4th Ave?

Have you ever wondered why there is no Fourth Avenue in Manhattan? I have. Here is the answer.

"Park Avenue (formerly Fourth Avenue) is a wide boulevard that carries traffic north and south in Manhattan. The road that becomes Park Avenue originates as the Bowery. From 8th Street to 14th Street, it is known as Fourth Avenue. Above 14th Street, it becomes a north-south thoroughfare. From 14th Street to 17th Street, it forms the eastern boundary of Union Square and is known as Union Square East, its southbound lanes merge with Broadway for this distance. From 17th Street to 32nd Street, it is known as Park Avenue South, and for the remainder of its distance, it is known as Park Avenue.

Park Avenue was originally known as Fourth Avenue and carried the tracks of the New York and Harlem Railroad starting in the 1830s. The railroad originally built an open cut through Murray Hill, which was covered with grates and grass between 34th and 40th Streets in the early 1850s. A section of this "park" was renamed Park Avenue in 1860. In 1867, the name applied all the way to 42nd Street. When Grand Central Depot was opened in the 1870s, the railroad tracks between 56th and 96th Streets were sunk out of sight, and in 1888, Park Avenue was extended to the Harlem River. In 1959, the City Council changed the name of Fourth Avenue between 17th and 32nd Streets to Park Avenue South.