page_title: Lexington Avenue
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Lexington Avenue / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo was taken at 50th Street Lexington Ave, facing toward south and including a view of the Chrysler Building
context_page_description: Lexington Avenue, often colloquially abbreviated as "Lex", is an avenue on the East Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City that carries southbound one-way traffic from East 131st Street to Gramercy Park at East 21st Street. Along its 5.5-mile, 110-block route, Lexington Avenue runs through Harlem, Carnegie Hill, the Upper East Side, Midtown, and Murray Hill to a point of origin that is centered on Gramercy Park. South of Gramercy Park, the axis continues as Irving Place from 20th Street to East 14th Street.
  Lexington Avenue was not one of the streets included in the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 street grid, so the addresses for cross streets do not start at an even hundred number, as they do with avenues that were originally part of the plan.
context_section_description: Both Lexington Avenue and Irving Place began in 1832 when Samuel Ruggles, a lawyer and real-estate developer, petitioned the New York State Legislature to approve the creation of a new north/south avenue between the existing Third and Fourth Avenues, between 14th and 30th Streets. Ruggles had purchased land in the area, and was developing it as a planned community of townhouses around a private park, which he called Gramercy Park. He was also developing property around the planned Union Square, and wanted the new road to improve the value of these tracts. The legislation was approved, and, as the owner of most of the land along the route of the new street, Ruggles was assessed for the majority of its cost. Ruggles named the southern section, below 20th Street, which opened in 1833, after his friend Washington Irving. The northern section, which opened three years later, in 1836, was named after the Battle of Lexington in the Revolutionary War.
  Lexington saw the first arrest in New York for speeding, in 1899, when a bicycle patrolman overtook cabdriver Jacob German, who had been racing down the avenue at the "reckless" speed of 12 mph (19 km/h). The portion of Lexington Avenue above East 42nd Street was reconstructed at the same time as the IRT Lexington Avenue Line of the New York City Subway. The widened street and the subway line both opened on July 17, 1918.
  Portions of the avenue were widened in 1955, which required eminent domain takings of the facades of some structures along Lexington.
  Lexington Avenue has carried one-way (downtown) traffic since July 17, 1960.
  
  The July 18, 2007 New York City steam explosion sent a geyser of hot steam up from beneath the avenue at 41st Street resulting in one death and more than 40 injuries.
caption: View of Lexington Avenue south from 50th street, with the Chrysler Building in the background
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