New York City Secrets: A Hidden Street You Didn't Even Know Existence

“The streets of Manhattan are some of the most famous in the world, including 5th Avenue, Madison and Park Avenue and Avenue of the Americas. Many have already walked along them, but did not know about the existence of secret streets and lanes, "the author writes. the Yandex.Zen Galochka Blog.

Next - from the first person.

One of the most mysterious addresses in the world is actually only half of the street, hidden among the cramped Manhattan streets.

Among all the famous names, there is one modest but highly noteworthy street hidden between 6th and 7th Avenues and between West 57th and West 51st Streets. It is rarely visited or recorded in tourist guidebooks, and its name seems to be some kind of cipher. Meet 6 ½ Avenue.

This is currently the only fractional street in New York. 6 ½ Avenue received official signs only in July 2012 from the Department of Transportation, but even before that, this secret street was well known to people who live and work in Manhattan. For a long time, it, like other public places between 57th and 51st streets, was used to shorten the road through the city, avoiding the need to walk along 6 or 7 Avenue.

Manhattan Highways are part of more than 500 places in the city, known as Private Public Spaces or POPs (Privately Owned Public Spaces). These POPs arose in the 1960s when the city encouraged developers to create public spaces around their new buildings. These private public places usually took the form of squares, atriums, passages through the arcades.

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State laws state that building owners must alienate a certain area around their buildings so that they can be used for pedestrian access. And so the owner is not completely the owner of such parts of the streets and squares. Therefore, many of these 500 POPs are abandoned or not maintained, they can be used by the owners as a backyard and some pieces of furniture or boxes can be dumped on them, so passers-by may think that this is someone else's private territory. Nobody wants to invade private space and such places and streets look abandoned.

A public organization called “Friends of Private Public Places” launched an initiative to raise awareness of such streets, that such places belong to residents and guests of New York and can be used.

They started with 6 ½ Avenue in the city center - illuminate the life of 6 ½ Avenue and seek its official recognition. Now, the Department of Transportation has created pedestrian crossings and set up traffic signs on this street to make it look formal.

The next time you walk around Manhattan, try to cut off the road along the short and inconspicuous streets and arcades and walk around the most secret places of the famous Down Town.