Commissioners' Plan of 1811 in the context of "Madison Avenue (Manhattan)"

The borough of Manhattan in New York City contains 214 numbered east–west streets ranging from 1st to 228th, the majority of them designated in the Commissioners' Plan of 1811. These streets do not run exactly east–west, because the grid plan is aligned with the Hudson River, rather than with the cardinal directions. Thus, the majority of the Manhattan grid's "west" is approximately 29 degrees north of true west; the angle differs above 155th Street, where the grid initially ended. The grid now covers the length of the island from 14th Street north.

All numbered streets carry an East or West prefix – for example, East 10th Street or West 10th Street – which is demarcated at Broadway below 8th Street, and at Fifth Avenue at 8th Street and above. The numbered streets carry crosstown traffic. In general, but with numerous exceptions, even-numbered streets are one-way eastbound and odd-numbered streets are one-way westbound. Most wider streets, and a few of the narrow ones, carry two-way traffic.

Madison Avenue is a north–south avenue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, New York, that carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from Madison Square (at 23rd Street) to meet the southbound Harlem River Drive at 142nd Street, passing through Midtown, the Upper East Side (including Carnegie Hill), East Harlem, and Harlem. It is named after and arises from Madison Square, which is itself named after James Madison, the fourth President of the United States.

Madison Avenue was not part of the original Manhattan street grid established in the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, and was carved between Park Avenue (formerly Fourth) and Fifth Avenue in 1836, due to the effort of lawyer and real estate developer Samuel B. Ruggles, who had previously purchased and developed New York's Gramercy Park in 1831, and convinced the authorities to create Lexington Avenue and Irving Place between Fourth Avenue (now Park Avenue South) and Third Avenue in order to service it.

14th Street is a major crosstown street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, traveling between Eleventh Avenue on Manhattan's West Side and Avenue C on Manhattan's East Side. It forms a boundary between several neighborhoods and is sometimes considered the border between Lower Manhattan and Midtown Manhattan.

At Broadway, 14th Street forms the southern boundary of Union Square. It is also considered the southern boundary of Chelsea, Flatiron/Lower Midtown, and Gramercy, and the northern boundary of Greenwich Village, Alphabet City, and the East Village. West of Third Avenue, 14th Street marks the southern terminus of western Manhattan's grid system. North of 14th Street, the streets make up a near-perfect grid that runs in numerical order. South of 14th, the grid continues in the East Village almost perfectly, except in Greenwich Village, where an older and less uniform grid plan applies.

Houston Street (/ˈhaʊstən/ HOW-stən) is a major east–west thoroughfare in Lower Manhattan in New York City, New York. It runs the full width of the island of Manhattan, from FDR Drive along the East River in the east to the West Side Highway along the Hudson River in the west. The street is divided into west and east sections by Broadway.

Houston Street generally serves as the boundary between neighborhoods on the East Side of Manhattan—Alphabet City, the East Village, NoHo, Greenwich Village, and the West Village to the north; and the Lower East Side, most of the Bowery, Nolita, and SoHo to the south. The numeric street-naming grid in Manhattan, created as part of the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, begins immediately north of Houston Street with 1st Street at Avenue A.

23rd Street is a broad thoroughfare in the New York City borough of Manhattan, one of the major two-way, east-west streets in the borough's grid. As with Manhattan's other "crosstown" streets, it is divided into its east and west sections at Fifth Avenue. The street runs from Avenue C and FDR Drive in the east to Eleventh Avenue in the west.

23rd Street was created under the Commissioners' Plan of 1811. The street hosts several famous hotels, including the Fifth Avenue Hotel and Hotel Chelsea, as well as many theaters. Several skyscrapers are located on 23rd Street, including the Flatiron Building, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower, and One Madison.

Lexington Avenue, often colloquially abbreviated as "Lex", is an avenue on the East Side of Manhattan in New York City. The avenue carries southbound one-way traffic from East 131st Street to Gramercy Park at East 21st Street. Along its 5.5-mile (8.9-kilometer), 110-block route, Lexington Avenue runs through Harlem, Carnegie Hill, the Upper East Side, Midtown, and Murray Hill to a point of origin that is centered on Gramercy Park. South of Gramercy Park, the axis continues as Irving Place from 20th Street to East 14th Street.

Lexington Avenue was not one of the streets included in the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 street grid, so the addresses for cross streets do not start at an even hundred number, as they do with avenues that were originally part of the plan.