| FORTY-SECOND STREET AND PERSHING SQUARE
This thoroughfare has immensely expanded during the past few years. It is the main artery of the Grand Central Terminal Zone and its marvelous accessibility has resulted in the building up of a community almost of its own. In the modest language of John McE. Bowman, it is the "Heart of the World." General Wingate's magnificent Victory Hall is planned to occupy the Park Avenue corner of Pershing Square. The new viaduct is also completed. It is an important section of New York.
Four railroad trunk lines have stations on the street.
Over 100,000 passengers use the Grand Central Terminal Station each day.
More than 10,000,000 visitors dine annually in hotels, restaurants and cafes.
It has eleven theatres, with 16,233 seats and an aver-age weekly attendance of 129,864.
"The Heart of the World." Pershing Square, Park Avenue and Forty-second Street. Showing group of hotels adjoining the Grand Central Terminal.
Also the network of transportation lines, overhead and underground, meeting at this point. The hotels are, from left to right, Murray Hill, Belmont, Manhattan, Biltmore, Commodore. Small building in centre is the railroad station. The bridge leading to it across Porte-second Street is the end of the new Park Avenue Viaduct thoroughly equipped branch offices with private wire service. Seven national banks and trust companies and two savings banks.
One department store with 2,600 employees.
More electricity is used for lighting purposes than in any average city throughout the world.
Nearly every kind of business is located on the street. All leading parades cross it.
Four churches with over 6,000 members.
The New York Public Library, with a circulation of 14,598,109 volumes, is located on the Fifth Avenue corner.
One public school with 1,700 pupils and 38 teachers. Five telegraph offices.
Two telephone exchanges, handling more calls each day than any city of 250,000 population.
Altogether this is one of the liveliest streets in town.
The private residences that lined both sides of Madison Avenue north of 42nd Street for the next mile or two are all gone. The Manhattan Hotel occupies the entire block between 42nd and 43rd Streets, and diagonally across stands the magnificent Biltmore.
Beyond that is a great business building and the new Yale Club. St. Bartholomew's Church, with its famous bronze doors, in memory of Cornelius Vanderbilt, is now at 50th Street and Park Avenue. A twenty-story Christian Science Building takes its place. Two large retail stores among the finest in the city come next, one a men's shop and the other a most wonderful sporting goods house. One of the chain of Ritz Hotels comes next. The criminal activities of Von Bernstorff and Dernburg during our pre-war experience were conducted from this place.
Following the Ritz come wonderful apartment houses. They are the last word in luxury. Some are so arranged that in event of the family's absence and the master being detained in town,, household routine will go on just the same. Servants enter, do the necessary work, supply fresh flowers and then depart. At night, any kind of a dinner ordered by the master, simple or elaborate, will be ready at the hour designated by him. Rents of these apartments are from $300,000 to $400,000 per annum. The most expensive ones are fully rented and have a waiting list.
We will now draw a line on the map across 42nd Street. That is another natural dividing line. The theatre district, which begins at Broadway and 42nd Street and goes north, will be treated next. Aside from the theatres, we have now sketched practically every-thing of interest below Central Park.
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