NYC Neighborhoods: Turtle Bay

Housing, Shopping, Restaurants, Points of Interest, and History

Aug 31, 2008

New York City is a bunch of small towns - neighborhoods - gathered together. Each has its charms, its unique population, its own raison d'etre. This one has the U.N.

That's not all it has, of course. Turtle Bay is one of the oldest neighborhoods in midtown, and has boasted a long list of celebrity residents. Here are a few of the high points:

Turtle Bay on NYC's East Side extends from 43rd Street to 53rd Street and from the East River to Lexington Avenue. There are office towers on the north-south avenues, but hundreds of brownstones on the streets. Most brownstones, named after the color of stone from which most - although by no means all - were built, were intended as single-family homes for the well-to-do. Some still are; others have been subdivided into apartments that afford both elegance and a convenient address, close to the Lexington Avenue subway line and the Madison and Second Avenue bus lines. It is easy to travel throughout the city from a Turtle Bay base.

Like all of NYC, this neighborhood boasts no shopping malls. Unlike some neighborhoods, though, it also lacks a department store, although Saks Fifth Avenue at 49th Street and Fifth Avenue is just a few blocks outside the neighborhood. Tiffany's, which also qualifies as a point of interest, is also a few blocks away at Fifth Avenue and 56th Street.

The best shopping in the neighborhood, though, is in numerous boutiques offering everything from clothing to gourmet cheeses to pet toys. A store called Bird Camp at 53rd and Second Avenue is worth a look. Your mouth will water at the Buttercup Bake Shop at 52nd Street and Second Avenue.

If you want to see the talking heads from your favorite TV national news show, stop into PJ Clarke's for cocktails at 55th and Third, also just slightly out of the neighborhood, but worth it. The restaurant also has great burgers. Smith & Wollensky offers beef, too...the high-priced steak version. The famous Four Seasons is at 52nd Street and Park Avenue. Or you can go way down market at Ess-A-Bagel at Third Avenue and 51st Street.

Why waste words? The United Nations is the premier point of interest in the neighborhood, although it abuts the East River between 43rd and 48th Streets, if one includes the lovely Peace Garden. But Beekman Place, although a residential street, is interesting and is just north of the United Nations. On it, figures of note once lived, including the Aga Khan and Time-Life's long-time cable desk chief, the late Minnie Magazine (whose name alone would have given her prominence in New York publishing).

Other media luminaries with more familiar names also lived in Turtle Bay, including author Kurt Vonnegut and actress Katherine Hepburn.

Turtle Bay is no more; the bay itself had been filled in by 1868 and the United Nations was eventually built atop it. However, in old Dutch New York, the area around the bay was the Deutal Bay Farm. Deutal meant knife blade, not turtle, because that was the shape of the shallows. In typical melting-pot fashion, the word became Anglicized to Turtle.

Brownstones began to be built almost immediately after 1868. At first, the area was home to luminaries, including Horace Greeley, the great newspaperman, and Edgar Allan Poe. Soon, however, they moved out and immigrants who worked in the nearby slaughterhouses moved in. By the 1920, another reversal had begun. Beekman Place was built in the 1920s to accommodate wealthy New Yorkers who wanted a water view. In the 1950s, with the building of the United Nations, the upscale character of the neighborhood was assured.

The copyright of the article NYC Neighborhoods: Turtle Bay in New York Travel is owned by Laura Harrison McBride. Permission to republish NYC Neighborhoods: Turtle Bay in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.