Fifth Avenue is the traditional route for many celebratory parades in New York City, and is closed to automobile traffic on several Sundays each year.

[5] The city's Common Council came to own a large amount of land, primarily in the middle of the island away from the Hudson and East Rivers, as a result of grants by the Dutch provincial government to the colony of New Amsterdam.

[6] To divide the common lands into sellable lots, and to lay out roads to service them, the Council hired Casimir Goerck to survey them.

[4]: 2  One of the first large houses to be built on Fifth Avenue was Henry J. Brevoort's three-story residence at Ninth Street, which was completed in 1834.

[4]: 2 [11]: 578  Among the first people to develop such structures was Mary Mason Jones, who built the "Marble Row" on the eastern side of Fifth Avenue from 57th to 58th Streets between 1868 and 1870.

[17] The section south of Central Park was widened starting in 1908, sacrificing wide sidewalks to accommodate the increasing traffic.

As part of the widening project, the New York City government ordered the removal of stoops and other "encroachments" onto the sidewalk in February 1908.

The result was the creation of a high-end shopping district that attracted fashionable women and the upscale stores that wished to serve them.

[31] The first such towers were installed in 1920 upon a gift by Dr. John A. Harriss, who paid for patrolmen's sheds in the middle of Fifth Avenue at 34th, 38th, 42nd, 50th and 57th Streets.

[32] Two years later, the Fifth Avenue Association gave seven 23-foot-high (7.0 m) bronze traffic towers, designed by Joseph H. Freedlander, at important intersections between 14th and 57th Streets for a total cost of $126,000.

[38]: 390 [39] According to a 1971 survey of the avenue, conducted by the Office of Midtown Planning under the leadership of Jaquelin T. Robertson, only 57 percent of building frontages between 34th and 57th Street were used as stores.

The section between 50th Street and Grand Army Plaza was identified as having a robust retail corridor that was starting to decay.

[38]: 390 In February 1971, New York City mayor John Lindsay proposed a special zoning district to preserve the retail character of Fifth Avenue's midtown section.

[45] In 1997, a midblock crosswalk was installed south of the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 50th Street, part of an experiment to allow vehicular traffic to turn without conflicting with pedestrians.

[48] In June 2020, mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the city would test out busways on Fifth Avenue from 57th to 34th Street, banning through traffic from private vehicles.

[59][60] Excluding special events such as parades, this was the first time since the 1970s that the midtown section of Fifth Avenue was closed to vehicular traffic.

[63][62] The proposal would cost $230 million and would include widening sidewalks from 23 to 33.5 feet (7.0 to 10.2 m); removing two of the five traffic lanes; and adding benches, planters, and 230 trees.

[67] The building lot numbering system worked similarly on the East Side before Madison and Lexington Avenues were added to the street grid laid out in the Commissioners' Plan of 1811.

For several years starting in the mid-1990s, the shopping district between 49th and 57th Streets was ranked as having the world's most expensive retail spaces on a cost per square foot basis.

The changeover to one-way traffic south of 135th Street took place on January 14, 1966, at which time Madison Avenue was changed to one way uptown (northbound).

Fifth Avenue is the traditional route for many celebratory parades in New York City; thus, it is closed to traffic on numerous Sundays in warm weather.

The Latino literary classic by New Yorker Giannina Braschi, entitled "Empire of Dreams", takes place on the Puerto Rican Day Parade on Fifth Avenue.

[71][72] Bicycling on Fifth Avenue ranges from segregated with a bike lane south of 23rd Street, to scenic along Central Park, to dangerous through Midtown with very heavy traffic during rush hours.

All crosstown service is westbound: Numerous express buses from Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Staten Island also run along Fifth Avenue.

Carpenter argued that "the avenue would be greatly improved in appearance when deluxe apartments would replace the old-style mansions.

"[90] Led by real estate investors Benjamin Winter, Sr. and Frederick Brown, the old mansions were quickly torn down and replaced with apartment buildings.

[91] This area contains many notable apartment buildings, including 810 Fifth Avenue and the Park Cinq, many of them built in the 1920s by architects such as Rosario Candela and J. E. R. Carpenter.

A very few post-World War II structures break the unified limestone frontage, notably the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum between 88th and 89th Streets.

[3] Many luxury goods, fashion, and sport brand boutiques are located on Fifth Avenue, including Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co. (whose flagship is at 57th Street), Gucci, Prada, Armani, Tommy Hilfiger, Cartier, Omega, Chanel, Harry Winston, Salvatore Ferragamo, Nike, Escada, Rolex, Bvlgari, Emilio Pucci, Ermenegildo Zegna, Abercrombie & Fitch, Hollister Co., De Beers, Emanuel Ungaro, Gap, Versace, Lindt Chocolate Shop, Henri Bendel, NBA Store, Oxxford Clothes, Microsoft Store, Sephora, Tourneau, and Wempe.

Pan American World Airways went out of business, while Air France, Finnair, and KLM moved their ticket offices to other areas in Midtown Manhattan.