Eighth Avenue (Manhattan)
Eighth Avenue is a major north–south avenue on the west side of Manhattan in New York City, carrying northbound traffic below 59th Street. It is one of the original avenues of the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 to run the length of Manhattan, though today the name changes twice. At 59th Street/Columbus Circle it becomes Central Park West, where it forms the western boundary of Central Park. North of 110th Street/Frederick Douglass Circle it is known as Frederick Douglass Boulevard before merging onto Harlem River Drive north of 155th Street.
Eighth Avenue begins in the West Village neighborhood at Abingdon Square (where Hudson Street becomes Eighth Avenue at an intersection with Bleecker Street) and runs north for 44 blocks through Chelsea, the Garment District, Hell's Kitchen's east end, Midtown and the Broadway theatre district in the eponymous neighborhood, before it finally enters Columbus Circle at 59th Street and becomes Central Park West. North of Frederick Douglass Circle, it resumes its Eighth Avenue designation, but is also known as Frederick Douglass Boulevard. The avenue ends north of 155th Street, and merges into the Harlem River Drive.
The New York City Subway's IND Eighth Avenue Line, serving the A, C, and E trains in Lower Manhattan and the A, B, C, and D trains in the Upper West Side, runs under Eighth Avenue.[2][3]
MTA Regional Bus Operations primarily operates two bus routes on the avenue. The northbound M20 serves Eighth Avenue between Abingdon Square and Columbus Circle, while the M10 serves the length of Eighth Avenue north of 59th Street in its entirety.[4]
The southernmost section is known solely as Eighth Avenue between Abingdon Square and Columbus Circle. This portion of Eighth Avenue has carried traffic one-way northbound since June 6, 1954.[5]
Since the 1990s, the stretch of Eighth Avenue that runs through Greenwich Village and its adjacent Chelsea neighborhood has been a center of the city's gay community, with bars and restaurants catering to gay men. New York City's annual gay pride parade takes place along the Greenwich Village section of Eighth Avenue. Also, along with Times Square, the portion of Eighth Avenue from 42nd Street to 50th Street was an informal red-light district in the late 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s before it was controversially renovated into a more family friendly environment under the first mayoral administration of Rudolph Giuliani.
