purroy Mitchel memorial.

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Central Park Police Precinct

The Great Lawn

Before Central Park was chosen as the site of Manhattan's main park, this was the site of the York Hill Receiving Reservoir, the endpoint of the Croton Aqueduct, opened in 1842, which supplied New York City with a reliable supply of clean water. From the huge rectangular structure here, water went down to the Distributing Reservoir where Bryant Park and the main library building are today.

York Hill was the name of a community of free African-Americans displaced by the creation of the reservoir. They moved to the nearby Seneca Village—from which they were again evicted for the creation of the park.

Olmsted and Vaux hated the rectlinear, utilitarian imposition in the center of their park, and did their best to disguise it with plantings. With the opening of Water Tunnel 1 in 1917, the Receiving Reservoir was no longer needed, and it taken out of commission in 1931, and filled in with rubble from the construction of Rockefeller Center and the 8th Avenue subway line. The walls were torn down, though some fragments remain—for example, marking the end of the parking lot by the 86th Street Shops, a Parks Department service area.

There were numerous ideas as to what to do with the new space, which soon became a Hooverville—a shantytown for people made homeless by the Great Depression (as depicted in an episode of Doctor Who). Suggestions included a vast formal garden, a World War I memorial, a "subterranean playground," a giant swimming pool, an airport, an opera house, a sports arena and a parking garage. After much wrangling, it was decided that a lush lawn would be most in keeping with Olmsted and Vaux's vision of a bucolic park—but demand for recreational facilities led to the installation of permanent baseball diamonds in 1950.

The lawn became one of New York City's main gathering places, hosting a 1980 concert by Elton John that drew 300,000, a 1981 Simon/Garfunkel reunion that brought 500,000, and two Diana Ross shows in 1983 that brought a total of 1.2 million. The anti-nuclear rally here in 1982 may have been the biggest political protest in US history, with as many as 1 million participants. Other notable events include a 1995 mass by Pope John Paul with 125,000 worshipers, and the premier of Disney's Pocahontas that same year that was seen by 100,000 viewers. All these visitors took a cumulative toll on the lawn; in 2005, after extensive rehabilitation efforts, a ban was put on events here with more than 50,000 attendees.

Alexander Hamilton

Carl Conrads' statue of Hamilton (1757-1804), the New York lawyer who served as Washington's Treasury secretary and helped get the Constitution ratified before becoming a Broadway star more than 200 years later, was donated to the Park in 1880 by John Hamilton, the fifth Hamilton's eight children. Eleven years old at the time of his father's death, John recalled his father uncharacteristically asking him with uncharacteristic tenderness to sleep in his bed the night before his fatal duel with Aaron Burr.


The body of Jennifer Levin, perhaps Central Park's best-remembered murder victim, was found on the lawn behind the Met on August 26, 1986. Robert Chambers, the "Preppie Killer" who strangled her to death, spent 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter.

The Obelisk

It was moved in 12 BCE to the Caesareum in Alexandria, a temple erected by Cleopatra in honor of her late lover Julius Caesar—but by that time, Cleopatra was also dead, and the temple rededicated by Augustus in his own honor. Not long after, the pillar was toppled and buried, preserving it for its rediscovery in the 19th century.

A twin of this monument, with the same history, also nicknamed Cleopatra's Needle, was acquired by Britain in 1877; this aroused US interest in getting a souvenir of our own. The Ottoman ruler of Egypt, Mehmet Ali Pasha, gave the archaelogical relic to the US consul general as a gift in 1877; railroad magnate William Vanderbilt donated $100,000 to have it shipped to New York. After many machinations, it was installed here in 1881.

The metal crabs at its base are copies of the ones Augustus made to shore up the pillar's crumbling foundation; the originals are on display at the Met.

Turtle Pond

This body of water was not part of Olmsted's original park design, but was added in the 1930s to provide drainage for the Great Lawn. Originally called Lake Belvedere, after the Belvedere Castle that overlooks it from the south, it was renamed in 1987 in honor of its reptilian denizens, mostly red-eared sliders descended from pets that outgrew their pens and were released into the park (though there are several other species of turtle in the pond, including snappers).

Jagiello

An imposing statue of Jogaila (1362-1434), the grand duke of Lithuania who married Jadwiga, queen of Poland, unifying their realms for more than four centuries. (As king of Poland, he was known as Jagiello, the name that appears on this monument.) As a condition of the marriage, Jagaila converted to Christianity, bringing to an end the last pagan dynasty of Europe.

Jogaila led the Polish/Lithuanian forces against the Teutonic Knights, decisively defeating them at the Battle of Grunwald in 1410. Before the battle, the Knights' grand master challenged him by sending him a gift of two swords; after the victory, the Grunwald Swords became a symbol of defiance and the union of the two peoples.

Jogaila's resistance to Germanic expansion was no doubt on the mind of the Polish government when they chose this statue (a copy of one in Warsaw by sculptor Stanislaw K. Ostrowski) to stand in front of the Polish pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair in Queens. Later that year, Nazi Germany invaded Poland and melted down Warsaw's Jagiello for bullets. The Polish government in exile donated this version to New York City, which installed it here in July 1945.

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The Met

(1000 5th Ave): The Metro- politan Museum of Art, New York City's premier art institution, was incorp- orated in 1870 and moved to this location in 1880. (The city's gift of Central Park's land to the museum is why New Yorkers can pay whatever they wish here.) The original building was designed by Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould in a red-brick High Victorian Gothic style, already seen as dated at the time. This became the rear central portion of the museum, engulfed by the Beaux Arts facade now associated with the Met, which was designed by Richard Morris Hunt and completed in 1902 by his son, Richard Howland Hunt, and George B. Post.

The facade sculpture by Karl Bitter includes caryatids representing Sculpture, Painting, Architecture and Music, as well as portraits of the artists Bramante, Michelangelo, Raphael, Dürer, Rembrandt and Velázquez. The blocks of stone atop the pillars were intended to become representations of Egyptian, Greek, Renaissance and Modern art, but were left unfinished for financial reasons.

The north and south wings were added by Charles Follen McKim from 1906-18. The Modernist rear wings were added by Kevin Roche from 1978-87.

Among the masterpieces in the Met's collection are Vincent Van Gogh's Wheat Field With Cypresses, El Greco's View of Toledo, Rembrandt's Aristotle Contemplating a Bust of Homer, Vermeer's Young Woman With a Water Pitcher, Picasso's Gertrude Stein, Emanuel Leutze's Washington Crossing the Delaware, John Singer Sargent's Madame X, Breugel's The Harvesters, Valasquez's Juan de Pareja and Jacques Louis David's Death of Socrates.

The 2,000-year-old Temple of Dendur, rescued from the rising waters of the Aswan Dam and relocated here in 1963, is the only complete Egyptian temple in the Western Hemisphere. It's housed in the Sackler Wing, named for the family that played a major role in the opioid crisis that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.

The Period Rooms, featuring complete interiors from various eras, were used as a hiding place by the kids in From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. The title character in 1999's The Thomas Crown Affair plots an art theft at the Met, while the crew in Ocean's 8 runs a jewelry heist at the Temple of Dendur—which is also featured in When Harry Met Sally and 2007's I Am Legend.

On February 4, 1963, the Met welcomed its most famous visitor — the Mona Lisa, loaned to the US by special request of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. After a million art lovers paid their respects, the painting went back to France on March 7 and hasn't left to Louvre since. Fragment of a monumental statue of Alexander the Great.











Grapevines by Tiffany.















El Greco's Saint Jerome.















Perseus with the head of Medusa—by Antonio Canova.










August Saint-Gaudens' Diana, formerly atop Madison Square Garden (when it was on Madison Square).

The Met's extensive collection of armor includes a suit made for Henry VIII.





Pharaoh Hatshepsut, stepmother of the pharaoh to whom the Obelisk is dedicated.

















Among the Met's European paintings are one-seventh of all the Vermeers in existence.

West:

The Ramble

The artificial stream that runs through The Ramble into The Lake is called The Gill.

Still Hunt

This 1883 statue of a crouching mountain lion sometimes startles people passing below it on the East Drive. It was sculpted by Edward Kemeys (1843-1907), who was a laborer helping to construct Central Park when he saw an artist modeling a wolf at the Zoo and decided to become a sculptor. He specialized in animals, often based on observations of wild behavior; his most famous pieces are the lions in front of Chicago's Art Institute.

Loeb Boathouse

At the northeast end of The Lake, built in 1954 with a $300,000 donation from copper magnate Carl Loeb, it's one of the few places to sit down to eat in Central Park. Home to the Bird Registry, a binder where the park's many bird enthusiasts record their sightings. It's the third boathouse on the The Lake; the first, a two-story Victorian structure designed by Vaux, was located where the boat rentals now are from 1872-1924.

The Lake

This 20-acre body of water was created by Olmsted from a pre-existing swamp—in part by turning the East Drive into an earthen dam. This is where people rent boats to go rowing in Central Park; until 1950, it was used for ice-skating in the winter. It's also home to waterfowl, including ducks, geese and sometimes herons and egrets. (The mute swans who used to nest here are gone, possibly evicted as invasive species.)

Crossing the lake is the cast-iron Bow Bridge, one of Calvert Vaux's most iconic creations. It's appears in numerous films, including Manhattan, Enchanted and Spider-Man 3.

Bethesda Terrace

The Roman- esque staircase made of New Brunswick sandstone are decorated with carvings representing the seasons, day and night by Jacob Wrey Mould. The arcade underneath features gorgeous ceiling tiles from England's Minton & Co.—removed in 1983 and finally restored in 2007.

The Terrace was a center of hippie culture, as depicted in the films Godspell and Hair. It's been featured in countless other films and shows, including Enchanted, The Avengers, Home Alone 2 and Doctor Who. The angel makes an appearance in the play Angels in America.

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Cedar Hill

The Glade

Alice in Wonderland

This 1959 sculpture by José de Creeft, featuring Alice on a giant mushroom surrounded by characters from the Lewis Carroll book, is designed to be climbed on by children. The statue was paid for by George Delacorte, who is the model for the sculpture's Mad Hatter.

Conservatory Water

West of the pond is a statue of Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875), sculpted by Georg John Lober in 1955. (Lober also made Times Square's George Cohan.) It's the site of a summer reading program.

The Conservatory Water is a prime spot to watch for Pale Male—the most famous red-tailed hawk in the world, and at 29 years old in 2019, the oldest ever recorded in the wild.

Pilgrim Hill

Another popular sledding hill, it's named for the statue of a pilgrim by John Quincy Adams Ward, given to the park by the New England Society in 1885. (Ward sculpted Indian Hunter, William Shakespeare and the 7th Regiment Memorial elsewhere in the park, and George Washington and the Stock Exchange pediment, both on Wall Street.)

West:

Rumsey Playground

When Fiorello LaGuardia became mayor in 1934, he had the place torn down as a symbol of elitist decadence—replacing the area with a playfield named for Mary Harriman Rumsey (1881-1934), a railroad heiress who founded the Junior League. The 1938 statue of Mother Goose near the east entrance to the field, by Frederick Roth (who also did Balto and the dancing goat and bear at the Central Park Zoo) marks its history as one of the Park's first playgrounds.

Since 1990, it's been best known as the site of Summer- Stage—originally a series of free concerts, but now mostly high-priced "benefit" concerts, with lesser names playing a handful of free shows to justify turning over prime Central Park real estate to a commercial concert promoter—in this case, right-wing billionaire Philip Anschutz.

The Mall

The lower end of The Mall is known as the Literary Walk for its statues of writers: William Shakespeare was the first, sculpted in 1870 by John Quincy Adams Ward; the Scottish novelist Sir Walter Scott followed a year later (1871), designed by Edinburgh's John Steell. Next came James MacDonald's Fitz-Greene Halleck; unlike the others, Halleck was a New Yorker, though few New Yorkers recall his name, much less remember any of his once wildly popular romantic poetry. (His statue was dedicated here in 1877 by President Rutherford B. Hayes.) Another figure of a Scots writer, Robert Burns, was added around 1880, again sculpted by Steell.

In 1892, for the 400th anniversary of the first Spanish invasion of the Americas, the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society commissioned a statue of Christopher Columbus from Spanish sculptor Jeronimo Sunol. Depicted the bearing cross and Spanish flag, it's similar to an 1885 monument Sunol designed for Madrid. Columbus is considered the odd man out on Literary Walk, since none of the others were responsible for introducing slavery and genocide to the Americas.

A bit to the west of Literary Walk is John Quincy Adams Ward's Indian Hunter, unveiled in 1869, making it one of the first sculptures to be placed in the park. It's based on the Borghese Warrior, a classical statue in the Louvre, but also on Native American people Ward observed in the Dakotas.

Sheep Meadow

It originally had a flock of actual sheep, added by Olmsted in 1864 to discourage military parades, which he saw as unpastoral. (The Sheepfold where they were kept is now Tavern on the Green.) The sheep were evicted by Robert Moses in 1934; at the time there was some concern that hungry Depression victims would eat them.

In 1917, the UC-5, a captured German U-boat that had sunk 30 Allied ships, was put on display here.

In the 1960s, it was a popular gathering spot for the hippie counterculture; the be-in in the movie version of Hair was filmed here. By the late 1970s it was something of a dustbowl, and restoring the lawn, in 1980, was one of the first projects of the Central Park Conservancy. Since then it's been reserved for quiet recreation. The Meadow is closed in wintertime.

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East Green

A quiet zone noted for its flowering trees in spring. Originally used as a cricket field.

Willowdell Arch

Near the arch is the statue of Balto, an Alaskan sled dog who in January 1925 helped deliver diphtheria antitoxin from Anchorage to Rome during an epidemic, when the only plane available was grounded. (Balto was the lead dog of the final team of a relay—he stands for dozens of hero dogs who took part.) The statue was erected here on December 17, 1925, less than a year after the mission; Balto himself was on hand for the unveiling.

The Dene

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The Carousel

The Carousel features prominently in the novel Catcher in the Rye and in the Marvel TV show The Punisher (though a carousel in Queens stood in for Central Park's).

Playmates Arch

Driprock Arch

There is an actual Driprock nearby, and water really does drip from it.

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Bolivar Plaza

This entrance was dubbed the Artists' Gate by the Central Park commissioners in 1862, but like most of the other entrances wasn't marked until 1999. The plaza here—which is the top of the Avenue of the Americas—features statues of Latin American liberators.

Jose Marti, a journalist and poet (he wrote the words to "Guantanamera"), was killed fighting for Cuban independence in 1895; he had spent the previous three years in exile in New York. He's a hero to both pro- and anti-Castro Cubans; this statue was given to the city by the Castro government in 1965, after having been donated for that purpose by the sculptor, Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington. It depicts Marti being fatally wounded.

Jose San Martin was a general who led the rebellion against Spain in Argentina, Chile and Peru. This sculpture is a gift from the city of Buenos Aires, a smaller-scale copy of the 1862 statue by Louis Joseph Daumas that presides over that city's Plaza de San Martin. It was installed here in 1951 after we sent Buenos Aires a statue of George Washington.

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Chess and Checkers House

This was the site of the Kinderberg, or Children's Mountain, a rustic shelter built as part of the response to complaints that the original park design didn't have enough to offer kids. It was replaced by the current structure in 1952, a visitors center where one can borrow not only chess and checkers sets but also backgammon boards and dominos. The pergola was added in 1986 to provide shade for players.

The Dairy

Wollman Rink

In summertime it was a concert venue, the Wollman Theater; Jean Shepherd hosted a series of jazz concerts in 1957 featuring the likes of Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton and the Dave Brubeck Quartet. From 1967 to 1980, concerts here were sponsored by Rheingold, Schaefer and finally Dr. Pepper; acts included Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Bob Marley, Frank Zappa, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Miles Davis etc.

When the rink needed repair in the 1980s, Donald Trump insisted on taking control of the project, promising to donate his profits to charity. Instead, he pockets $9 million a year for operating this rink and one at the north end of the park; the city, which owns the rinks, gets $2 million. It's been suggested that the rink project put Trump on the road to the presidency.

In the summer, the rink is the site of Victorian Gardens, an amusement park operated by the managers of Luna Park in Coney Island.

Hallett Nature Sanctuary

Hallett was a mathematician and an avid bird watcher who led the revision of the city charter that was passed in 1975.

A short ways into the park here is the Cop Cot, a rustic wooden shelter (of sorts—it lacks an actual roof). Not intended as a place for police to sleep, its name means "Hilltop Cottage" in Old English.

The Pond

Olmsted and Vaux set this lovely and tranquil artificial lake below street level so as to immediately bring visitors out of the city into a more pastoral experience. It's a favorite stop for ducks, geese, seagulls and other waterfowl. The ducks that Holden Caulfield worries about in Catcher in the Rye are swimming in The Pond.

Simon Bolivar

West:

The Trump Parc

Block (100-106 CPS): When it was the Barbizon Plaza Hotel, it was home to writer Anais Nin in 1934-35; she called it the Hotel Chaotica. Frida Kahlo stayed here in 1931, and felt she was badly treated. Mobster Lucky Luciano lived here in the 1920s. Sylvia Plath stayed here when she was a guest editor of Mademoiselle; in The Bell Jar, it appears as The Amazon. Other guests/residents include Grace Kelly, Candice Bergen, Liza Minnelli and Edith Bouvier Beale (of Grey Gardens fame).

Bought by Donald Trump in 1988 and redesigned down to the frame, it became home to such celebrities as O.J. Simpson, LaToya Jackson, Larry Hagman ("J.R. Ewing") and Morton Downey Jr. Recognizable by the gilded teeth on the tower on top.

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Ritz-Carlton Hotel

Corner (50 CPS): This is the third incarnation of the luxury hotel in Midtown Manhattan, and the second on Central Park South. It used to be the San-Moritz hotel, known as "the biggest little hotel in town." In 1935, it became home to Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, who were fleeing Nazi Germany. Later, in 1941, artist Marc Chagall came here after leaving Nazi-occupied France. It has also been home to columnist Walter Winchell and Yankee star Mickey Mantle. Winchell, who supposedly lived here rent free in return for plugging the hotel in his column, threatened to leave if management allowed gangster Lucky Luciano to live here; they didn't.

The house restaurant is BLT Market, considered by TONY to be the jewel in the crown of Laurent Tourondel's culinary empire.

Corner (57 W 58th): The Coronet is an 11-story red-brick apartment building from 1901, condoized in 1976. Time has not been particularly kind to it. Used to house the Manhattan Ocean Club, noted seafood restaurant.

West:

Windsor Park

Corner (100 W 58th): Architect-for-billionaires Charles Gwathmey designed the 2004 conversion of the former Helmsley Windsor Hotel into luxury housing-- including adding a $16 million penthouse to the roof. The building was put up as a co-op by Rosario Candela in the 1920s. Comedian Fred Allen lived here in the 1930s and '40s; Angela Lansbury has lived here more recently.

1409: Jekyll & Hyde Club, audioanimatronic dining

Buckingham Hotel

Corner (101 W 57th): Opened in 1929, this hotel has been home to numerous artists and musicians, including Ignace Paderewski, who lived here from 1929 until his death in 1941. Author Damon Runyon lived here in 1944-46, the last years of his life.

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Corner (68 W 58th): Actress Gloria Swanson lived in this building, then the Park Chambers Hotel, from 1925 until the early 1930s. On the ground floor now is the Kobe Club, restaurant featuring super-expensive Japanese beef and 2,000 samurai swords dangling from the ceiling in a dining room that looks like "Akira Kurosawa hired the Marquis de Sade as an interior decorator" (New York Times). The space used to be Mix, also by restauranteur Jeffrey Chodorow.

Corner (57 W 57th): Cornerstone of Medical Arts Center, a rehab clinic, is in a 1928 gilt-trimmed office building. This was once home to Club Martinique, where Frank Sinatra, Jo Stafford and Danny Thomas used to play; from 1977-84 it was the Ice Palace 57, a spin-off of a Fire Island disco that was said to have the best light show in town. The space later became the Silver Shadow.

Previously at this address was a rundown three-story brick building where Dorothy Parker lived in the early 1920s when her marriage was breaking up. Illustrator Neysa McMein (she created Betty Crocker) had a studio across the hall, which became a gathering place for the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Harpo Mark and George Gershwin. McMein is said to have popularized the game of Charades in America.

West:

1381 (block): Carnegie House, 21-story grey-brick apartment building that went up in 1962--named for Carnegie Hall, a longish block away. Ballerina Alexandra Danilova lived here.

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1380 (block): Hemisphere House, a 20-story white-brick apartment building put up in 1968. Author Jerzy Kosinski killed himself here on May 3, 1991. On the ground floor are Rue 57 Brasserie, Carnegie Luggage.

West:

1375: Pazza Notte, Italian

1371: Flowers on the Avenue

1369: Vitamin Muse

1367: 55 Digital

1365: Fromex Photo System

1363: World of Nuts & Ice Cream

1361 (corner): Astro Restaurant, diner. Singer Tony Bennett has lived in this building.

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1366: Ernest Klein & Company International Supermarket

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Burlington House

Block (120 W 55th): A 50-story office tower completed 1969, named for Burlington Industries, a fabric maker that ceased operations in 2004. The building is now formally the Alliance Capital Building, after Alliance took over Mastercard's former space here in 1994. Noted for the Dandelion Fountain out front.

Site of Old Zeigfeld Theatre

1341 (corner): Impressario Florenz Zeigfeld took his Follies here in 1927, to a sumptuous Art Deco house designed by Thomas W. Lamb and bankrolled by William Randolph Hearst. Later that year, the classic musical Show Boat premiered here. During the Depression, it was Loew's Zeigfeld, a movie palace. From 1955 to 1963, NBC used it as a TV studio. Briefly a live theater again, it was torn down in 1966.

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MGM Building

1350 (corner): Now known as the Men's Apparel Building, a 35-story glass office tower from 1966 designed by WTC architects Emery Roth & Sons. Served as New York headquarters for the classic film studio. It also appeared as the United Broadcasting System studios in Network.

Warwick Hotel

1340 (corner): Built in 1926 by William Randolph Hearst with a specially designed floor for his mistress, Marion Davies. A favorite of show business sorts, the hotel boasts James Dean, Elvis Presley, Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Russell as having been frequent guests. Cary Grant lived here for 12 years; The Beatles stayed here when they first came to the States.

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New York Hilton

1335 (block): A 49-story slab emerging from a boxy base, completed 1963 to Harrison & Abramowitz' design. Philip Pavia's Ides of March, an abstract sculpture group, was in front here until 1988, when it moved to the Hippodrome.

The climax of the film Michael Clayton was shot here.

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Financial Times Building

1330 (block): A 41-story completed in 1965 and designed by Emery Roth & Sons. Originally built for ABC, it became ITT's headquarters after the conglomerate bought the network. It's now the U.S. base of the British business paper.

West:

Credit Lyonnais Building

1301 (block): A 1964 office tower, 45 stories designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon Associates; originally known as the J. C. Penney Building. Serves as headquarters for the Pricewaterhouse Coopers accounting firm. Noted for Jim Dine's gargantuan green pastiches of the Venus de Milo in its plaza. The film Michael Clayton used the offices of the law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf here for some of the interior shots.

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Black Rock

Block (51 W 52nd): The 38-story headquarters of the CBS network, built in 1965 as the only skyscraper designed by Finnish-born Eero Saarinen. The nickname comes from the imposing, triangular black granite pillars that run the length of the building. It was the first New York highrise to have a reinforced concrete (rather than steel) frame.

West:

UBS Building

1285 (block): A 42-floor office tower from 1960, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Built for Equitable Life; the brockerage firm Paine Webber moved here in 1985, and merged with the Swiss bank UBS in 2000.

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Sperry-Rand Building

1290 (block): A 43-story office tower designed by Emery Roth & Sons and built by the Uris brothers in 1961-62.

On Seinfeld, George Constanza claims that the 14th floor of this building has the best restroom in the vicinity of 54th and Sixth.

It was built on the site of the legendary Toots Shor's Restaurant, which opened here in 1940, a hangout for athletes, sportswriters and assorted famous people. (When Yogi Berra was introduced to Ernest Hemingway here as "an important writer," Berra reportedly replied, "What paper you with, Ernie?") Shor, a former speakeasy bouncer, left Jackie Gleason on the floor here after winning a drinking contest, ordered an impatient Charlie Chaplin to "be funny for the people for the next 20 minutes," and told Louis B. Mayer that his food was "better'n some of your crummy pictures I stood in line for." He counted both Joe DiMaggio and Chief Justice Earl Warren among his closest friends. He held out against the developers for years, but eventually sold his lease here for $1.5 million in 1959 and moved to 52nd Street.

1288: Artist Mark Rothko lived at this former address from 1946-54, during the pivotal part of his career when he moved toward pure abstraction.

West:

Time & Life Building

Technically part of Rockefeller Center, but not really, this 48-floor tower, completed in 1959, was the first building to be added to the complex on the west side of 6th Avenue. Designed by Harrison & Abramowitz, before Harris was added to the name. Time and Life were the flagships of Henry Luce's magazine empire, now part of Time Warner; Time's offices are still here. CNN's American Morning had its studios on the ground floor from 2002-06; SportsNet New York is now based there.

On the TV show Mad Men, Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce's offices are located here.

The blue metal sculpture in front is Cubed Curve, by William Crovello.

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Rockefeller Center

The land that is now Rockefeller Center was once the Elgin Botanic Garden, 20 acres of mainly medicinal herbs established by Dr. David Hosack, the physician who attended Alexander Hamilton after his fatal duel with Aaron Burr. The Lewis and Clark expedition sent plants here for identification.

The garden was sold to the state in 1810, which granted it to Columbia University, which allowed the garden to be developed. In 1929, the land was leased to John D. Rockefeller, who built on it an Art Deco masterpiece that is one of New York City's crowning architectural achievements.

1270: The RKO Building (now officially the Amax Building) was completed in 1932.

Radio City Music Hall

1260 (corner): When it opened in 1932, this auditorium's 6,200 seats made it the largest in the world. Impressario Sam "Roxy" Rothafel intended it to be a live venue, but it soon became a cinema featuring a live pre-show showcasing precision dancers--originally the Roxyettes, now the world-famous Rockettes.

The auditorium saw the premieres of such films as Singing in the Rain, An American in Paris and King Kong (shared with the Roxy). The Woody Allen character comes here in Radio Days; Daddy Warbucks buys out a whole show here in Annie. It also appears in The Godfather and Hitchcock's Saboteur.

West:

Exxon Bulding

1251 (block):

Another western addition to Rockefeller Center, this was built in 1971 to a Harrison, Abramowitz & Harris design; Wallace Harrison used to refer to this and its two similar-looking neighbors to the south as the XYZ Buildings.

Exxon used to be Esso, which was Standard Oil of New Jersey ("S.O."), part of the breakup of the Rockefellers' Standard Oil Company. Exxon is now merged with Mobil, formerly Socony--Standard Oil Co. of New York.

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RCA Building

30 Rockefeller Plaza (block): The crown jewel of Rockefeller Center, completed in 1933, this 70-story limestone masterpiece is attributed mainly to Raymond Hood. Diego Rivera's mural, Man at Crossroads Looking With Hope and High Vision to the Choosing of a New and Better Future, was painted over by Nelson Rockefeller when Rivera refused to take Lenin out of the artwork. The murals visible today are Jose Maria Sert's American Progress and Time. Above the main entrance is Lee Lawrie's relief sculpture Genius.

The famous Rainbow Room is on the 65th floor, which opened in 1934 as a nightspot for Rockefellers, Astors and Morgans. Entertainment was provided by the likes of Mary Martin, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, Comden and Green, and Judy Holliday. It's touted as the "most perfect room in New York."

The "Top of the Rock," the recently reopened rooftop observatory, is a great alternative to the Empire State Building-- the sailors go there in the movie On the Town.

RCA was the Radio Corporation of America, formed in 1919 as a joint subsidiary of General Electric and AT&T; both NBC and ABC were initially launched by RCA. When GE reacquired RCA in 1986, GE CEO Jack Welch insisted on renaming the RCA Building the GE Building. Jack Welch is a poor role model for America's children.

NBC's main New York studios are located in this building, where shows like NBC Nightly News, Saturday Night Live and Late Night With Conan O'Brien are taped; The Tonight Show used to broadcast from here in the Jack Paar/early Johnny Carson days. Arturo Toscanini used to broadcast from the same studio that today houses SNL.

West:

1237: There used to be a branch of the women-focused tearoom chain Schrafft's here.

McGraw Hill Building

1221 (block): Con- sidered the best of the Harrison, Abromowitz & Harris additions to Rockefeller Center, it went up in 1972 to house the publishing company. McGraw Publishing, founded in 1899, merged with Hill Publishing in 1909. The company also owns Standard & Poor's.

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Simon and Schuster Bulding

1230 (block): Built in 1940 as the U.S. Rubber Building, this marks the southern end of the original Rockefeller Center project. Simon & Schuster, founded in 1924 and perhaps most notable as the parent company of Pocket Books, is now part of CBS.

West:

Celanese Building

1211 (block): This 1973 Harrison, Abramowitz & Harris building in the southernmost of the Rockefeller addition skyscrapers. It's named for a chemical company, but it's best known as the U.S. headquarters of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation; it's where Fox News, the New York Post and Murdoch himself have their main offices.

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Diamond District

1200 (corner): Diamond City marks the start of a block-long row of diamond businesses along 47th Street, mostly owned by Orthodox Jews. Marathon Man has a famous scene set here.

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1185 (block): The 40-story Stevens Tower is a 1971 work of Emery Roth & Sons. The J.P. Stevens Company, founded in 1813 to make fabric during the War of 1812, is now part of WestPoint Stevens.

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1180 (corner): This is the address of Kenner, Bach & Ledeen, the title character's law firm in the film Michael Clayton.

West:

1177 (block): Americas Tower, a 50-story post-modern office building with an Art Deco style, was started in 1988 but not completed until 1994--the delay in part caused by litigation around the estate of Ferdinand Marcos, who was one of the project's backers.

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Corner: The site of the Columbia Hotel, where poet Delmore Schwartz died from a heart attack on July 11, 1966, at the age of 52.

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1155 (block): This 1984 design by Emery Roth & Sons features 40 stories of polished black granite.

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International Center for Photography

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Hippodrome

Block: "I wanna see the Hippodrome," insists the sailor in On the Town, referring to the namesake predecessor on this site, an enormous auditorium (5,697 seats) designed for spectaculars by the team that developed Coney Island's Luna Park. Open from 1905 until 1939, it saw the American debut of Cary Grant on August 8, 1920.

It's said that the Algonquin Roundtable formed when Robert Sherwood, who worked at Vanity Fair, was intimidated by the midgets at the Hippodrome, and so insisted that his coworkers Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley eat lunch with him every day.

West:

Corner: Was Hanover House, a seedy hotel where Woody Guthrie wrote "This Land Is Your Land" on February 23, 1940.

Bank of America Tower

Corner: The crystalline skyscraper going up here makes a claim to being the second-tallest building in New York City--but if you don't count the spire (which you shouldn't), the Chrysler Building is still the second tallest. Designed by Cook+Fox Architects to be eco-friendly. Also known as the Bank of America Tower.

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Grace Plaza

An entrance plaza to the Grace Building (the building with the curved facade facing Bryant Park). The pavilion in the plaza is the entrance to the School of the International Center of Photography.

1100 (corner): Bryant Park Building, built c. 1912, houses the offices of HBO.

West:

Verizon Building

1095 (block): This tower, designed by Kahn & Jacobs, was built in 1974 by AT&T as the New York Telephone Company Building; a break-up, a merger and a name-change later, it's now Verizon's. It got a complete facelift in 2008, replacing its vertically striped white marble/black glass facade with a more generic green glass curtain.

W <===         W 41ST ST

1079 (corner): Training Camp Footwear, a mini-chain for sneaker mavens.

1071: Original Penguin, retro-chic label

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Bryant Park

This area was set aside as early as 1686 for public use; from 1823 to 1840, like many of Manhattan's parks, it was used as a pauper's graveyard. In 1842, the Croton Reservoir was built on the east side of the space, where the New York Public Library is now, and the remaining land became known as Reservoir Square.

The Crystal Palace was built on the site in 1853, a marvelous seven-story exhibition space made of glass and cast iron that housed America's first world's fair before burning down spectacularly on October 5, 1858.

After serving as a parade ground for Union troops during the Civil War, Reservoir Square was designated a park in 1871, and was renamed in 1884 for William Cullen Bryant, poet, lawyer, New York Post editor, abolitionist and park advocate. It was not much of a park, though, until it was landscaped in French garden style in the 1930s, the object of a contest for unemployed architects.

By the 1970s, the park had become chiefly known as a drug market (dubbed "Needle Park"), but since a re-landscaping in 1992 occasioned by the creation of underground stacks for the library, it's become a highly valued urban space, with 2,000 chairs for urbanites to relax on.

It's the venue for popular outdoor movies in the summer. A plan to use trained falcons to control the pigeons was scuttled in 2003 when one attacked a dachshund.

Sculptures in the park include an imposing Bryant, Goethe, Gertrude Stein, copper maganate and YMCA founder William Dodge (by John Quincy Adams Ward; originally in Herald Square), Mexican President Benito Juarez and Brazilian liberator Jose de Andrada --not to mention Big Crinkly by Alexander Calder.

West:

1045 (corner): Was the Milliken & Company Building; offices for the textile giant, which made New York its headquarters in 1868. CEO Roger Milliken is Patrick Buchanan's chief financial backer. The 1958 modernist building was by James D. Stephen, who also designed the pagoda-shaped Chinese Merchant's Building in Chinatown. It was demolished in 2009, just shy of the half century mark.

By 2014, there should be a new building here for the company, now called Pacolet Miliken. Renderings show it with an interesting concave corner.

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Bryant Park Studios

Corner (80 W 40th): This 1901 landmark was designed (as the Beaux Arts Studios) by Charles Alonzo Rich for Colonel Abraham A. Anderson, a gentleman portraitist who had returned from a stay in Paris with that city's enthusiasm for north light. A great many artists have lived and/or worked here, including photographer Edward Steichen; painters Winslow Homer, William Merritt Chase and Fernand Leger; and print-maker Kurt Seligmann. On the ground floor is the Park Side Cafe & Market.

1040 (corner): Valley National Bank

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Corner (100 W 39th): Bryant Park Tower, 45-story tower built 2006, designed by Nobutaka Ashihara Assoc.

1025: Millinery Center Synagogue, serving the spiritual needs of the Garment District since 1948.

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1036: Penguini Men's Fashion

1026: New York Beads

1020 (corner): Elle Beads

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1011: Wok 'N' Roll, Chinese

1001 (corner): North Fork Bank; Orchid Cafe.

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1010 (corner): The Atlas, a 46-storey residential tower built 2002.

1008: M&J Trimmings, since 1936

1000 (corner): M&J Buttons, formerly Hersh Sixth Avenue Button, sewing-supply mecca. Also Israeli Falafel Pizza.

West:

995A: Shoes Are Hot

Lefcourt Empire

Part of Abraham Lefcourt's real estate empire, this 21-story building is said to have been completed in 1930, but by August 1928 it served as the base of a huge neon sign reading "AMERICAN NEON BEACON LIGHT"--an ad for the American Neon Company, which had offices here in 1927-28. (Lefcourt was a director.)

989: Antique & Art Center

Haier Building

Corner (1352-1362 Broadway): Built 1922-24 for the Greenwich Savings Bank and later used by Republic National Bank, this striking landmark surrounded by Corinthian columns is now the New York HQ of the Haier Group, China's leading refrigerator manufacturer. Inside is Gotham Hall, a dramatic domed space often used for fashion shows.

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980-990 (block): The Vogue, 25-floor apartment building from 1987.

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Corner (1350 Broadway): Herald Square Building contains an HSBC bank. The entire block was once the site of the New York Herald Building, a two-story Venetian palace built in 1893 by McKim, Mead and White and housing the paper that now lives on only in the International Herald Tribune. Demolished 1921, but its name remains in the square to its south.

The southern end of the block is a Florsheim shoe outlet.

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968: There was an Automat here in the late 1960s/early 1970s.

966: Metropolitan Impex, trimmings and bridals

Corner: Atlantic Bank of New York

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Herald Square

As in, "Remember me at..." Named for the New York Herald, the newspaper founded by James Gordon Bennett whose offices were directly to the north of this triangle. Noted for its racist and anti-Semitic politics, the paper introduced such features as the gossip column and Wall Street coverage. Later merged with the New York Tribune; the Inter- national Herald-Tribune is the surviving relic.

The clock and statuary, crafted in 1895 by Jean-Antonie Carles, are from the old Herald building; the goddess is Minerva, complete with owls, and the bellringers, which swing their hammers on the hour, are nicknamed Stuff and Guff.

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Corner: La Villa Pizza

950: U.S. headquarters of the Paris-based advertising conglomerate Publicis, which owns Leo Burnett and Saatchi & Saatchi.

Corner (1328 Broadway): The Victoria's Secret on this corner is the lingerie giant's new flagship store. In the same building is Swedish fasion discounter H&M.

West:

Herald Center

Built for Saks & Company in 1901-02, as shopping moved to this neighborhood to take advantage of the new rail hubs. In 1966, after the area's appeal had faded, it became Korvette's. Rebuilt in 1982-85 as a mall with a glass elevator on the corner. Features a Fleet Bank, a Modell's Sports and a Daffy's clothing store on the Broadway side.

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Herald Towers

AKA McAlpin House; built as the Hotel McAlpin in 1913, which was noted for its "silent floor" for the nocturnal. Converted to apartments in 1979; the murals of New York Harbor from the hotel's Marine Grill were removed and installed in the Fulton Street subway station. Claims the dubious distinction of housing the highest-grossing Gap outlet in the country.

West:

Manhattan Mall

Block (1275 Broad- way): Used to be Gimbel's department store, Macy's chief rival ("Does Macy's tell Gimbel's?") which claimed to have invented the bargain basement. Building designed by Daniel Burnham, of Flatiron fame, and built 1908-12; it was purposely utilitarian and undecorated. The first ballpoint pens were sold here in 1945-- selling 10,000 on the first day at $12.50 each. Converted to a glassed-in post-modern mall in 1987-89.

This block was formerly the site of a theater that was variously called the Manhattan, Eagle or Standard; in 1879, the official New York premiere of Gilbert & Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore was held here.

A skyway connects this building to Weber's, a discount store on 32nd Street, which used to be a Gimbels annex; built in 1925, it was designed by Shreve & Lamb, the same company that did the Empire State Building.

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Greeley Square

This triangular square is named for Horace Greeley, the founder of the New York Tribune. Though chiefly remembered as the guy who said "Go west, young man" (which was not actually his line), Greeley was actually one of the most influential journalists in American history. An advocate of social reform (Karl Marx was a European correspondent), Greeley supported abolition, worker's rights and (yes) Western settlement. As a reporter covering Congress in 1855, he was given a concussion by the cane of pro-slavery House Speaker Albert Rust. He helped found the Republican Party and was instrumental in making Abraham Lincoln the 1860 candidate. Surprisingly, he was the 1872 Democratic candidate for president; he was trounced by U.S. Grant and died a month later.

The statue of Greeley in a chair is an 1890 work by Alexander Doyle. The square was dedicated in 1894.

West:

Corner: This building was torn down along with much of the block c. 2008. Was American Burger & Co., tasty

887: Was S&A Stores, noted for linen bargains and its unreassuring slogan, "Money refunded within 25 days."

The Continental

885 (corner): Glassy 53-story apartment building that went up in 2010. Rainbow Camera Inc. used to be at this address.

879: Don Don Ya Japanese Rice Bowl

875 (corner): Greeley Square Building, castle-like building that includes Global 2000 Camera & Computer, Pret a Manger ("ready to eat") sandwich chain.

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894 (corner): Cosmos

890: Olden Camera & Lens Co.; Mr. Cap

884: Earrings Plaza, "world's largest selection of earrings."

882: Full Line Collection Fashion Jewelry and Accessories.

876 (corner): Liberty Bagel Deli. And isn't that what New York is all about?

West:

873 (corner): Was Close Out Zone, and before that The Wiz, ex-discount electronics chain. The old cast-iron retail building was bought by Joseph Chetrit, owner of the Sears Tower, and shortly thereafter torn down along with the entire block--no doubt to be replaced with another of the bland highrises that have been sprouting along 6th Avenue. (This is the northernmost edge of the rezoning.) It's a shame that an attractive made-for-retail building like this one couldn't find a profitable use.

865: The northernmost of four six-story tenements in the middle of the block, dating to c. 1922., torn down in 2008.

863: Was Sundance Corporate Catering

861: Was Western Union 6th Avenue Discount

859: Was Galaxy Army & Navy

855 (corner): Was Broadway National Bank, in a 1949 building that was reclad with wraparound black windows. Torn down with the rest of the block in 2008.

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874 (corner): Tony's Pizza & Restaurant

860: New Company Wholesale marks the beginning of the Wholesale District, many small stores offering imported apparel, gadgets and trinkets.

In the Tenderloin era, this was the site of the Star & Garter, considered a classy joint. Star bartender Billy Patterson, who boasted of not having an enemy in the world, was attacked with a slingshot one day leaving work — giving rise to the catchphrase, "Who struck Billy Patterson?"

856 (corner): Novelty Candy Store

West:

Hotel Eventi

835 (corner): A 54-story hotel that went up in 2009, designed by Perkins Eastman. The apartments also in the building are called The Eastman. It's already gone through a number of restaurants, including FoodParc and Bar Basque--at last notice, the eateries were called Brighton and Humphries.

The block used to be a strip-mall like row of undistinguished retail outlets, such as Tootsies, a sock outlet. They were all torn down in 2007 to make way for the hotel.

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838: Was Yung Kee Trading, a largish wholesaler in a building with an elaborate cornice.

836 (corner): Pink Stone General Merchandise; Boricua City, Puerto Rico-related products.

West:

831 (corner): America Gourmet Food, deli

829: X Tensions Wholesale Wigs

823: Goodland Martial Arts Supply. Sign in window: "All Knives and Swords 20 Percent Off."

821: From 1954 to 1965, this building housed the Jazz Loft, an after-hours hangout for musicians like Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis and Charles Mingus.

817 (corner): The lot that used to hold City Plants & Gardens was to be the site of Remy, a futuristic residential high-rise designed by Costas Kondylis--which would have been the only out-of-the-ordinary project to come out of the Sixth Avenue condo tower boom. It looks, though, like it's never going to be built.

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Corner: This was (apparently) the site of The Haymarket, the Tenderloin's most famous dance hall. A venue for "respectable vice," the dancers here would give private exhibitions of the cancan in curtained booths. O. Henry and Eugene O'Neill both hung out here.

828: Superior Florists is the northernmost outpost of the Flower District.

822: Here was the saloon of Tom "Shang" Draper, described as "the king of New York's underworld," and part of the gang that robbed a record amount from the Manhattan Savings Institution in 1878. On October 16, 1833, bank robber Johnnie "the Mick" Walsh was shot and wounded here by fellow burglar John Irving, whom Walsh in turn killed-- only to be finished off by Irving's colleague, safecracker Billy Porter.

816 (corner): Bill's Flower Market, a Flower District stalwart since 1936.