When the grid began to fill out in the second half of the 19th century, its long axial streets provided the perfect setting for bourgeois Manhattanites to promenade. On January 15, 1887, The New York Times reported that “Fifth-avenue, the best cleaned street in the city, is the favorite promenade,” an optimal place for strolling in the early afternoon. In this photograph of the avenue from 1898, well-dressed pedestrians pass each other on the broad sidewalks and carriages ferry the traffic alongside Madison Square Park. CY