Eleventh Avenue is a north–south thoroughfare on the far West Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City, located near the Hudson River.

[3] The portion north of 59th Street is called West End Avenue, which has mixed commercial and residential use.

[6][7] In 1929, the city, the state, and New York Central agreed on the West Side Improvement Project,[8] conceived by Robert Moses, and allocated funds for an elevated railway that would eliminate the grade crossings and alleviate the problems along Tenth and Eleventh Avenues; it also included construction of the West Side Elevated Highway.

Seeking to distinguish the area from the factories and tenements below 59th Street, a group of real estate developers renamed the northern portions of the West Side's avenues.

[10][13] The upper portion of the avenue retains stretches of late nineteenth-century town houses and several handsome churches and synagogues, but is almost entirely made up of handsome residential buildings about twelve stories tall built in the first decades of the twentieth century.

Notable architecturally historicist houses of worship include: Among the more notable apartment buildings are: Eleventh Avenue, meanwhile, is lined with new-age residential buildings – such as 100 Eleventh Avenue – adjacent to warehouses and car dealerships.

This area has served the transport trade for more than a hundred years; most of the stables for New York's remaining horse cabs are located on its side streets, though many now store taxis and pedicabs.

[26] Concern over building demolition filings for the demolition of three row houses and a six-story elevator apartment building at the southwest corner of West End Avenue and 86th Street spurred a grassroots effort to seek historic district designation for the entire stretch north of Lincoln Towers from 70th to 107th Street.