A. A. Low Building 167-71 John Street Architect unknown 1850 Owned by the South Street Seaport Museum, this structure was built by traders who parked their China clipper ships across South Street. It was commissioned by the famous export firm of Abiel Abbot Low and Brother, illustrious merchants who amassed a fortune in trade between New York and China (A. A. Low was the father of Seth Low, whose career included serving as Mayor of Brooklyn, Mayor of New York City and President of Columbia University, among other things). This building, which was the firm’s home until well after the 19th century, is five stories high and eight bays wide. Many layers of stucco and paint were removed to uncover and restore the brownstone underneath. The cast-iron double storefront is notable because it was produced by Daniel D. Badger of the renowned Architectural Iron Works firm. As a whole, the building represents the success and importance of the company. The A. A. Low Building is located in the New York City and State and National Register of Historic Places South Street Seaport historic districts.

Cellar doors at 165 John Street, ca. 1975. The five-story building at no. 165 dates to 1811. It was constructed for George Codwise Jr., and was one of a row of six countinghouses. The buildings original tenants were flour merchants. Likely built in a Federal style, the building underwent a reconstruction in 1835. That alteration gave it a Greek Revival facade to match its newly built neighbors, both the new building (at 181 Front Street) and the redo of 165 John were undertaken by a commission merchant firm. Once only four stories it had a fifth story added at some point in the late 19th century. It still remains shorter than its larger neighbor at no. 181, which had a sixth story added in 1917. It it unclear if the cellar door that remains extant dates to the building's earliest years or its reconstruction.

20 Exchange Place, 1931. Built as the Wall Street headquarters of one of the country's largest financial institutions, the City Bank Farmers Trust Building (more commonly today known at 20 Exchange Place) was a striking addition to the lower Manhattan skyline when completed in 1931. The Cross & Cross-designed, 59-story structure was styled in the restrained modern style once known as “Modern Classic." The massing of the lower portion is broad and highly vertical in design, an overwhelming presence on the narrow streets it fronts. The ornamentation is minimal and rendered in a combination classical and subtle Art Deco styles. The original financial institution became a part of Citibank in 1976 and sold the building three years later. Today the building is a commercial office space with residential tenants occupying floors 16 through 57.

New York City is full of interesting eateries that have been around for decades, centuries, even! In this collection, we'll give you the inside scoop on where to grab a bite. Here's our guide to New York's historical restaurants.

Bogardus Building 15-19 Fulton Street Designed by Beyer Blinder Belle 1983 This reinvented, four-story, white-gray building honors James Bogardus, who was instrumental in the introduction of cast-iron construction in the United States. The Laing Stores (1848-49), also known as the Bogardus Building, was initially located at the northwest corner of Washington and Murray Streets, an intersection that no longer exists due to urban renewal projects in the 1960s. In 1967, the area was surveyed by the LPC to determine potential landmarks before the demolition of blocks in what is now Tribeca. The LPC recommended that the façade of the Bogardus Building, the city’s oldest cast-iron structure, be dismantled and salvaged for use on a new building at Manhattan Borough Community College (which would occupy part of the urban renewal site). In 1971, the parts were catalogued and stored, but in 1974, some of them were famously stolen and sold to a Bronx junkyard. The LPC then moved the remaining parts to a secret location in a city-owned building, but when architects went to retrieve them in 1977, they had again been stolen. This shocking sequence of events is an often-told story in New York City architecture and preservation lore. Despite the lack of a connection to the South Street Seaport, an homage to the Bogardus Building was designed by Beyer Blinder Belle as part of the historic reinterpretation and revitalization of the Seaport in the 1980s. The new Bogardus Building reinterprets the original façade with its curved corner, ground-level canopy, columns and cornice, but the ensemble was executed with a modern twist: its outer walls are made of aluminum rather than cast iron. The Bogardus Building is located in the New York City and State and National Register of Historic Places South Street Seaport historic districts.

Firemen on the third-floor fire escape at No. 82 Front Street, October 1923.

National City Bank Building Interior ARCHITECT: Isaiah Rogers DATE: 1836-41 STYLE: Roman The National City Bank’s president, James Stillman wanted an impressive banking hall as the symbol for his bank which was, at the time, the most important financial institution in the country. The bank interior was designed to suggest a classical Roman hall on a grand scale. The monumental Corinthian columns support an elegant entablature, the huge barrel vaults, and the tall, arched windows with the delicate balconies which traverse them. The elegant materials and fine details show the mastery that the architects achieved. Fine proportions and elegant details are combined here to form one of New York’s grandest interior spaces.

Sol Libsohn was a New York-born early documentary photographer whose large body of work chronicles, amongst others, the American oil industry, the life of the Ringling Brothers' and Barnum and Bailey circuses, and New York's working class. In addition to his work under the WPA, Libsohn co-founded the New York Photo League with Sid Grossman. This story showcases Libsohn's work in New York City.

1 Hanover Square, 1913. This Italianate Brownstone was thought to be built by Robert F. Carman in 1851-54 for the Hanover Bank. Carman, a developer and builder made his fortune rebuilding the "burnt district" that had witnessed a fire that ravaged the area in 1835. The exterior of the building has largely remained unchanged since its construction. The three-story masonry structure is decorated with windows that diminish in size and ornament at each successive level. At the top floor, windows are almost square in proportion, while on the ground floor they are large and tall, flanked by pilasters and topped by an arch. The entry to the building is in the center, though the building once had two stoops because it hosted multiple businesses. The Cotton Exchange assumed ownership in 1871 and, serving as its sole tenant, unified the building. In doing so, the Exchange added the clock above the entrance with the words "Cotton Exchange" on a scroll around it. The Cotton Exchange was the country's first bank dealing in commodity futures and the second in the world that operated this way. Following the departure of the Cotton Exchange, 1 Hanover Square had a series of tenants, including Tobacco Importers Maitland and Company, the Grace shipping company, and the Haitian Embassy. In 1914, "the India House" came to take over the building. Diplomat Willard Straight and industrialist James A. Farley conceived of it as a place where merchants and bankers could converge and discuss American commerce and trade. The name India House was chosen to evoke the exoticism of the faraway indies. They hired the architects Delano and Aldrich to convert the building to a club. Delano and Aldrich stripped the interior of much of its ornament, adding maritime accents to take its place. The India Club is still operational today, though its restaurant can be enjoyed by any member of the public, so long as they respect the dress code.

The powerfully sculpted form of this 57-story Art Deco tower is a result of the polygonal shape of the site, as well as the need to accommodate the headquarters of two different banks. The verticality of the tower’s shaft is accentuated by metal spandrel panels and the gray brick vertical piers. The colossal heads which survey the street from the parapet of the nineteenth-floor setback represent the giants of finance (seven scowling, seven smiling). The figures actually hide the exhaust pipes of the air circulation system. Elaborate street-level bronze grilles cover the lower parts of the windows of the banking halls. Each grille presents an allegory of a field of science or the arts. The entrance to the banking hall at the corner of Exchange Place and William Street is especially handsome. Inset panels of the doors and the cylindrical cover for the revolving-door depict modes of transport throughout history. Inside, the reception and the banking halls have the air of a 1930s movie set, employing vivid rich-hued marbles and elaborate mosaic to brilliant effect. The impressive domed rotunda and grand staircase once lead to the main banking hall and senior officers room.

New York City was the seat of government for only the brief period between March 1789 and July 1790. Still, there is a long history of presidential interactions in the city: from presidents growing up here, to dying and being buried here, and visiting the city for social, financial, and political activities.

Schermerhorn Row Bounded by Fulton, Front, John and South Streets Designed by William W. Berwick 1811 This row is named for Peter Schermerhorn, a prominent New York merchant and ship owner who commissioned the Georgian-Federal style buildings to serve as ware- and counting-houses. Originally, the façades were made of soft, hand-molded brick in Flemish bond, though parts of the row have been altered and expanded. While the show windows at ground level were added later, originally there were arched brownstone entries with side quoins. The upper stories feature Federal style double-hung windows with splayed stone lintels. Dormer windows on the Fulton Street side were later additions to the steeply pitched roofs, and chimneys and party walls were built tall in order to inhibit fire from spreading across rooftops. Schermerhorn Row was restored by Jan Hird Pokorny Associates in 1983 and again in 2001 by Beyer Blinder Belle, when its interior along Fulton Street was renovated extensively to internally link the buildings for the South Street Seaport Museum. Schermerhorn Row is has the great distinction of being a New York City Individual Landmark, listed on the State and National Register of Historic Places as well as being located in the South Street Seaport Historic District, and the State and National Register of Historic Places South Street Seaport Historic District.

Wall Street looking west, 1887. This early photograph taken by Norman Wurts (who, with his brother Lionel, started an architectural photography firm in 1894) depicts the intersection of Wall and William Streets. The building at right with the two large columns is the Bank of America Building. Trinity Church can been seen in the distance at center.

Located in lower Manhattan along the East River waterfront, the South Street Seaport provides a pivotal connection to New York City’s early days as a center of maritime industry. Indeed, the city’s settlement and growth were inextricably linked to its success, and this history remains embodied in the area’s low-scale, early 19th century commercial buildings, as well as its historic piers and streets, complete with historic Belgian blocks. The area around Peck Slip was for centuries a Native American trading destination; its proximity to Long Island and the presence of a cove made this a natural landing point for canoes, linking footpaths on either side of the East River. Settlers of New Amsterdam took advantage of this geography by establishing the colony’s first official ferry service in 1642, linking Brooklyn to what became Peck Slip. The marshy shoreline was once peppered with inlets that became docks and wharves for the shipping industry, and the ferry service allowed for the transportation of agricultural goods from Long Island, spurring the creation of one of the city’s first farmers’ markets. In 1647, the Englishman Isaac Allerton constructed a warehouse here, apparently to store Virginia tobacco being shipped to Europe. The banks of the cove were filled in and extended to ease loading and unloading from the ships’ sides. This marked the beginning of the landfilling process, which extended from Pearl Street to South Street, forming the foundation of the low-rise “Seaport” district. The locations of the slips are discernible today as extra wide streets right at the edge of Manhattan, like Peck Slip. Despite lagging behind Boston, Philadelphia and Charleston for much of the 18th century, by 1797, South Street Seaport was the nation’s leading port. Several factors contributed to its success, including the opening of a trade route between New York and Guangzhou, when the Empress of China embarked on its maiden voyage in 1784. Soon after the Revolutionary War, the British re-established trade with the United States, and determined New York to be the most ideal export location. These international voyages aided the city tremendously in becoming a global force in maritime commerce. The 1825 completion of the Erie Canal opened shipping routes between the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes, further cementing the city’s importance as a maritime trading center. The Seaport experienced a building boom at this time, and many of these structures still exist, providing today’s visitors with a clear reading of the area’s past as an early 19th century maritime neighborhood. Its range of buildings was largely designed in simplified forms of the Georgian, Federal, Greek Revival, Italianate and Romanesque Revival styles. Only a minority of early stores and warehouses were the work of professional architects, but by the late 19th century, architects including Stephen D. Hatch, Richard Morris Hunt and George B. Post, had designed buildings here. The second half of the 20th century brought much change to the Seaport, with efforts at urban renewal and its transformation into a tourist-friendly “festival marketplace”. In 1972, the South Street Seaport Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places (expanded in 1977). The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) designated the South Street Seaport Historic District in 1977, followed in 1989 with the designation of the South Street Seaport Historic District Extension. The buildings in these historic districts date from a period of roughly 200 years, and serve to tell a rich and complex story about New York City’s roots.

Robert L. Bracklow Stationary Store, 1916. This stationary and printing shop, specializing in legal wares, was owned by Robert L. Bracklow, a photographer. He sold prints of his photographs entitled "Glimpses through the Camera."

J. &. W. Seligman & Company Building ARCHITECT: Francis H. Kimball; Julian C. Levi DATE: 1906-07 STYLE: Neo-Renaissance, Baroque Revival, Skyscraper Seligman & Company Building is a steel-framed and rusticated limestone-clad skyscraper, and a is a richly sculptural, neo-Renaissance style building. The design, treated in a manner similar to that of the contemporary commercial and public architecture in Great Britain referred to as “Baroque Revival,” skillfully adapts the difficult quadrilateral shape of the lot and acute angle of the primary corner by providing a dramatic vertical focus, with a round tempietto-form tower, as the building is approached from Wall Street.

70 Pine Street ARCHITECT: Clinton & Russell; Holton & George DATE: 1930-32 STYLE: Skyscraper The Cities Service Building is a 66-story skyscraper that rises from a trapezoidal site bounded by Pine Street, Cedar Street, and Pearl Street. At the time of completion it was the tallest structure in lower Manhattan, and at 952 feet, the third tallest structure in the world. It was commissioned by a major American corporation and was an expression of the owner’s success. The Cities Service Company w quickly grew to become one of the largest corporations in the United States, controlling approximately 200 energy firms in thirty states, including numerous oil and power suppliers.

The Dutch origins of New York City are still visible in any number of places: neighborhood names, the city's flag, and its architecture. If you were to mention Dutch Colonial architecture to most New Yorkers, they might tell you about the centuries-old farmhouses that still dot the outer boroughs. But the Dutch-influenced architecture of the city did not end with gambrel-roofed, wood-frame homes, and it did not end at the colonial period. This list highlights some of the "other" type of Dutch Colonial architecture. The buildings noted here date from the actual colonial period in only a few cases but were largely constructed in the later as a Dutch Colonial Revival recalling New York's 17th century past.

Firemen on the third-floor fire escape at No. 82 Front Street, October 1923.

Over the centuries, the coast of Lower Manhattan has been reshaped by tides, fires, demolition, development, and various colors of gentrification, from Castle Clinton to the Seaport. This glass plate negative shows a Manhattan side of a small trapezoidal square once a berth for sailing vessels, named old Coenties Slip. The slip was filled with land in 1835 to become a street. Coenties Slip was named for Conraet Ten Eyck and his wife, Antje, a moneyed Dutch couple who lived in the area in the 1600s.

Coenties Slip, Shack of the caretaker for Pier 5, May 3, 1938. Coenties Slip, in the18th century was an artificial inlet in the East River. The inlet was filled in in 1835 and became a short street (only two blocks). Pier 5 was one of the city piers at the end of the Slip on the waterfront. In 2006 the section of Coenties Slip closed to the waterfront, previously a traffic island, was converted into a small park with a bluestone sitting area with benches, plantings, and a formal central plaza.

Downtown Skyport, August 12, 1936. The Downtown Skyport was a water landing airport on the East River between Piers 11 and 12. The municipal facility was largely used by wealthy businessmen who lived on Long Island and commuted to their jobs on Wall Street via private seaplanes. The facility also was used for docking private speedboats for the same Long Island to Manhattan commute. In 1937 there were 1,068 plane landings at this skyport. Other skyports, used for similar functions, were opened at 31st Street and the East River and at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn during the 1930s.

120 Wall Street embodies a more utilitarian approach to high- rise architecture than the Art Deco extravaganzas of the central financial district with its simple pyramid-like massing. The marble, limestone and white brick of 120 Wall Street is left unadorned, with the gold metallic grille directly above the main entrance as the one dramatic exception to this simple decorative program. This architectural restraint can in part be ascribed to 120 Wall Street’s location at the eastern fringe of the financial district. Wall Street east of Pearl Street was heavily populated with coffee, tea, and sugar importers, which were situated between the ships and docks to the east and the financiers to the west. 120 Wall Street’s original anchor tenant was the American Sugar Refining Company.

Fraunces Tavern, ca. 1905. The Fraunces Tavern, built in 1719 as a mansion for the family of Stephen De Lancey, was opened as the Queen’s Head Tavern in 1762. A meeting place for Loyalists during the British occupation of New York, it was the site of Governor DeWitt Clinton’s Evacuation Day celebrations in 1783, when remaining British troops departed New York. Shortly thereafter, the Fraunces Tavern — named for its owner and proprietor, Samuel Fraunces, who may have been a spy for the Continental Army during the British occupation — hosted General George Washington’s farewell meeting with his officers. During the 19th century, Fraunces Tavern suffered a series of fires, with subsequent reconstructions, including the addition of two upper stories, substantially altering the building’s appearance. In 1900, the tavern was under the threat of demolition before being temporarily designated a “park” by the State of New York, an ad hoc ruling in an era with scant historic preservation protections. The designation was lifted in 1904 when the Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York purchased the building and undertook a conjectural reconstruction project that shaped the Fraunces Tavern you see today (there is no definitive record of the tavern’s original appearance; the 1904-07 reconstruction took cues from the surviving structure and extant period buildings). In 1975, it was the site of the Fraunces Tavern bombing, when an extremist Puerto Rican separatist group set off an explosive device, killing four and injuring 50.

Water Street, South from Fulton Street; January 15, 1928. The barber's pole is outside a storefront barbershop in the United States Arcade Building, a 1898 commercial building occupying a site on the south side of Fulton Street, between Water and Pearl Streets. In 1961, U.S. Arcade was sold and razed to developers Meyer Bros., who put up a parking lot. Later, the site would become part of the full-block footprint of 127 John Street (a.k.a. 200 Water Street), an International Style high-rise designed by Emery Roth & Sons and completed in 1971.

20 Exchange Place, entrance with transportation motif, ca. 1994.

In 1711, New York's first slave market opened in downtown Manhattan. Introduced by the Dutch, Slavery had become an active part of New York's life. Brooklyn and Long Island numbered among the Northern regions with the largest captive populations. An estimated 40% of New York households contained an enslaved person. From farming to carpentry to blacksmithing, blacks worked a number of trades and were a vital source of labor. Situated next to the piers on the East River where the ships were moored, captives would be unloaded from the hellish conditions on the ships and sold. Previously, enslaved people had been sold informally, but a city 1711 ordinance established that they should be sold through this market. Though many of the people sold at the New York Slave Market were black, the market also sold Native Americans into slavery. In 1726, the market was renamed the Meal market due to the fact that grain, corn, and meal were also sold exclusively at the market. By the mid-18th Century, one in five New Yorkers was enslaved. Meanwhile, New York began to grow into the financial and trade center of the colonies. Blocks away from where men, women, and children were sold, their labor, bodies, and futures were financed and insured. The meal market itself would be closed in 1762, but that didn't mark the end of the slave trade throughout the city. Men, women, and children would continue to be sold. The abolition of slavery in New York in 1827 didn't even mark the end as non-resident Slave owners could maintain enslaved people until 1841. The city would continue to be interlinked with the South. Mayor Fernando would even suggest succeeding in 1861 in order to maintain the profitable cotton trade with the Confederacy.

Berenice Abbott's photo of the "Mary P. Mosquita", a trawling vessel, at Pier 17. November 26, 1935. In the background, the chimney of the New York Steam Corporation at 130 John Street is visible, as well as the tallest buildings of the Financial District (from left to right): Farmers Trust, 60 Wall Tower, Bank of Manhattan, 116 John Street, and 111 John Street.

New York Cotton Exchange Building, 1923. Completed in 1923, the Cotton Exchange Building was a new kind of commodities facility. Architect Donn Barber placed the trading floor at the top of the building, instead of on the ground floor, as was most common. The trading floor sat under a large skylight, surrounded on all sides by three-story windows. This building was the first major building in the Financial District to undergo residential conversion. It has been a co-op since 1985.

“Hanover Street, south from Wall Street to Exchange Place, showing (right), a portion of the National City Bank building and (left), a portion of the new Wall and Hanover building. Also shown (under demolition) is the Canadian Bank of Commerce building, at the N.W. corner of Exchange Place and Hanover Street. At the top foreground of the view, is visible part of a foot bridge, connecting the National City Bank with the Wall and Hanover buildings. September 12, 1929.” - P.L. Sperr The National City Bank building at 55 Wall Street had been the Merchants’ Exchange and a U.S. Customs House during the 19th century. Between 1899-1908, architect Charles McKim led the building’s redevelopment as the headquarters of the National City Bank (known as Citibank since 1976). During renovations, workers discovered a cannonball, gunpowder and various makeshift munitions, likely a stockpile leftover from the Draft Riots of 1863. Sperr’s series of Wall Street photographs were taken in September 1929, just one month before the calamitous stock market crash that sent financial markets into crisis.

The Enduring Issues Practice set is designed to help students analyze documents for Enduring Issues to help prepare them for the NYS Regents Exam. Use the attached handout to answer the questions following each document. At the end, determine what the one Enduring Issue is and create a topic sentence that is supported by evidence from at least 3 images. Enduring Issues Practice Set 1 Handout

Several buildings in the South Street Seaport District are considered to be some of the oldest standing structures in Manhattan. From taverns to warehouses, built by the most famous American architects of the 19th century, the buildings of the Seaport have big stories to tell. Take a walk with us and discover the origins of New York's greatness.

Strand Book Store, South Street Seaport, ca. 1991.

This high-rise was erected as a headquarters for the venerable Bank of New York, which had occupied the same site on the northeast corner of Wall and William Streets since 1797. The famously conservative institution chose society architect Benjamin Wistar Morris to design a headquarters that would reflect the bank’s eighteenth-century origins. The building’s exterior is decorated in a Colonial Revival style. Windows set nearly flush with the wall and lightly incised quoins give the limestone an apparent thinness. Morris used a similar design for 25 Broadway. The tower telescopes to a slender spire crowned with a federal eagle. A marble plaque on the ground story relates back to the building of the bank’s first headquarters on this site. Note also the railings for the subway entrance at the corner, which incorporate complementary Colonial Revival motifs. The main banking hall, on the second floor, is reached via an elliptical, cantilevered, marble staircase. With its three enormous brass chandeliers and checkered marble floor, the banking hall feels as much like a ballroom as a Wall Street bank. Murals decorating the northern wall depict the bank’s founders. The five murals on the eastern wall represent facets of the bank’s business: Foreign Trade; Agriculture and Mining; National Credit; Transportation; Steel and Electricity. They were painted by J. Monroe Hewlett in 1929. The Bank of New York left its home of two centuries in 1997 and moved to One Wall Street, which it acquired in a merger with Irving Trust

Fulton Fish Market, ca. 1935. The origins of the market that would become the well-known Fulton Fish Market date to 1807, when the market opened on land that was donated to the city. In 1822 a new market building was constructed and opened on South Street between Fulton and Beekman Streets, selling fish and other goods. In its first decades the market largely sold to individual retail shoppers. After 1850 the enterprise become a majority wholesale market. In 1924, 25% of all seafood sold in the United States passed through the Fulton Fish Market. The market occupied two open-air structures, including the 1907 Tin Building. In 1936 the original 19th century market building slid into the river after its pilings failed. Mayor LaGuardia advocated for and opened the "New Building" in 1939. Still the largest consortium of seafood wholesalers in the country, the Fulton Fish Market left its lower Manhattan home of 180 years in 2005 when it was relocated to the Bronx.

This historic masonry, cast iron, and timber-framed landmarked building, located at 167-171 John Street, was built in 1850 for the A.A. Low & Brothers, a famous export firm until well past the end of the 19th century. Founded by Abiel Abbot Low (1811-1893), the company was New York’s most successful firm in the China trade importing cinnamon, pepper, silks, porcelain, firecrackers, and tea. A.A. Low & Brothers occupied the building well into the 20th century, and as a whole, the building represents the success and importance of the original builder.

Cotton Exchange Building, ca. 1890. The Cotton Exchange is the oldest commodities exchange in the city, dating to 1870 when it was founded by 100 cotton brokers and merchants. Chartered in 1871 by the State of New York, the Cotton Exchange was first located at 1 Hanover Square (which later became India House). In 1885 they moved into this George B. Post-designed building at the corner of Beaver and William Streets (60 Beaver or 3 Hanover Square). This 19th century structure with a broad rounded corner and cone-shaped roof was replaced in 1923 by new Cotton Exchange Building designed by Donn Barber.

"Backed by popular support, the City devised a plan to build a new market at the Fulton Ferry landing, on the block bounded by Fulton, Beekman, South, and Front Streets. This block had already been developed, and its lots and buildings were all privately owned; to take the property, the City would need permission from the State Legislature, which had the sole authority to grant the use of Eminent Domain. The Common Council submitted its request in January of 1816, and in March of that same year the Thirty-Ninth session of the Legislature passed a Law allowing the City the right to condemn and take the properties — with fair-market compensation to each owner — for the purpose 'of erecting thereon an extensive and commodious public market.' … It opened its doors as Fulton Market on January 22, 1822. It went on to become New York City’s premier destination market for several generations, then gradually transformed into the Fulton Fish Market — one of the largest and most renowned wholesale markets in the world, which remained at the Seaport until 2005 until its move to the Bronx. It continues generating business and employment for the city after 186 years of active trade." For more on Fulton Market, check out this article by Robert LaValva in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History.

Firemen on the third-floor fire escape at No. 82 Front Street, October 1923.

National City Bank Building, 1931.

The private bank, Brown Brothers, Harriman & Company was the anchor tenant in the office tower developed and built by Starrett Brothers - who were also the contractors for 40 Wall Street and the Empire State Building. Brown Brothers have a distinctive private entrance at the corner of Wall and Hanover. Like the nearby Bank of New York building at 48 Wall Street, this entrance rotunda has a delicacy and domestic scale more typical of eighteenth-century Wall Street than of the 1920s. The form steps back from its squarish base into an irregular octagonal tower ornamented with gargoyles and ocular windows.

1 Hanover Square, sometimes called India House, can be called one of the survivors of downtown Manhattan. Throughout its long history, many institutions have called it home from bankers to lunch clubs.

Delmonico's ARCHITECT: James Brown Lord DATE: 1890-91 STYLE: Renaissance Revival This striking Renaissance Revival building is one of the finest surviving late-nineteenth-century buildings in Manhattan’s financial district. It is the only surviving building associated with the world-famous Delmonico’s Restaurant. Delmonico’s, founded in 1827 by brothers John and Peter Delmonico, was one of the first restaurants in the United States to specialize in fine Continental cuisine.

The restored Fraunces Tavern design required the removal to two upper stories added during the 19th century and the controversial addition of a hipped roof, based in part on the Philipse Manor House in Yonkers. At right is the Bush Terminal Buildings Company headquarters, a five-story Dutch and English Gothic structure built in 1905. This was the business management office for the Bush Terminal, an intermodal shipping, manufacturing, and storage complex on Brooklyn’s waterfront in Sunset Park, today known as Industry City.

City Bank-Farmers Trust Building ARCHITECT: Corss & Cross DATE: 1930-31 STYLE: Skyscraper, Modern Classic The City Bank-Farmers Trust Company Building, fifty-nine stories high, is one of New York City’s tallest skyscrapers. It was built to house what was at the time New York’s largest financial institution, formed by the merger of the National City Bank of New York and the Farmers Loan and Trust Company. Its steel-framed structure sheathed in granite at the entrances and in limestone above became, on completion, the tallest stone-clad building in the world. It was designed in a conservative “Modern Classic” style.

Delmonico's, 1929. What became the premiere restaurant in the nation by 1890, began in a very humble manner. When brothers John and Peter Delmonico opened their first eatery in New York City in 1827, the wealthy of New York society dined at home, while public restaurants catered to the working classes. When the first Delmonico's opened at 23 William Street, the cafe menu included fine wines, cakes, and European style delicacies. This fancy menu was only expanded when the full service, fine dining restaurant was opened next door a few years later. And despite the classist perceptions of dining out, the elite of the city began to patronize the venue. The first Delmonico's at 56 Beaver Street (or 2 South Williams Street) was constructed for the eatery in 1837 following the destruction of its original home in the Great Fire of 1835. It was informally given the name "The Citadel." A great success, by 1890 the restaurant was world renown (with multiple NYC locations) and the proprietors, descendants of the founders, wanted a larger space. They demolished the four-story triangular building and commissioned James Brown Lord to construct an eight-story Renaissance Revival edifice. It was here that lavish dinner parties were thrown by wealthy New Yorkers for birthdays, weddings, and other celebrations. Family discord and issues over finances caused the final two Delmonico's to be closed (this location in 1917) and sold (Fifth Avenue and 44th Street, sold away from the family in 1919 and closed 1923). The restaurant has been revived a number of times in this location under different management, including its current incarnation, open since 1998.

32 and 32 1/2 Stone Street, 1938. According to the metadata attached to this 1938 photograph (i.e. the photographer's notes), the Dutch-style building midframe dates to the early 19th century (and perhaps earlier). Here the building is occupied by the American Banker, a banking magazine. The photographer notes that the building managed to survive the Great Fire of 1835, which covered 17 city blocks and destroyed about 700 buildings. While it is certainly possible that this building dates to the colonial period, given that Stone Street was one of the oldest streets in the city, it is also possible that the photographer or the sources he consulted were incorrect and the building dated to post 1835. A mention of the structure next door in a 1954 New York Times article dates that extra narrow building's origins to the early 19th century, which strengthens the argument for this pair's colonial roots. The building just left of no. 32 was no. 32 1/2, which is reported in the same article as being only six feet, five inches wide. This section of Stone Street was demapped in the 1980s with the construction of the large office building at 85 Broad Street. (The original path of the street—the first paved road in the city— is marked by special paving through 85 Broad Street's lobby).

Willa Cather and others at the party for Mark Twain's 70th birthday. Cather is the second woman from the left, seated at the back of the table.

“Coenties Slip, east from but not including Pearl, to and including South Streets, showing the South Ferry division of the Second and Third Aves. Elevated Line winding its course from Pearl (left foreground) down Front Street (right center) to the Battery. Also seen is Jeanette Park, a quadrilaterally shaped area which divides Coenties Slip in two parts. Coenties Slip is shaped in the form of an isosceles triangle, with Pearl Street as its vertex and South Street as its base. In the background appears the East River and the Brooklyn shore, across it. Pier 7 is visible on the left. About 1885.” South Ferry Station was the southern terminus of the combined Second and Third Avenue Elevated lines between 1878 and 1950. The station was reached by a winding section of track from Hanover Square along Pearl Street, turning left at Coenties Slip, then right at Front Street, onward to Whitehall Street and the South Ferry.

Look at any view of New York’s waterfront before the mid-20th century and you’re likely to see a barge. Barges linked Manhattan and Long Island with the rest of the country’s rail network, which had no direct freight link across the lower Hudson or the harbor. Even today, freight trains must take a 300-mile detour across a bridge at Selkirk, near Albany, to get from Brooklyn to New Jersey. Instead, 2-3 times every weekday, freight cars roll-aboard barges called car floats (built for the Pennsylvania Railroad) to cross the harbor between Owls Head, Brooklyn, and Greenville, Jersey City, just as they have for more than 150 years. In addition to barges carrying entire train cars, this lighterage system had a whole set of barge cognates for rail cars. Every railroad that served New York had its own fleet. Written by Stefan D-W, Associate Archivist, the Seamen’s Church Institute & Museum Assistant, the Waterfront Museum.

India House ca. 1975 This magnificent building was one of the first to be erected on Hanover Square after the disastrous fire of 1835. It was probably built by Richard F. Carman, who was listed in city directories as a carpenter and who reputedly amassed a fortune rebuilding the "burnt district" in 1836. He later had a country seat at Fort Washington and developed Carmanville. India House seems to have been built as an office block, being occupied subsequently by the Hanover Bank and the New York Cotton Exchange. It later became a private club that housed a maritime museum.

127 John Street, 1971. Designed by Emery Roth & Sons, 127 John Street fills the full block from Fulton to John Street and Pearl to Water Street. The architects employed the corporate modernist style they were well known for in this period. The building was rendered in a straightforward and somewhat simple International style. The building's developers, though, hired an innovative designer named Rudolph de Harak for the graphic components. In fabricating the building's address on the facade, de Harak used four-inch diameter, pin-mounted silver balls in the typeface Microgramma. Microgramma was created in 1952 by Aldo Novarese and Alessandro Butti and was popular for use in technical illustrations, packaging, and science fiction films. The oversized addresses no longer grace the facade of 127 John Street; the 32-story office building was converted to residential use (an NYU dorm) in the late 1990s and was renamed 200 Water Street. ⠀ One of de Harak's other major design features does still remain on the site, though. No. 127 was constructed hugging a pair of low-rise 19th century brick buildings that stood on the northeast corner of John and Water Streets. Here on the Water Street facade of the old corner building the designer constructed a massive digital clock, 48 feet long and 24 feet high. Using Helvetica Medium for the numerals, the clock illuminates the hour, minute, and second. Current reports suggest that the clock no longer keeps accurate time. ⠀

Fraunces Tavern, between 1890 and the restoration project that began in 1904.

Seamen's Church Institute, 1925. The Seamen's Church Institute was founded in 1834 by group of Episcopal men. Their original "building," constructed in 1844, was the Floating Church of Our Savior, a boat docked at Pike Street. This facility served to community of sailors that entered the city for some temporary amount of time from the seafaring life. The institute went through at least one other floating church and one other onshore structure before constructing their own 12-story building at 25 South Street in 1913. The building could house nearly 600 people and became a popular dormitory space for sailors and seamen. In the wake of the Titanic disaster, survivor, socialite, and philanthropist Molly Brown insisted on a memorial for the victims. Installed at the top of the new Seamen's Church Institute building in 1913, the 60-foot-tall (including the large spire) lighthouse was a memorial for the victims. For decades a ball was lowered at noon as a commemoration and for ships anchored in the harbor to set their clock by. In 1968 the Institute moved to a new building and 25 South Street was razed. The lighthouse was moved and reinstalled as part of the campus of the South Street Seaport Museum in 1976.

The New York City Unit of the WPA Federal Writers’ Project provided meaningful employment for more than 300 writers, journalists, editors and photographers during the Great Depression. Although the collection includes research materials and draft manuscripts for 64 books, only a handful were published, notably the New York City Guide, and New York Panorama. This week we are posting an article about the Fulton Fish Market from one of the unpublished manuscripts – Feeding the City. As is typical of many FWP manuscripts, the name of the author is not clear (it may have been “McLellan”), but it is dated: October 1940. The original format of this story can be found with other excellent blogs: here.

"Looking across South Street and down the narrow DePeyster Street. At the left, 70 South Street is the Marine, Firemen, Oilers and Watertenders Union headquarters and at 71-72 South Street (right) is a tobacco warehouse. 60 Wall Tower and the Bank of Manhattan Building rise in the distance, November 26, 1935."

Schermerhorn Row is a collection of individually New York City Landmark buildings, located within the National Register-listed South Street Seaport Historic District, and home of the South Street Seaport Museum. It is one of the most significant examples of early 19th century commercial architecture in New York State.

82-78 Beaver Street, adjoining and east of the S. E. corner of Hanover Street. At the left is an excavation that extends to Pearl Street, tho the latter is not shown. July 6, 1903.

View from Pier 11, March 26, 1936. "View of the contrast of 19th century dockside buildings and 20th century skyscrapers taken from Pier 11 on the East River, between Old Slip and Wall Street. The four tallest buildings are (from left to right): The Farmers Trust Building, the Bank of Manhattan, 60 Wall Tower, and 120 Wall Street."

Metal Exchange Building ca. 1910 Today we see only the stuccoed remains of this small masterpiece. Built as the Seventh Ward Bank, it later became the Metal Exchange, housing the Lion Brewery in its basement. This building with its delicate Corinthian pilasters is a fine late example of the Classic Revival in Manhattan, as it comes closer to Roman precedent than it does to Greek.

First National City Bank. When the great fire of 1835 ravaged a larger part of lower Manhattan, Town and Davis' beautiful Merchants' Exchange on Wall Street was completely gutted. The merchants resolved to rebuild it on a grander scale in fireproof construction. The great Ionic colonnade above the granite base is original. After several years it was occupied by the United States Government Customs House. It was remodeled as we see it today, with its upper floor added, by McKim, Mead & White for the National City Bank.

View west along South Street across Broad Street, October 18, 1914.

Tin Building Pier 17 at South Street between Fulton and Beekman Streets Berlin Construction Co., 1907; reconstruction: Wank Adams Slavin Associates 1995; reconstruction: SHoP Architects, 2016- The Tin Building site hosted the Fulton Fish Market from its inception in 1835, originally housed in a small wooden shed, which was rebuilt in 1848. In 1869, the Fulton Fishmongers Association constructed a more permanent building, though still made of wood. That structure was moved to Pier 18 in 1894 (since demolished), and the Tin Building was constructed on the site in 1907. Modeled after the 1869 building, the neo-Classical design of the structure consists of a corrugated metal façade with decorative two-story sheet metal pilasters. The building was largely destroyed by fire in 1995, but was reconstructed by Wank Adams Slavin Associates. In 2005, the Fulton Fish Market, which occupied both the Tin Building and the New Market Building, moved to Hunts Point in The Bronx, where it continues to operate today. In 2016, the Tin Building will be rehabilitated into a seafood-themed market. HHC plans to relocate and reconstruct the building about 18 feet southeast of its current location as part of its Pier 17 revitalization. SHoP Architects plans to restore historic features that disappeared in the 1995 fire and repair damage sustained during Superstorm Sandy in 2012. The Tin Building is located in the New York City and State and National Register of Historic Places South Street Seaport historic districts.

A stately survivor from the mid-nineteenth century, 55 Wall Street was the second Merchant’s Exchange on this site. Architect Isaiah Rogers designed a three-story structure that made a monumental statement on Wall Street with a colonnade of colossal ionic columns. The building served as an exchange for buying and selling commodities, and for the offices of many prominent shippers, merchants, auctioneers, and brokers. The interior was originally divided into a warren of offices and large meeting rooms. It also served as the meeting place of the precursor to the New York Stock Exchange. In 1907, McKim Mead & White adapted the Exchange for use as a headquarters for the National City Bank, then the nation’s largest. To meet the needs of a modern bank, an additional four stories were added, masked by a second colonnade executed in the same granite as Roger’s original. The interior of Roger’s Merchant’s Exchange was opened up to form an impressive three-story banking hall. McKim’s addition was a sympathetic reconfiguring of this structure of great historical and architectural significance. In the late 1990’s the Merchants Exchange was again adapted to suit the needs of a new use when it was converted into a hotel, dining, and events complex. McKim’s imperial-scaled banking hall is now the backdrop for some of the city’s most exclusive parties and fundraisers.

Harry Houdini on the edge of the pier, 1912. The New York Times headline on July 8, 1912, read: "Thrown Overboard Manacled in a Box." The day before the "Handcuff King" (who unsurprisingly had a theatre performance that week uptown) staged a stunt off of Pier 6 at Coenties Slip. Well announced, newspapermen, photographers, newsies, and film operators crowded the pier to the point of near suffocation. Houdini, his box, locking equipment, and assistants (and a group of reporters and photographers) were ferried out to the middle of the bay on a tug boat. There he was put into leg irons and handcuffs and stuffed into the pine box the size of an office desk. He was submerged and in no more than a minute reappeared at the surface. The crowds on the pier and from the Staten Island Ferry cheered and nearby tugs tooted in appreciation. The box, which had been nailed and bound by ropes and steel bands also resurfaced looking just as it had when it entered the water, still sealed tight.

From its earliest days, New York has been a city in a hurry. But luckily, from hot dog carts to taco trucks, there have always been places to grab a bite on the go. This week we combed our archives for photos and history of street food in New York.

"Manhattan’s major waterfront area in the late nineteenth century was located in the Fourth Ward, a district that formed an apron around the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge. In 1885, the Fourth Ward contained 30 acres of tenements that housed around 17,000 people. The area had been awash with cheap groceries, rat pits, and stale beer dives for years, and due to the growing population of transient sailors, prostitute traffic thickened exponentially; at this time in New York history, the Fourth Ward was, as historian Timothy Gilfoyle describes it, 'the most significant and the poorest waterfront zone of prostitution.' But the waterfront was also the centerpiece of an international trade city, signifying plurality and opacity. Significantly, the district appealed to no one ethnicity, class, race, or gender. Ethnically cohesive neighborhoods, or 'ghettoes,' would only emerge when jobs and industries became associated with specific ethnic groups–garments for the Jewish, cigars for the Bohemians, etc. But through the 1870s and ’80s, the East Side waterfront region of New York, though perhaps mainly Irish, was still composed of workers and unemployed groups that largely allied themselves with trade and the lifestyle of the wharves rather than with any particular language, religion, or national origin." For more on the Fourth Ward Waterfront, check out this article by Robert M. Dowling in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History.

Cities Services, a petroleum company, erected this tower to house its corporate headquarters as well as rental floors. The company’s founder and chairman, Henry L. Doherty, an eccentric engineer and inventor supervised the design of the tower and intended to live in the penthouse, although poor health prevented him from ever doing so. The skyscraper was originally known as 60 Wall Street, a more prestigious address that was justified by the tower’s connection by a footbridge to a building with that address, now demolished. The 63 story tower rises as a slender shaft that is articulated with a series of shallow receding planes and at the top steps back to crest in a glass observatory which is illuminated at night. The brick cladding lightens from a browny-beige to a creamy-tan as the tower ascends. The base of the building is clad in a luxurious polished pink and black Minnesota granite.