Fifth Avenue, New York City

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“Damn the Torpedoes!”
— Admiral David Glasgow Farragut (1801-1870) at the Civil War’s Battle of Mobile Bay, 1864

This monument to David Glasgow Farragut, an admiral in the U.S. Civil War and the first admiral in the U.S. Navy, stands at the northern end of the central axis of Madison Square Park. Shown wearing his naval frock coat, Farragut appears as though he could be on the bridge of a ship. He holds a pair of binoculars in his left hand as a gust of wind turns up his coat bottom.

This bronze, by the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, stands atop a wide gray granite wall, decorated with swirling bas-relief carvings, including two female figures, Loyalty on the left (see photo #4) and Courage on the right (see photo #5). The wall also serves as a bench. The sculpture was the first major public work by Saint-Gaudens. He completed it in Paris, where it was cast by the foundry of Adolphe Gruet after a version was exhibited at the Paris Salon.

Stanford White was the architect for the overall monument, which was dedicated on 25.May.1881, when an estimated 10,000 spectators crammed the park and Fifth Avenue.

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“The first thing you’ve got to remember is that it’s your clients’ money you’re spending.”
—Richard Morris Hunt (1827, Brattleboro, VT -1895, Newport, RI)

It is somehow fitting that Hunt died in Newport. Many of the Gilded Age ‘cottages’ that are open for tours were designed by him.

Located on the perimeter of the Central Park and across from the Frick Museum at East 70th Street, stands this monument to Richard Morris Hunt, an American architect who brought the French Beaux-Arts style to the USA. Hunt was the first American to study at l’École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

Unveiled 1898, Daniel Chester French (1850-1931), known for the seated figure of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial at Washington, DC, sculpted the bronze pieces for the memorial. Yet, there are many living memorials to Hunt’s brilliant architectural career. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, ten blocks further uptown on Fifth Avenue, is a fine example of his creativity.

The memorial, designed by architect Bruce Price ( 1845-1903), takes the form of an exedra, a semicircular portico, in the Neo-Renaissance style. A bronze bust of Hunt (see photo #5) is at the center; the two allegorical figures, on the left, Painting and Sculpture (see photo #4) and on the right, Architecture, (see photo #3) stand guard. The names the organizations in which Hunt played a major role are chiseled in on tablets above the bench. The foundry that cast the bronze sculptures was the Henry Bonnard Bronze Co.

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In addition to the outstanding permanent collection, which Henry Clay Frick amassed with his coal fortune, this gem of a house museum has special exhibitions on the lower level that are eye-opening and worth a visit.

Mr. Frick built his $5,000,000.00 house in 1913 with the intention that one day it would be turned into a public art gallery, which happened in 1935 following his death in 1919 and Mrs. Frick’s death in 1931. The house is as much a part of the show as the art. The central courtyard, which is enclosed, offers one of New York City’s most tranquil spaces. Take a moment to sit, relax, reflect on the beauty of this space and the beauty of the art you have seen.

My favorite part of the permanent collection is the Fragonard Room. Between 1771-1773 Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) completed four major oil-on-canvas panels entitled “The Progress of Love” for Madame du Barry, the mistress of Louis XV. La comtesse du Barry returned these panels to the artist, without explanation, soon after taking possession of them. Fragonard held on to them for twenty years before he augmented them with seven other canvases and installed the lot in a cousin’s villa in the south of France.

Mr. Frick bought the complete work from the estate of J. P. Morgan for $1,250,000.00 in 1914. He spent another $5,000,000 on the room’s other objects and its paneling, which was designed and created in France while the First World War raged on.

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This French château-style building is the most famous hotel landmark in New York City: The Plaza Hotel. It was designed by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh, who also designed the Dakota Building, and was completed in 1907 at the south-eastern corner of Central Park, where Fifth Avenue meets 58th Street/Central Park South. The Plaza remained as one of New York's most luxurious hotels throughout its life. Its most recent renovation was completed in 2008 when it reopened as part hotel and part condos, managed by the Fairmont Hotel Group. In 1986, the Plaza was designated as a National Historic Landmark.

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Swanky and Trendy Fifth Avenue, first of all, this is the main shopping area of new york city and I love walking in this luxe area especially near the apple store and louis vuitton store and the trump tower. The famous street venue starts at Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village and runs through the heart of Midtown, along the eastern side of Central Park, through the Upper East Side and Harlem ad ends at the 142 street. Fifth Avenue is the dividing line for streets in Manhattan. As the zero-numbering point for its street addresses, numbers increase in both directions. The Street is lined with expensive park-view real estate and historical mansions, it is a symbol of wealthy New York. Between Thirty-fourth and Fifty-ninth streets, it is also one of the premier shopping streets in the world, on par with Oxford Street in London and the Champs-Élysées in Paris. It is one of the most expensive streets in the world, on a par with Paris, London, and Tokyo.

Take a virtual tour of 5th Ave at grandstreets.com. They have panoramic views of the whole street so you can browse all the shops at a glance.

http://www.grandstreets.com/store_link.php?store=5th_zara

I say every girls shopping dream because unless you are incredibly well off for most of the stores that is all it is a dream!

This Avenue is worth looking down to have a wander in the department stores and other shops or simply gaze at the amazing window displays that they have - particularly during the holiday period.

It has all the big names down here but be warned it can get incredibly busy. If you have kids and you need the toilet the best bet is to nip into one of the department stores such as SAKS or somewhere.

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The Easter Parade is a wonderful time to see Easter bonnets to the New York City extreme as "paraders" wander along Fifth Avenue from 49th to 57th Streets. The area around St. Patrick's Cathedral is the ideal place to see the parade. The Easter Parade and Easter Bonnet Festival runs from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.

From Thanksgiving until New Years we enjoy the tree, window displays & the people watching along Fifth Avenue.

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This is perhaps the quintessential Manhattan street, or at least for midtown Manhattan. It is also one of the most expensive streets in the world (in terms of property prices, cost of retail spaces etc). No visit to New York is complete without a walk along at least part of its length, but unless you’re an avid shopper with a bottomless purse (I’m not!) you won’t want to spend a lot of time here. In my opinion there are many more interesting sights to be found in other parts of the city.

That doesn’t mean however that I don’t recommend spending some time exploring this famous avenue – of course you must, and there is plenty to be seen. In its length it passes some of the most notable buildings and sights in the city – the Empire State Building, the New York Public Library, the Rockefeller Center, Saint Patrick's Cathedral, Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Fifth Avenue actually starts downtown at Washington Square Park, and it runs all the way up to in Harlem, but the midtown stretch from the Empire State Building on 34th Street to the Grand Army Plaza at 59th Street is perhaps its heart, and is an easily walk-able mile in length. There is architecture of all sorts to admire, and of course shopping galore! Whether you want designer fashion, department stores or chain stores you will find it here. We weren’t interested in doing a lot of shopping, but I did pick up a cardigan in H&M (the weather had turned chilly) and Chris got a memory card for a lot less than in London. If you’re interested in checking out the designer shops, look out for Cartiers, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Versace, Kenneth Cole, Prada, Hermès, Christian Dior – and of course Tiffany & Co. (of “Breakfast at …” fame)

Another nice stretch for a walk is that along Central Park, known as Museum Mile because of the presence of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, as well as some smaller museums. Traffic is one-way, southbound, so it makes sense to walk north and get a bus back, but if you want to do it in reverse you can take a northbound bus along parallel Madison Avenue or use the subway – or walk both ways LOL.

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“There are many little ways to enlarge your child’s world. Love of books is the best of all.”
— Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (July 28, 1929 – May 19, 1994)

If you are a fan of Jackie O!, walk by the apartment house where she spent the last 29 years of her life, and where she died, as her son John said, “surrounded by her books and the people she loved.”

Following the death of her second husband, Aristotle Onassis, in 1975, Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, moved with her adolescent children, Caroline and John Jr., to an apartment at 1040 Fifth Avenue, located at the northeast corner of East 85th Street.

Built in 1930 by Anthony Paterno and designed by Rosario Candela, this 17-story limestone-clad apartment house has only 27 apartments. The fifth-story sculpted masks (see photo #4), and the bas-relief panels and the ornamental arches (see photo #3) above the entrance door are the least bit of detail work on this otherwise plain façade.

Mrs. Onassis’s apartment, which occupies the entire 15th floor, was bought for her by her brother-in-law, Robert F. Kennedy, in 1964 for $100,000. Following Mrs. Onassis’s death in 1994 the apartment was sold for $9.5 million.

From her apartment windows Mrs. Onassis had an outstanding view of the glass-enclosed wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art which houses the Temple of Dendur. During the Kennedy administration the government of Egypt made a gift of the 15th century BC Temple to the United States. The United States had played a key role in saving several temples and other Ancient Egyptian objects that would have otherwise been destroyed after the construction of the Aswan Dam.