42nd Street (Manhattan)

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42nd Street
42nd Street in New York.jpg
looking west from Seventh Avenue (2004)
Other name(s) Lincoln Highway (west of Broadway)
West end West Side Highway
Times Square
East end FDR Drive
North 43rd Street
South 41st Street




For much of the mid and late 20th century, the area of 42nd Street near Times Square was home to activities often considered unsavory,[1] including peep shows. A comedian once said, "They call it 42nd Street because you're not safe if you spend more than forty seconds on it."[citation needed]

Lloyd Bacon and Busby Berkeley's 1933 film musical 42nd Street displays the bawdy and colorful mixture of Broadway denizens and lowlifes in Manhattan during the Depression. In 1980, it was turned into a successful Broadway musical, which was revived in 2001. In the words of the Al Dubin and Harry Warren title song, on 42nd Street you can find:

Little nifties from the Fifties, innocent and sweet,
Sexy ladies from the Eighties who are indiscreet,
They're side by side, they're glorified,
Where the underworld can meet the elite
Naughty, Gawdy, bawdy, sporty, Forty-second Street!

From the late 1950s until the late 1980s, 42nd Street, nicknamed "The Deuce", was the cultural center of American grindhouse theaters, which spawned an entire subculture. The book Sleazoid Express, a travelogue of the 42nd Street grindhouses and the films they showed, describes in detail the unique blend of people who made up the theater-goers,


while the street outside the theatres was populated with


Recent changes[edit]

In the early 1990s, city government encouraged a clean-up of the Times Square area. In 1990, the city government took over six of the historic theatres on the block of 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. In 1993, the Walt Disney Corporation bought the New Amsterdam Theatre, which it renovated a few years later. Since the mid-1990s, the block has again become home to legitimate theatres and mainstream movie theatres, along with shops, restaurants and attractions that draw millions to the city every year. This area is now co-signed as "New 42nd St" to signify this change.

Notable places[edit]

(from East to West):

Public transit[edit]

Every subway line that crosses 42nd Street has a stop on 42nd Street:


Additionally, MTA New York City Transit's M42 bus runs the length of 42nd Street between the Circle Line Sightseeing Cruises ferry terminal on the Hudson River and the headquarters of the United Nations on the East River. The 42nd Street Crosstown Line streetcar used 42nd Street.

See also[edit]



  1. ^ Blumenthal, Ralph, Times Square Revival?, in N.Y. Times, Dec. 27, 1981, p. SM9 (ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times 1851–2006 (1923–Current File)) (Scanned Image PDF), as accessed Sep 6, 2010 (alternative link to N.Y. Times website and abstract, both as accessed Sep 6, 2010).
  3. ^ Levine DB (September 2007). "The hospital for the ruptured and crippled moves East on 42nd street 1912 to 1925". HSS Journal 3 (2): 131–6. doi:10.1007/s11420-007-9051-6. PMC 2504267. PMID 18751783. "The new Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled was built on 42nd Street between First and Second avenue. It is currently the location of the Ford Foundation." 

Further reading

  • Bianco, Anthony (2004). Ghosts of 42nd Street: A History of America's Most Infamous Block. New York: HarperCollins Books, ISBN 0-688-17089-7. A detailed history that focuses primarily of the Times Square Theater District from the beginning of the 20th century through its successful revival/restoration in the late 20th Century. Excerpt from amazon.com

External links[edit]

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