Manhattan’s famed luxury store row Fifth Avenue is in line for a major makeover. New York City officials have unveiled a plan to transform a central portion of the thoroughfare between Bryant Park and Central Park into a more pedestrian-centered boulevard. The vision is designed to emulate iconic strolling and shopping boulevards such as the Champs-Élysées in Paris.
They propose doubling the size of sidewalks, reducing traffic lanes from five to three, as well as adding seating areas and hundreds of trees and planters, among other improvements.
“As we celebrate the 200th anniversary of one of the most famous streets in the world, New Yorkers can look forward to a brand-new Fifth Avenue that will return the street to its former glory as a pedestrian boulevard,” Madelyn Wils, interim president of the Fifth Avenue Association, which runs the local business improvement district, said in a statement.
“Reversing the century-old trend of putting cars first, this visionary design will transform our overcrowded avenue into a spacious and green corridor for shoppers and workers, visitors and New Yorkers, and everyone on Fifth.”
The plan would cost more than US$350 million and be paid through a mix of public and private financing, according to Mayor Eric Adams’ administration and the Future of Fifth Partnership.
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Officials said the project represents the avenue’s first major redesign and could pay for itself in less than five years through increased property and sales tax revenue.
“People across the globe identify Fifth Avenue as a premier destination for strolling and shopping,” Meera Joshi, the city’s deputy mayor for operations, said in a statement. “But its larger-than-life reputation means that its sidewalks have reached their capacity, hosting more people per hour in peak seasons than Madison Square Garden.”
Some 5,500 pedestrians traverse its blocks on average each hour, a number that swells to 23,000 people an hour during the holidays, officials said.
Construction could begin in 2028.
The Fifth Avenue plan was among other ambitious plans for roadways by the city, which also include proposals for capping stretches of the Cross Bronx Expressway, a major highway that cuts through the borough of the Bronx.
City officials said the proposals would build parks and greenspaces atop the covered highway, helping restore urban neighborhoods hollowed out by the expansion of the national highway system and the development of suburbs.
“This is a historic opportunity to right the wrongs of the past and reconnect communities once again,” Joshi said.
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