Named after Fifth Avenue and 59th Street, at the south-east corner of Central Park.
Fifth Avenue grew out of the Middle Road drawn up by the surveyor Goerck, and it is the dividing line between East and West in Manhattan's cross streets. The three blocks of 59th Street bordering Central Park were renamed Central Park South in 1896. The station lies under Grand Army Plaza, named in 1923 and formally renamed in 1924; sources link it to the Grand Army of the Republic or to the Army of the Potomac.