FIFTH   AVENUE
 

33
 

From a photograph
 

Copyright, 1915, by Perry Walton.
BRICK PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
37th Street and Fifth Avenue.
Showing the remarkable transformation of the Waddell site since 1845.
 

The Middle Road, then a typical country thoroughfare, ran north¬
westerly from the Eastern Post-Road (at about Fourth Avenue and
28th Street) and intersected Fifth Avenue at 41st Street. This road
was the eastern boundary of the Thompson farm, portions of which
have become the two most valuable parcels on Fifth Avenue, namely,
the Altman and Waldorf-Astoria properties.

The block from 37th to  38th Streets,  between Fifth and  Sixth Coventry
Avenues, was the country-seat of W. Coventry H. Waddell, a close Waddell
friend of President Andrew Jackson.   Waddell's fortune sprang from the ^«^^^^^ ^^
services he rendered as financial representative of Jackson's Adminis- ^^^^^ ^^^^^^
tration.    His villa stood on the site of the Brick Presbyterian Church,
at the northwest corner of 37th Street.    In 1845, when Mr. Waddell
went "into the wilderness" to build. Fifth Avenue above Madison
Square was a country road lined with farms, and while Mr. Waddell