Madison Avenue
avenue in Manhattan / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Madison Avenue is a north-south street in the borough of Manhattan in New York City (U.S.) which carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from Madison Square (at 23rd Street) to the Madison Avenue Bridge across the Harlem River (at 138th Street). In doing so, it passes through Midtown Manhattan, the Upper East Side (including Carnegie Hill), Spanish Harlem, and Harlem. It is named after Madison Square, which is itself named after James Madison, the fourth President of the United States. Since the 1920s, the street's name has been synonymous with the American advertising industry.
Madison Avenue was not part of the original New York City street grid established in the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, and was carved between Park Avenue (formerly Fourth) and Fifth Avenue in 1836, due to the effort of lawyer and real estate developer Samuel B. Ruggles. Ruggles was a graduate of Yale University who had previously purchased and developed New York's Gramercy Park in 1831, who was in part responsible for the development of Union Square and who also named Lexington Avenue.