Streets vs Avenues

Thankfully, Manhattan has been laid out in a pretty good grid system since the beginning. Not everything is at a 90º angle, but much of it is, or is very close. This is pretty helpful when you're trying to get around. But if someone told you to meet them at "the corner of 5th and 42nd", you may end up a bit confused. Thankfully, there is a great system in place to help you with that.

I'll start with Avenues. Avenues run vertically (up and down) from east to west. (South of Houston Street (SoHo,) the Avenue and Street names are different, but first I'll explain how the grid works North of Houston.) Starting at the East River (on the Brooklyn side) is 1st Ave, then 2nd, then 3rd, all the way to 12th Avenue, next to the Hudson River (on the Jersey Side). Although 12 is divided by 6 in mathematics, Manhattan is divided in half by 5th Avenue, which runs from south to north starting at Washington Square Park.

Note (using a more detailed map) that in the Lower East Side, there are also Avenues A through D. These run from A, west, to D, east, and fill in the extra land that the Lower East Side contains past the point of 1st Ave. There are also some avenue name changes when you go farther north, (like Park Ave, Madison, etc.) And do realize that there are some smaller streets and avenues tucked into different parts of the city between alleyways. Again, having a map handy at all times is a great idea!

Broadway is a special street (not called an Avenue, although it runs South to North) which runs horizontally across the city from the very southern tip of Manhattan all the way north to Harlem. The southern part of Broadway runs on the east side of 5th Avenue, while the northern half runs to the west. Broadway crosses over 5th Avenue at 23rd Street (Madison Square Park,) which is where you'll see they squeezed in the famous Flatiron Building.

Streets run horizontally across the city, starting with 1st Street a block north of Houston, and ending with 220th Street in Harlem. There really isn't much else to say about the street numbers; that concept pretty easy to understand.

Anything south of Houston (SoHo) is rather confusing. (Not pronounced "HOUston" like in Texas, but rather "HOUSEton," like what you live in. Although SoHo is pronounced like So, Ho.) The entire island begins to come together to a point, and many streets and avenues curve and become more diagonal than vertical. Broadway is the one avenue that keeps its name and continues straight down the center to the southern point. Suddenly, streets and avenues have names rather than numbers, and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to them. Blocks are no longer square or similar in size. This is where having a map comes in handy; though, there are very few places that a visitor may want to visit in this part of town that aren't incredibly easy to navigate to.

PS- I hope you realize these aren't all of the streets and avenues in NYC. They are only a few! There are many others in between!