View Looking South on Madison Avenue from 26th Street,
1877
The march up Fifth Avenue reached Madison Square in the 1850s when construction
of Italianate style row houses and several mansions began around the park and
on adjoining streets. Prominent residents of the Madison Square area included
future President Theodore Roosevelt and the author Edith Wharton. By the 1870s,
Madison Square was taking on a more commercial character with the opening of
shops, theaters, hotels and restaurants.
