Automobile Row
"Automobile Row" (where the auto dealerships are) has moved from Broadway (between the 50s and 70s) to Eleventh Avenue. The term dates from about 1900.
25 June 1907, New York Times, pg. 9:
Something new in the line of automobile window exhibits was on view yesterday along "automobile row," as upper Broadway has come to be familiarly known.
8 August 1909, New York Times, pg. S4:
There have been several changes along Automobile Row recently. The new Hudson "twenty" is now on view in the new salesrooms at 1,928 Broadway, where the A. Elliot Ranney Company has opened an office.
22 April 1955, New York Times, pg. 32:
WHAT'S HAPPENING ON "AUTOMOBILE ROW"?
Chrysler
Manhattan Co., Inc.
1757 Broadway
(Bet. 56 & 57 Sts.)
5 November 1984, New York Times, pg. B3:
Flight of Dealers Ends
Era of Automobile Row
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
Manhattan's Automobile Row is rolling toward extinction.
Once it was as easy to find a car dealer on Broadway in the West 50's as it was to find a burleque house in the West 40's. Bust as dealers closed or moved away, showrooms were turned into banks and food markets and drug stores.
(...)
"It's over. Eleventh Avenue is now the Automobile Row of New York City."
(...)
One account of the thriving auto industry came from a 1926 book of essays describing Broadway:
"The size and importance of this industry is illustrated on our own Broadway with Automobile Row, which extends from 50th to 70th Streets. Investments in land and buildings occupied by motor car concerns in this district aqlone are close to $60 million.
"It was logical that Automobile Row should settle on Broadway, the thoroughfare that in a little more than a hundred years has become the 'Main Street' of the world."
7 July 2000, New York Times, "Street of Automotive Dreams" by David W. Dunlap, section E, part 2, pg. 27:
Automobile Row, a one-and-a-half mile stretch of Broadway from the 40's to the 70's, lined with car makers, tire companies and dealerships by the dozens. Bedazzled buyers could find the ''Three P's'' of luxury motoring -- Packard, Peerless and Pierce (makers of the Arrow) -- jostling for attention with Babcock Electrics and White Steamers, Hupmobiles, Loziers, Overlands, Reos and Speedwells.
(...)
Though the last dealer decamped to 11th Avenue in 1985, many architectural monuments of Manhattan's automotive history can still be seen: buildings by masters like Carrere & Hastings, Shreve & Lamb, Albert Kahn, Francis Hatch Kimball, William Welles Bosworth and Howard Van Doren Shaw.
(...)
The organization is now the Automobile Club of New York, an affiliate of AAA, with headquarters in Garden City. But it maintains a travel agency at 1881 Broadway, which was once the Walter C. Martin Cadillac dealership. This Triple A branch on the northwest corner of 62nd Street may be the last functioning vestige of Automobile Row.
25 June 1907, New York Times, pg. 9:
Something new in the line of automobile window exhibits was on view yesterday along "automobile row," as upper Broadway has come to be familiarly known.
8 August 1909, New York Times, pg. S4:
There have been several changes along Automobile Row recently. The new Hudson "twenty" is now on view in the new salesrooms at 1,928 Broadway, where the A. Elliot Ranney Company has opened an office.
22 April 1955, New York Times, pg. 32:
WHAT'S HAPPENING ON "AUTOMOBILE ROW"?
Chrysler
Manhattan Co., Inc.
1757 Broadway
(Bet. 56 & 57 Sts.)
5 November 1984, New York Times, pg. B3:
Flight of Dealers Ends
Era of Automobile Row
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
Manhattan's Automobile Row is rolling toward extinction.
Once it was as easy to find a car dealer on Broadway in the West 50's as it was to find a burleque house in the West 40's. Bust as dealers closed or moved away, showrooms were turned into banks and food markets and drug stores.
(...)
"It's over. Eleventh Avenue is now the Automobile Row of New York City."
(...)
One account of the thriving auto industry came from a 1926 book of essays describing Broadway:
"The size and importance of this industry is illustrated on our own Broadway with Automobile Row, which extends from 50th to 70th Streets. Investments in land and buildings occupied by motor car concerns in this district aqlone are close to $60 million.
"It was logical that Automobile Row should settle on Broadway, the thoroughfare that in a little more than a hundred years has become the 'Main Street' of the world."
7 July 2000, New York Times, "Street of Automotive Dreams" by David W. Dunlap, section E, part 2, pg. 27:
Automobile Row, a one-and-a-half mile stretch of Broadway from the 40's to the 70's, lined with car makers, tire companies and dealerships by the dozens. Bedazzled buyers could find the ''Three P's'' of luxury motoring -- Packard, Peerless and Pierce (makers of the Arrow) -- jostling for attention with Babcock Electrics and White Steamers, Hupmobiles, Loziers, Overlands, Reos and Speedwells.
(...)
Though the last dealer decamped to 11th Avenue in 1985, many architectural monuments of Manhattan's automotive history can still be seen: buildings by masters like Carrere & Hastings, Shreve & Lamb, Albert Kahn, Francis Hatch Kimball, William Welles Bosworth and Howard Van Doren Shaw.
(...)
The organization is now the Automobile Club of New York, an affiliate of AAA, with headquarters in Garden City. But it maintains a travel agency at 1881 Broadway, which was once the Walter C. Martin Cadillac dealership. This Triple A branch on the northwest corner of 62nd Street may be the last functioning vestige of Automobile Row.