145 Years of West End Avenue — Where the City Stops and Creativity Thrives

By Yvonne Vávra

“I’d never seen a street as wide and stately as this one, with doormen standing in front of apartment houses of imposing height that lined the avenue for a mile and a half,” wrote Vivian Gornick in The Odd Woman and the City. “My friend told me that in these great stone buildings lived musicians and writers, scientists and émigrés, dancers and philosophers. Very soon no trip downtown was complete without a walk on West End from 107th Street to Seventy-Second. For me, the avenue became emblematic. To live here would mean I had arrived.”

That sense of awe, that longing — I know it well. There’s something about West End Avenue that stirs aspiration, a desire to reach a destination. For me, that’s also about arriving at a place that resists the constant motion of the city. A place to rest and feel at ease.

There’s no rush here, no errands to run, no need to go faster, higher, further. West End Avenue offers respite from the chaos. It’s the very idea of home, wrapped in charming facades, wide sidewalks, and canopies. Walking down this road means you probably belong here.

I come here to breathe. Despite Broadway’s bustle being my element, there’s comfort in knowing that I just need to turn a corner to escape to a world where time has no place. I can almost picture the kids turning West End into their marble playground, as Lyla Blake Ward recounts in her memoir Broadway, Schrafft’s and Seeded Rye—Growing Up Slightly Jewish on the Upper West Side. “In the thirties, there was so little traffic we actually shot our marbles right across the avenue,” Ward wrote. “If an occasional car or truck wanted to go through, we stepped back and gave them safe passage. But for the most part, we had exclusive use of the road from gutter to gutter.”

Remember, I said almost, I could almost picture it! But, seriously, nothing seems to ever change here. The proof is in the four phone booths — on West 66th, 90th, 100th, and 101st streets — icons of another New York, defying the end of their era. They’re the last ones still standing in all of New York City.

It wasn’t supposed to be this quiet. This month marks the 145th anniversary of the creation of West End Avenue, when the stretch of 11th Avenue from West 59th Street to West 107th Street was renamed as part of a grand vision for the rapidly growing neighborhood. The planners originally conceived of it as a bustling retail street, lined with shops and businesses for the wealthy residents of Riverside Drive and Broadway to enjoy. But instead, West End became dominated by apartment buildings.

Today, you’ll find a mix of postwar architecture and some commercial activity south of the 70s, while to the north, occasional stretches of brownstone blocks add a touch of historic charm. But for the most part, you walk through a landscape of 14- to 16-story buildings, all resembling one another like members of the same family, their uniformity offering a soothing calm as you make your way toward Straus Park.

But first, let’s pick up a smile from one of my favorite Upper West Siders: the rhino, who’s been hanging out in West End Park between West 63rd and 64th streets since 1975 — on snout end, that is. This bronze sculpture by Nobi Shioya brings the kind of joy that comes with having absolutely no idea what’s going on. You’ll have plenty of questions. We’re looking at a rhino here, butt up, snout down, its horn wedged in a boulder, all while being scrutinized by a nearby salamander.

As we marvel at the rhino’s unconventional stance, we’re reminded that West End Avenue has long been a place where creativity manifests in the most marvelous ways. Strolling uptown, we share the sidewalk with the spirits of countless artistic minds who once called this avenue home. Take the Apthorp between West 78th and 79th — how many times did Nora Ephron step through this gate onto West End Avenue, mulling over her latest ideas? This very place literally saved her heart, here she became one of the keenest observers of the Upper West Side, making the entire world fall in love with the neighborhood through her romantic comedies.

Another Apthorp resident, Joseph Heller, conceived the first lines of Catch-22 one morning in 1953 in his apartment. Sergei Rachmaninoff lived just a few blocks further north, at 505 West End, at the corner of 84th Street, where he completed his Piano Concerto No. 4 and many other pieces in an apartment he called “Moscow at the Hudson.” The lyrics to Take Me Out to the Ball Game, arguably one of the most-sung songs in the U.S., were penned at 624 West End Avenue, near West 90th Street, by John “Jack” Norworth.

Comic book genius Stan Lee, creator of Iron Man, Spider-Man, Black Panther, Captain America, and many other Marvel icons, grew up at the corner of West End and West 98th Street. Tap-dancing legend Harold Nicholas lived just one block north, at number 789. And Madeleine L’Engle, author of A Wrinkle in Time, called the Clebourne at 105th Street home.

And that’s just the past. Today, Tina Fey, Joel Coen, Frances McDormand, and many other artists are making their way home on West End Avenue—alongside countless Upper West Siders quietly creating magic every day, their names known only to those lucky enough to cross their paths.

At times, moments of creativity on West End have unfolded for all to see — and not to everyone’s delight. The final shot of Barbra Streisand’s The Mirror Has Two Faces takes place in front of 505 West End Avenue at the corner of West 84th Street. Remember? That was also Rachmaninoff’s “Moscow on the Hudson.” In the scene, Streisand and Jeff Bridges break free from their previous misunderstandings of love, reclaim their marriage, and dance down the wide expanse of West End Avenue under the rising morning sun. Neighbors were divided about the early morning filming on May 3, 1996, which included a blast of Streisand’s I Finally Found Someone blaring over loudspeakers. “Barb, we love you, but not at 6 a.m.!” someone yelled out their window, as reported by The New York Times.

The shot is worth it, I’d say. Our avenue becomes a gateway to an open future, toward personal growth, freedom from the confusions of the past, and the promise that the next chapter will always begin. Until the end.

But of course, as West End Avenue teaches us, the end is never truly the end. There’s always Riverside.

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Yvonne Vávra is a magazine writer and author of the German book 111 Gründe New York zu lieben (111 Reasons to Love New York). Born a Berliner but an aspiring Upper West Sider since the 1990s (thanks, Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks), she came to New York in 2010 and seven years later made her Upper West Side dreams come true. She’s been obsessively walking the neighborhood ever since.