Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in Manhattan, New York City, stretching from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village in the south to West 143rd Street in Harlem in the north. It was widened in 1908 to accomodate traffic, and, after B. Altman and Company was founded in 1906, Fifth Avenue transformed into a high-end shipping district. It forms the border between the Upper East Side and Central Park and then runs through Harlem, and it terminates at the Harlem River. By the 21st century, it was one of the most expensive and elegant streets in the world.