34th Street (Manhattan)

34th Street

30th Street (east of 1st Avenue)
Construction
Commissioned	March 1811

34th Street is a major crosstown street in the

.

Several notable buildings are located directly along 34th Street, including the

stops.

History

The street was designated by the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 that established the Manhattan street grid as one of 15 east-west streets that would be 100 feet (30 m) in width (while other streets were designated as 60 feet (18 m) in width).^[2]

In April 2010, the

The street was eventually kept in two-way operation.

In August 2012, designer Jeffrey Johnson shot and killed his colleague outside 34th Street and Fifth Avenue. He then engaged in a shootout with responding police officers, which left nine bystanders wounded, all of them from police gunfire. Johnson was eventually shot and killed by officers.^[4]

At the west end of the street one finds the

, a large retailer of photographic and electronic equipment.

Further east at Eighth and 33rd, the

are built on the scale of the former Penn Station. The architecture of the post office gives a flavor of what the area was like in the height of the railroad era.

34th Street is a major shopping street. Though it endured a decline in the 1970s, it rebounded late in the 20th century with new stores and new energy. There is a large video board and light display at 34th Street and Seventh Avenue. The block between Seventh Avenue and Broadway is Macy's Herald Square, the famous department store immortalized in the Christmas movie Miracle on 34th Street and taglined as the "world's largest store". The annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade ends on 34th Street. Branches of large chain stores also operate between 8th and 5th Avenues.

East of

dominating the skyline.

At the far end one finds bulky luxury residential buildings and a great number of dogs patronizing the pet care parlors that serve the pure-bred loving populations of Kips Bay, which is the name of both the neighborhood and its eponymous bend in the

.

The

Attractions

Places located along or within one block of 34th Street include (from west to east):

• Jacob K. Javits Convention Center
• Hudson Yards buildings
• Congregation Beth Israel West Side Jewish Center
• Manhattan Center
• Hammerstein Ballroom
• New Yorker Hotel
• One Penn Plaza
• New York City Pennsylvania Station
• Macy's Herald Square
• Mercy College (New York)
• Herald Square
• Empire State Building
• City University of New York Graduate Center
• Madison Belmont Building
• Sy Syms School of Business
• New York Estonian House
• St. Vartan Cathedral
• Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine of New York University Medical Center

Public transportation

Pennsylvania Station

is located on 33rd Street, one block south, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

M34A duplicates the M34, except all buses serve Waterside Plaza and westbound buses head north on 8th Avenue to serve the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Eastbound service begins at 9th Avenue. Both routes operate as Select Bus Service.^[6]

The following New York City Subway stations serve 34th Street:^[7]

• <7>
  ​ trains
• 34th Street–Penn Station (IND Eighth Avenue Line); serving the A, ​C, and ​E trains
• 34th Street–Penn Station (IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line); serving the 1, ​2, and ​3 trains
• <F>, ​M​, N, ​Q, ​R, and ​W
  trains
• <6>
  trains

In addition, the following PATH station serves 34th Street:

• HOB–33
  trains

In the past, three of the four former IRT elevated lines had a station at 34th Street:

• 34th Street on the IRT Second Avenue Line
• 34th Street on the IRT Third Avenue Line
• 34th Street on the IRT Ninth Avenue Line

The

fourth station was a spur over 34th Street from the Third Avenue Line to the East 34th Street Ferry Landing

.

See also

• Manhattan streets, 23-42
• Miracle on 34th Street
• Koreatown
• Kips Bay

References

1. ^ "34th Street (Manhattan)" (Map). Google Maps. Retrieved August 31, 2015.
2. ^ Morris, Gouverneur, De Witt, Simeon, and Rutherford, John [sic] (March 1811) "Remarks Of The Commissioners For Laying Out Streets And Roads In The City Of New York, Under The Act Of April 3, 1807", Cornell University Library. Accessed June 27, 2016. "These streets are all sixty feet wide except fifteen, which are one hundred feet wide, viz.: Numbers fourteen, twenty-three, thirty-four, forty-two, fifty-seven, seventy-two, seventy-nine, eighty-six, ninety-six, one hundred and six, one hundred and sixteen, one hundred and twenty-five, one hundred and thirty-five, one hundred and forty-five, and one hundred and fifty-five--the block or space between them being in general about two hundred feet."
3. ^ Grynbaum, Michael M. (April 22, 2010). "Plan for 34th St. Puts Buses and Feet First". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-05-30.
4. ^ Ariosto, David (24 August 2012). "2 dead, 9 wounded in Empire State Building shootings, police say". CNN.
5. ^ Balsamini, Dean (March 6, 2016) "Do you live on one of New York’s most dangerous blocks?" New York Post
6. ^ "Manhattan Bus Map" (PDF). Metropolitan Transportation Authority. July 2019. Retrieved December 1, 2020.
7. ^ "Subway Map" (PDF). Metropolitan Transportation Authority. April 2025. Retrieved April 2, 2025.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to 34th Street (Manhattan).

• 34th Street Partnership, 34thstreet.org
• New York Songlines: 34th Street, a virtual walking tour