Tenth Avenue (Manhattan)

View of Amsterdam Avenue looking south from the Columbia University overpass between West 116th and 117th Streets

View of Amsterdam Avenue looking north toward Harlem

Looking north up the southern slope of Washington Heights

Tenth Avenue / Amsterdam Avenue is a north-south thoroughfare on the West Side of Manhattan in New York City. It carries uptown (northbound) traffic only south of West 110th Street at the northern edge of Central Park, but is two-way north of it.

Tenth Avenue begins at West 13th Street and the West Side Highway in the West Village / Meatpacking District and it runs uptown (northbound) for 47 blocks until its intersection with West 59th Street, where it is resigned (like the other West Side avenues) as Amsterdam Avenue but continues without interruption.

As Amsterdam Avenue, the thoroughfare stretches 129 blocks north before reaching Highbridge Park at West 190th Street, where the roadway is briefly renamed as Fort George Avenue before it terminates. The street narrows to one lane in each direction as passes through the campus of Yeshiva University's Wilf Campus, between 184th and 186th streets. Following the roadway's interruption by Highbridge Park, it continues in the same line as Tenth Avenue, running for slightly less than a mile, from Dyckman Street to the intersection of West 218th Street and Broadway, near the extreme northern tip of the island of Manhattan and the Broadway Bridge, which crosses the Harlem River.

The segment south of Highbridge Park, running a total of 177 blocks, is the longest continuous avenue in Manhattan, excluding Broadway, the West Side Highway and the FDR Drive (none of which is strictly an avenue).

The ballet Slaughter on Tenth Avenue recalls the dangerous early 20th century decades in Hells Kitchen. In the 19th century when the West Side Line (NYCRR) ran along the Avenue, a "Tenth Avenue Cowboy" was paid to ride a horse and warn people of an approaching train.