By the mid-19th century, prominent New Yorkers such as Horace Greeley had country estates in the area, and Edgar Allan Poe lived there briefly. But shortly after the Civil War the neighborhood became industrial, and filled with breweries, factories and slaughterhouses. By 1880, elevated trains rattled along Second and Third Avenues and immigrants lived in the area's brownstones and tenements. In the 1920's some brownstones were turned into fashionable town houses. In 1946, industrial buildings on six blocks on the river were torn down for the United Nations complex, which opened in 1952.
Office buildings are often a block away from residences.
On a recent weekend, Richard Leddon, a management consultant, walked from the Vanderbilt Y.M.C.A. on 47th Street to his apartment building around the corner. The neighborhood doesn't have much of a residential feeling. Mr. Leddon said he liked the convenience of living close to Grand Central Terminal and the 48th Street entrance to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive, since his work often takes him out of the city. Streets is the commercial hub of Turtle Bay, lined with supermakets, shoemakers, pharmacies, liquor stores, cleaners, nail salons and a variety of eating establishments. Pubs like Manchester and Eamonn Doran attract expatriates hungry for fish and chips and rugby on the telly.