Lower Fifth Avenue....Now Called the Gold Coast

Lower Fifth Avenue, from about Twelfth Street down to Eighth Street, was always a nice area..1920's and somewhat older apartment buildings much like the ones up on Park Avenue but not prized as much then. 

A lot of tenants were people who had "made it" in the Garment District, and then later, their widows. I remember chatting with a doorman at one of these buildings back in the late 1960's who amiably told me what the places were like  (I was just curious)...and he made a big deal about those damn widows, demanding as hell and chintzy tippers at Christmas time..

Also down on Lower Fifth are a couple of historic old churches, shown here the Presbyterian One at 12th Street I believe and its adjacent school. There were not enough parishioner kids ages ago to fill the school, so many people used it as an alternative to the local public school over on Sixth Avenue which was not bad as NYC schools go but not all that cool either. I imagine the waiting list for the Presbyterian School is very long these days..