I love the decorative street lamps and lack of traffic signs (as well as street furniture like newspaper boxes and garbage cans) in this undated postcard, which depicts the corner of Fifth Avenue and 59th Street.
The General Sherman statue is there, so it must be at least 1903, when the monument went up. “When the civil war ended, Sherman moved to New York City and rode his horse and carriage through Central Park daily,” states centralparknyc.com.
The Plaza Hotel is across the street. But is it the Plaza hotel that’s there today, the beauty that completed in 1907, or the first Plaza Hotel, which opened its doors in 1890 and demolished 15 years later?
If only a postmark existed so we could know for sure.
Tags: Central Park street, Grand Army Plaza 59th Street, New York street, Plaza Hotel, Vintage NYC postcards
Ephemeral New York 
April 5, 2012 at 9:43 am |
A quick check on Ebay showed one copy of this card with a cancellation of November, 1907, and another with a copyright date of 1905, so the earlier incarnation of the Plaza seems more likely.
–Road to Parnassus
April 5, 2012 at 1:56 pm |
the 5th Avenue entrance looks lovely & serene. I wish it could return to that state.
April 5, 2012 at 2:18 pm |
Nice detective work P.
April 5, 2012 at 3:28 pm |
the 5th Avenue entrance looks so serene and lovely. Hard to imagine that the
November 14, 2013 at 7:49 am |
[…] Here is another postcard view of the corner, at the entrance to the park. […]