116 St. , Morningside Avenue, Manhattan

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116 St. Morningside Avenue

 

Running from Riverside Drive to the East River, through Manhattan is 116th Street, which

crosses through the neighborhoods of Harlem, Morningside Heights and Spanish Harlem.
At Riverside Drive, a pair of apartment buildings flanks the western entrance to 116th Street.

 

The buildings, known as The Paterno and the Colosseum, are white and notable for their curved facades. 116th Street features unusual curves that are the result of a plan in 1897 to make a public

park out of the land between Riverside Drive and Claremont Avenue. The plan was meant to provide

a large area beside Grant’s Tomb as a terminus for veterans parades. 116th Street was designed in a

way that allows parades coming up Riverside Drive to swing in a gracious curve, then swing onto a second curve leading to Claremont Avenue.

Until the 1950s, 116th Street ran continuously from Riverside Drive to Morningside Heights to Morningside Park. In 1953, during the period of Eisenhower’s presidency at Columbia, the block

between Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway was closed to vehicular traffic and was made into a pedestrian path called College Walk.

College Walk, which used to be part of 116th Street, is where the main entrance of the city’s Ivy League school, Columbia University, is located.