Neighborhood Guide

Gramercy


Gramercy, a real-estate term extending fashionable Gramercy Park, is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, focused around Gramercy Park, a private park between East 20th and 21st Streets at the foot of Lexington Avenue. Roughly speaking, Gramercy is bound by 14th Street, First Avenue, 23rd Street, and Park Avenue South.[2] Recently, real estate agents and developers have expanded the use of the name to extend its northern boundary into the less prestigious Murray Hill section of Midtown at around 30th Street. To the west is the Flatiron District and Union Square, to the south the East Village, to the east Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, which are both located between First Avenue and the FDR Drive, and to the northeast Kips Bay. Gramercy, particularly the area immediately around Gramercy Park itself, is generally perceived to be a quiet area, safer than many other parts of the city. Gramercy Park is a private park, one of only two in New York City, to which only people residing around the park have a key. The public is otherwise only allowed in the park one day a year.[2] The actor James Cagney once lived in one of the buildings on Gramercy Park South (East 20th Street), as did Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz. Amanda Peet grew up on the park. Many actors, actresses and artists live in the district.