The End: Lower Fifth Ave, Herald Square, and Penn Plaza

Looking southward, we see the Empire State Building. Standing at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street -- a district of relatively low-rise buildings -- the Empire State Building dominates everything around it. No other building is nearly as inspiring -- or as well known -- as New York's Empire State Building. Further down on Fifth Avenue, Manhattan's "wall of buildings" streches into the distance. You can see the low-rise foot of the Empire State Building in the middle of the photograph decorated by three flags.

Turning to the right, the bus sees this vista of 34th Street looking to the west. At Sixth Ave is Herald Square, and Macy's.

Nobody ever notices it, but the entrance to Macy's on 34th street has these wonderful Beaux Arts statues perched on the second floor above the doorway.

Looking north at the corner of 34th Street and 7th Avenue, the big city receeds into the distance as far as the eye can see. Looking backwards, we see the Empire State Building to the east. To the right, the wall-of-glass building is Two Penn Plaza -- a completely boring office tower. The crush of buildings, people, and traffic is all around! And there's another M4 bus coming behing the taxi in the center of the photo.

A view of old and new: The "Big K" and New Yorker Hotel on 8th Ave and 34th Street. The hotel looks just like it used to, doesn't it? This funny strange building looks like a pillbox hat. It's the modern version of Madison Square Garden. Compared to the previous Madison Square Garden building (actually, the one before the last) it is a sad, uninspiring little runt of a structure.

We finally end our tour at the modernistic, inauspicious entrance of Pennsylvania Station, where you can mix with commuters from New Jersey and Long Island on their way to work. Like Madison Square Garden, today's Penn Station is a disappointing ugly dwarf of a building compared to it's former glorious self. Of the old Penn Station and its modern replacement, Vincent Scully said "It was academic building at its best, rational and ordered according to a pattern of use and a blessed sense of civic excess. . . . Through it one entered the city like a god . . . One scuttles in now like a rat."

Thank you for taking the virtual M4 bus tour! I hope you have enjoyed this photographic tour of the route along which the M4 bus travels. I have been taking photos of this route for several years, and have finally webified them (as of Dec 2002). If you have never taken the M4 bus, I encourage you to do so -- it takes about 1 3/4 hours to do the entire tour, and offers a leisurely ride through the great panarama of life in New York City!

Please send your questions, comments, or reactions about this web page to Stuart Brorson.

Go back to Lower Midtown. Return to Stuart Brorson's home page.


Looking southward, we see the Empire State Building. Standing at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street -- a district of relatively low-rise buildings -- the Empire State Building dominates everything around it. No other building is nearly as inspiring -- or as well known -- as New York's Empire State Building.	Further down on Fifth Avenue, Manhattan's "wall of buildings" streches into the distance. You can see the low-rise foot of the Empire State Building in the middle of the photograph decorated by three flags.


Turning to the right, the bus sees this vista of 34th Street looking to the west.	At Sixth Ave is Herald Square, and Macy's.


Looking north at the corner of 34th Street and 7th Avenue, the big city receeds into the distance as far as the eye can see.	Looking backwards, we see the Empire State Building to the east. To the right, the wall-of-glass building is Two Penn Plaza -- a completely boring office tower. The crush of buildings, people, and traffic is all around! And there's another M4 bus coming behing the taxi in the center of the photo.


A view of old and new: The "Big K" and New Yorker Hotel on 8th Ave and 34th Street. The hotel looks just like it used to, doesn't it?	This funny strange building looks like a pillbox hat. It's the modern version of Madison Square Garden. Compared to the previous Madison Square Garden building (actually, the one before the last) it is a sad, uninspiring little runt of a structure.