Richard M. Hunt Memorial on the west side of Fifth Avenue between 70th and 71st Streets.

FIFTH     AVENUE
 

IFTH AVENUE is one of the world's famous streets.
What Regent and Bond Streets are to London, the Rue
de la Paix to Paris, the Unter den Linden to Berlin, the
Ringstrasse to Vienna, Fifth Avenue is to New York. It
is the most sesthetic expression of the material side of the
metropolis. A noted English author has characterized it as "architec¬
turally the finest street in the world." Its general aspect is one of
great beauty, but its details present surprising contrasts and a few
ugly extremes. Long famous for the beauty of its residences, churches
and hotels, it is now rapidly becoming a great business street of pala¬
tial shops. Close inspection shows that it has a manufacturing centre
and also a tenement quarter. Few, even of its residents, know the
Avenue in all its phases.

It is difficult to imagine the contrasts which may be drawn along
the Avenue. At one end is venerable Washington Square, the beautiful
Washington Arch, and the dignified homes of some of New York's
oldest families. At the other end, 143rd Street and the Harlem River,
is a quasi-public dump littered with unsightly debris. Within the
seven miles that lie between, may be found some of the most beautiful
homes in the world and unkempt double-decker tenements; building
after building given to the manufacture of wearing apparel, or con¬
taining the headquarters or agencies of almost every known industry;
luxurious and expensive hotels, and some of the most beautiful churches
and clubs in this country. Elbowing the churches and the clubs,
and pushing up to the very doors of the stately residences, are some
of the finest shops and art galleries in the world.

This Avenue, the centre of fashion, wealth, society and trade—
where many of the leading business men of America make their home,
and the mart which attracts the most expensive products of America,
Europe, Asia and Africa—changes so rapidly that after an absence of
twenty-five years a former resident would hardly recognize it. To
realize what changes have taken place let us fix in our minds the general
 

Centre of
Wealth,
Society and
Trade