Gramercy Park and Madison Square - cont.
more commercial character with the opening of shops, theaters, hotels and restaurants. The famous Delmonico’s restaurant opened at the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 26th Street in 1876, and the original Madison Square Garden opened at the northeast corner of Madison Avenue and 26th Street in 1879. The wealthy moved uptown to Murray Hill and beyond.
Lexington Avenue was a transitional street, lined with row houses that were modest compared to the more ornate ones in Gramercy Park and Madison Square and without the tenements located east of Third Avenue. The street had a decidedly middle class air, but included prominent residents such as future U.S. President Chester A. Arthur and the publisher William Randolph Hearst, both of whom lived at different times in the row house at 123 Lexington Avenue between 28th and 29th Streets. Lexington Avenue has retained a fair degree of architectural integrity and many of these row houses remain. These buildings have been altered by exterior storefronts and interior conversions from single family homes to apartments.
