Riverside Boulevard (Manhattan)
Riverside Drive is a scenic north-south thoroughfare in the Manhattan borough of New York City. The boulevard runs on the west side of Manhattan, generally parallel to the Hudson River from 72nd Street to near the George Washington Bridge at 181st Street. North of 96th Street, Riverside Drive is a wide divided boulevard; at other points it divides to provide a serpentine local street with access to the residential buildings. Some of the most coveted addresses in New York are located along its route.
Riverside Drive was designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted as part of his concept for Riverside Park; the 191 acres (0.77 km2) of land from 72nd to 125th Streets were undeveloped prior to construction of the Hudson River Railroad, built in 1846 to connect New York City to Albany. The first proposal to convert the riverside precipice into a park was contained in a pamphlet written by William R. Martin, a parks commissioner, in 1865. In 1866, a bill introduced into the Legislature by commissioner Andrew Green was approved, the first segment of park was acquired through condemnation in 1872, and construction began.
At the same time, Riverside Drive was being developed as a scenic parkway. Olmsted drew up the plan for the joint Riverside Park and Riverside Drive project. Afterward, several architects started work on the project. Based on Central Park, the new project consisted of "a tree-lined driveway curving around the valleys and rock outcroppings and overlooking the [Hudson] river". From 1875 to 1910, architects and horticulturalists such as Calvert Vaux and Samuel Parsons laid out the stretch of park/road between 72nd and 125th Streets according to the English gardening ideal, creating the appearance that the park was an extension of the Hudson River Valley. Primary construction of the project was completed in about 1910.
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