Park Avenue Tunnel

The Park Avenue Tunnel, also called the Murray Hill Tunnel, is a 1600ft tunnel that passes under seven blocks of Park Avenue in Murray Hill, in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Traffic currently goes northbound from 33rd Street toward the Park Avenue Viaduct. The tunnel is under the jurisdiction of the New York City Department of Transportation, and carries one lane of northbound car traffic from East 33rd Street to East 40th Street; from 40th Street north, traffic must follow the Park Avenue Viaduct around Grand Central Terminal to 46th Street. The vertical clearance is.The IRT Lexington Avenue Line of the New York City Subway runs parallel to the Park Avenue Tunnel in two tunnels below it.HistoryThe tunnel once carried the New York and Harlem Railroad and later that company's streetcar line, and was then called the Murray Hill Tunnel. The tunnel was originally built as an open rock cut, completed in 1837, after which the NY&H Railroad was opened as far as Yorkville, to 85th Street. In 1850 the cut was roofed over, using granite stringers from the original railroad bed south of 14th Street, thus creating the present tunnel.