New York County Court House (later New York State Supreme Court), 1927.

While Fred E. French's development Tudor City flourished, the perils of private-sector redevelopment emerged at French’s next major project, Knickerbocker Village, located on the Lower East Side near the Manhattan Bridge. When his plans, which included the demolition of the infamous “Lung Block,” faltered in the Depression economy, he was left holding 14.5 acres of tenement property, optioned at about $14 psf. In 1933, French went hat-in-hand to the federal government’s Reconstruction Finance Corporation to beg for millions to realize his dream. Federal officials provided only enough for part of the project: two massive perimeter blocks that, at 12 stories, rose high above the surrounding tenements, yet covered just about half the land. The project achieved a density of 800 people per acre. NYCHA’s first Chair, Langdon Post, called Knickerbocker Village “new types of slums,” but the tenants disagreed after repairs were made to the hastily-built buildings.

In 1763 Henry Culyer, scion of a wealthy Dutch family involved in the sugar trade, built a massive six-story, brick sugar house at the corner of what was Prince Street (later Rose and William Street) and Duane Street. The building was impressive for colonial New York, standing six-stories tall. It was used for both refining sugar and the storage of sugar and molasses. The Culyer family remained Loyalists during the Revolution and as a result, lost their property (including this sugar house) when the Act of Forfeiture was passed. Sold at auction, the building was purchased by William Rhinelander, another son of an old New York family made rich by sugar. Improbably surviving the Great Fire of 1845 and the general destruction of much of the city's colonial architecture, the sugar house was still standing in the second half of the 19th century. Once the tallest building in the area, by the 1890s, when it caught the attention of photographer Robert Brackow, it was dwarfed by taller structures and was obviously suffering from neglect. The building was finally razed in 1892 and replaced by a new Rhinelander Building. Fun fact! Not all of the 1763 building was lost! Urban legend/local lore in the 19th century suggested that this sugar house was used as a prison during the Revolutionary War. It was not, but the Livingston Sugar House on Liberty Street was used as a prison. Regardless of the provable facts, stories persisted. When the building was demolished two windows were saved. One was donated to the National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of New York and placed near the Van Cortlandt mansion in the Bronx. The other window was installed at the new Rhinelander Building and when that building was razed in 1968 and the street demapped for the Civic Center redeveopment, it was placed within the Brutalist structure of One Police Plaza (where it can still be seen today.)

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.

48 Henry Street, July 1967.

New York can sometimes seem so immense that it would make sense that some of the world's largest animals would have roamed its streets.

Manhattan Municipal Building, ca. 1980. By the late 19th century, and especially following the consolidation of New York City's five boroughs in 1898, existing office space was unable to meet the demands of new and swelling civic agencies. In 1907 a proposal by architect William M. Kendall of McKim, Mead & White was selected; the Municipal Building became the storied firm's first steel-frame skyscraper. The design incorporated numerous Classical references, most notably its entrance arch and Gustavino tile south arcade. "Civic Fame," a sculpture by Adolph Alexander Weinman, sits atop the Classical tempietto.

The fact that this interior and its building were design by a French and an American architect is an early reflection of the cosmopolitanism of New York. The building combines French elements with the Federal style. Building progress of this edifice was slow, primarily due to financial problems, but also owing to workers’ disputes and a yellow fever epidemic. By 1807 the building had only reached the second story window sill level. The City Hall Rotunda shares a sense of elegant spaciousness and even certain details, such as the single first flight of stairs with curved hand railing. The entrance hall, from which one first glimpse the Rotunda, is entered through five handsome arched doorways corresponding to the archways leading into the vaulted central corridor which laterally bisects the building.

Statue of Nathan Hale, the Revolutionary War spy, in City Hall Park, in front of the Woolworth Building, ca. 1980.

New York Tribune Building, ca. 1960. Constructed in 1875 to the designs of Richard Morris Hunt, the New York Tribune Building was the tallest office building in the city when completed and the second tallest structure in the entire city. (The spire at nearby Trinity Church was just slightly taller than the Tribune Building's 260 feet.) The building was 10 stories tall and rendered in striking red and black brick and light-colored stone in the neo-Grec style. It was not particularly well received by critics, being derided for what one writer noted as expressing "the weariness, the fever and fret of modern life." The first tall building on Park Row, it would be joined by a number of other newspaper neighbors by the turn of the century (including the 1889 New York Times seen at right here). The New York Tribune moved out of the building by 1920 and the last of the newspaper vacated the street by the mid century. Despite surviving into the era of the Landmarks Law (enacted in 1965), the building was demolished with little to no notice in 1966 for the expansion of the Pace University campus.

"When Joseph Pulitzer purchased the New York World in May, 1883, a typical front page consisted of a half-dozen columns of densely packed type, unrelieved by illustrations or eye-catching headlines... All that changed the moment Joseph Pulitzer got hold of it. An immigrant himself, Pulitzer saw himself as a champion of the weak and oppressed. The World, as he conceived it, would be a paper 'dedicated to the cause of the people rather than to that of the purse potentates.' …His method of achieving these lofty aims was to appeal to his reader’s lowest instincts. After all, he reasoned, the best a publisher could do was to 'go for a million circulation, and when you have got it, turn the minds and the votes of your readers one way or the other at critical moments.' And the most effective way to reach that million circulation was by printing the kind of wildly sensationalistic stories that ordinary people have always gobbled up... By March, 1885, the World had a daily circulation of more than 150,000 copies – an astonishing tenfold increase in less than two years. That figure would double again before the end of the decade. The age of 'yellow journalism' had arrived." For more on the World building and Joseph Pulitzer, check out this excerpt from Harold Schechter's The Devil's Gentleman in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History.

Spanning from the turn of the 20th Century to the 1920s, the Progressive Era left a lasting impact on the United States and New York City. During these years the nation experienced an increase in reforms meant to alleviate the suffering of the working classes. In order to accomplish this goal, Progressives believed the government needed to accept greater responsibility for its citizens' well-being. The Progressive ideals of greater government involvement and regulation was a reaction against the policies of the Gilded Age. During this period in American history, wealthy business owners and corporations accrued vast fortunes, often at the expense of working class people. Many believed something had to be done. Following the Civil War, The Gilded Age contributed to the rapid urbanization and industrialization of the United States. While both of these processes created enormous wealth for some, it also worsened the plight of many people. Urbanization and industrialization transformed both the physical landscape and the experiences and expectations of Americans. During the Progressive Era, many municipal services, like the police and fire departments, were established or expanded. School reform and increased access to sanitary living conditions improve the lives of poorer Americans. To many, the Progressive Era provided a much needed antidote to the societal ills of Gilded Age urbanization and industrialization. New York Social Studies Scope and Sequence Standards: 8.2e & 11.5. For Teachers: The Progressive Era in New York Lesson Plan

Statue of Benjamin Franklin at Printing House Square, ca. 1975. Ernst Plassman's monument to Franklin, himself a prolific publisher, marks the epicenter of New York's bygone newspaper industry.

Henry Street, south side between Oliver and Catherine Street, Manhattan, showing P.S. #1, 1920. One of four public schools in New York City that have used the name“P.S. 1”, the C.B.J. Snyder designed school was completed in 1897. When opened it served the largely Italian immigrant neighborhood. Subsequent immigration waves included Polish and Russian Jews during and after World War I and later Puerto Ricans and Chinese students. It is believed that this school had the very first rooftop playground. Famous alum include singers Luther Vandross and Eddie Cantor, as well as actors Jimmy Durante and Robert Loggia. Fun fact: This school's origins date to the New York Free School 1, founded in 1809, which predates even the city's Board of Education, set up in 1842.

Sai Wing Mock, or "Mock Duck," was the leader of the Hip Sing Tong, one of the "tongs," or controlling agencies in New York's Chinatown. Tongs were essential in preserving the culture, political agency, and independence of Chinese Americans in the early 20th century. Mock, who would rise to become one of the most notorious figures in the Chinatown crime scene, was born in San Francisco in 1878 to Cantonese immigrants. At 18 years old, he relocated to New York, going by the name "Mock Duck" until the late 1910s, when a Newark newspaper mistakenly reported his death. Taking advantage of the error, Mock reverted to his given name, Sai Wing, which afforded him some privacy after years in the spotlight. This story tells of the life of Sai Wing Mock "Duck."

Oak and New Chambers Streets, decorated for St. Vincent’s festival, October 27, 1935. Buildings along both streets were razed between 1950 and 1953, ahead of the construction of the Alfred E. Smith Houses. The Municipal Building is visible in the background, as are the elevated tracks of the combined Second and Third Avenue Lines.

100 Gold Street, ca. 1921. When completed in 1920, the Hide and Leather building had the distinction of being the tallest concrete building in the world. Constructed by the Hide and Leather Realty Company, an association of merchants in that trade, the 17-story building was designed by the firm of Starrett & Van Vleck. The firm was best known for designing a series of department stores, including the flagship stores of Lord & Taylor, Bloomingdales, Saks Fifth Avenue, Abraham & Straus, and Alexander's. A mix of offices, showrooms, and lofts the building was demolished in the mid 1960s as part of the Civic Center urban renewal project. It was replaced in 1969 with the nine-story Tishman Downtown Center Building. Though the new building could hardly be called a skyscraper, as its predecessor was when completed in 1920, it is none the less considerable in size, with each floor covering more than an acre and a half.

Think!Chinatown presents a walk of the heart of Manhattan's Chinatown, based on the stories of its residents, as collected by archivist and oral historian Rochelle Kwan. Follow along online or use the stories to connect with the neighborhood through the memories of its residents. As you take a walk around the neighborhood, check out the Landmarks Oral History Project stories: www.thinkchinatown.org/landmarks

Railroad sheds at Pier 21 on the East River, March 30, 1937. Berenice Abbott's photo captures the pier shed of the Pennsylvania and Baltimore & Ohio Railroads at Pier 21 with the Brooklyn Bridge immediately above and Manhattan Bridge in the background. The pier was removed in the late 1960s.

Titanic Memorial Lighthouse Titanic Memorial Park, Plaza bounded by Pearl, Beekman, and Water Streets Designed by Charles Evans Hughes III 1913 This 60-foot lighthouse located within Titanic Memorial Park was originally installed in 1913 atop the Seamen’s Church Institute, then located at the corner of South Street and Coenties Slip. The lighthouse overlooked the East River and signaled noon to ships in the harbor with the falling of a black ball. In 1968, upon the Institute’s demolition, it was taken down and stored on a pier by the South Street Seaport Museum, and was then reinstalled in its current location in 1976. The lighthouse serves as a tribute to the passengers, officers, and crew who perished when the Titanic sank in 1912. Today, it sits at the main entrance to the Seaport. The Titanic Memorial Lighthouse is located in the New York City and State and National Register of Historic Places South Street Seaport historic districts.

Pagoda Theater, 1964. The Pagoda Theater, which was designed in 1963, was the last new building in New York's Chinatown created by the Chinatown-born architect Poy Gum Lee. Opened in 1964, the theater was the first Chinese language movie theater in the neighborhood built expressly for that purpose (the other three had been converted into theaters). The theater was rendered in a Chinese-influenced, modern style with a three-tiered pagoda at the corner. The auditorium sat just under 500 patrons. The opening of the theater was celebrated with a dragon dance through the nearby streets of Chinatown. The theater closed in the late 1980s and was razed and replaced in the early 1990s with a 15-story commercial structure.

One of the finest of the Greek Revival churches in Manhattan, it has been attributed to Minard Lafever because of the beauty of its detail. The porch is recessed between wide flanking sidewalls, as is the case with St. John's in the Village, only this church is simple distyle in antis of the Doric order.

Shearith Israel Graveyard ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1683 STYLE: Graveyard This small graveyard is what remains today of the early burial ground of the Sephardic Jewish congregation, Shearith Israel. It was established on this site in the Seventeenth Century and thus represents one of the oldest cemeteries within the City. Handsome headstones are here interspersed by marble sarcophagus with simple flat-slab tops. One little monument is surmounted by a small pyramidal stone cap. The unique quality of this small plot lies not only in the simplicity of its early tombs but in its forgotten aspect, surrounded by houses, a reminder of our earliest history.

A walking tour of some of Lower Manhattan's most notable landmarks.

Construction on the South Street Pumping Station, across South Street from the Long Island Railroad Freight Depot at East River Pier 32; undated photo. A May 1885 report in the Babylon Budget detailed construction of the new depot at piers 32 and 33, "which promises to be the handsomest and most substantial on the whole riverfront." The report further quoted from the Fishing Dispatch trade publication, claiming the depot's construction had been driven by a fourfold increase in freight traffic. Pier 32 was also used for Ferry Service to Long Island City. At the turn of the century, the facing block on South Street was transformed as four buildings, Nos. 191-194, were razed for the construction of the fire department's South Street Pumping Station, completed in 1909. Around the same time, the East River piers were renumbered. By 1922, freight storage for the Pennsylvania and Long Island railroads had expanded to occupy the area between the Pier 22 (formerly 30-31), at foot of Roosevelt Street, and Pier 25 (formerly 33), at the foot of Oliver Street. Most of the piers in this area were removed by 1977.

New York's City Hall is one of the oldest continuously used City Halls in the nation that still houses its original governmental functions. Designed by Joseph François Mangin and John McComb Jr. and completed in 1812, it is one of the finest architectural achievements of its period. The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated City Hall an individual landmark in 1966 and its central rotunda an interior landmark in 1976. In 1993, the African Burial Ground and the Commons, which includes City Hall and the surrounding park, was designated a Historic District.

The Hudson-Fulton Celebration began more than 100 years ago. Starting on September 25, 1909, over a million New Yorkers and tourists enthusiastically joined in the two-week festivities to commemorate the tricentennial of Henry Hudson’s discovery of the river that now bears his name and the centennial of Robert Fulton’s invention of the steamboat. This story can be read in its original format here.

41 Park Row (building on the right), ca. 1975. The third building to house the operations of the New York Times, 41 Park Row is the oldest of the surviving buildings of "Newspaper Row." Designed by George B. Post in 1889 to replace a smaller 1851 building, the 16-story, Romanesque Revival style structure was constructed around the core of the earlier building. The printing presses did not even need to be moved during the construction. In 1896 when the newspaper was bought by Adolf Ochs (whose family still runs it), he had an architect remove the mansard roof and add three more stories. The New York Times moved uptown to their eponymous square in 1903. In 1951 the building was purchased by Pace University, who used the former cavernous area where the printing presses were located as a gym.

Louis J. Lefkowitz State Office Building ARCHITECT: Sullivan Jones and William Haugarrd DATE: 1928-30 STYLE: modernist classical The Louis J. Lefkowitz State Office Building, historically New York State Office Building at 80 Centre Street was constructed as a piece of a master plan for this area. The nine-story edifice is composed in a modernist classical style faced in granite to be contextual, but not detract from, the courthouses in Manhattan’s Civic Center. A heavy, rusticated base boasts carved seals of New York State, and “STATE OF NEW YORK”, prominently centered on the façade, rests above the seals. The cornerstone of 80 Centre was laid on December 18, 1928 by Governor Al Smith, who used a silver trowel to apply the first layer of mortar and secured a copper box time capsule containing records, newspapers, and photographs into the stone block. The impetus for the New York State Office Building came down to economics. Throughout the 1920s, the State of New York hemorrhaged money toward expensive rents for State offices, typically in midtown. This building consolidated all State offices to one location, as the New York Times explained its dire need: “Completion of the State Building marks a realization of one of the largest units in a well-defined public building program which has for its aim the unified housing of official activities and elimination of tremendous rents.” (NYT, “Civic Centre Plan Showing Progress.” 11/2/1930) In 2018 it was announced 80 Center would be demolished to make way for a new 40 story tower that would house the new Manhattan jail. Thankfully, that plan was abandoned, but the building is still not landmarked and therefore under threat.

Saint James Roman Catholic Church ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1835-37 STYLE: Greek Revival, Church St. James Church is a fine example of Greek Revival architecture. It has recessed porch with two columns on either side of the porch are enclosed stairs with their own doors opening on to the street. The entire front is crowned by a low gable pediment. One of the principal contributions of the Greek Revival in this country was its modification of the classic temple form.

“Newspaper Row” across from City Hall Park. Photographed by Berenice Abbott for the Federal Art Project, July 23, 1936. From left to right, the buildings are: New York World Building; New York Tribune Building, New York Times Building, Potter Building.

Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, honorary chairman of their tour, greeted 1936's champion "Maccabee" soccer team visiting from British mandate Palestine, here to play against the city's own All-Star team and American Soccer League team, as a fundraiser providing relief for Polish Jews, recently under siege by anti-Semitic riots.

My Archive Spring 2019 "Mott Street in front of Transfiguration school. A photo taken for 8th-grade graduation in 1982." —May Lew

The New York Sun Building, formerly Tammany Hall. Undated, prior to 1916.

Our Stories, Our Chinatown Landmarks is an ongoing audio exploration of memory and place, produced by Think!Chinatown. Through a story stroll around the neighborhood, we visit and remember our community members’ own personal landmarks and memories in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Our Stories, Our Chinatown Landmarks is a part of Chinatown Arts Festival 2023, produced by Think!Chinatown.

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.

New York World Building ca. 1933 Completed in December 1890, the World Building, officially called the Pulitzer Building, was an expression of the ambitions and business genius of its publisher Joseph Pulitzer. At a height of 309 feet to the top of the dome, the World's new home became the highest building in the city and the tallest office building in the world. Pulitzer, a Hungarian immigrant who had first arrived in New York in 1864 and fought in the Civil War, had his initial success the newspaper business in St. Louis. He purchased the New York World from financier Jay Gould in 1883 when the ailing paper had a daily circulation of only 22,000. A year later, Pulitzer had quadrupled the circulation, and by 1898 was selling a half million copies a day. In 1889, as the Times was completing its imposing headquarters on Printing House Square, Pulitzer planned a new home for the World that would outshine and overtop all his competitors. The site he acquired was on the northeast corner of Park Row and Frankfort Street overlooking City Hall Park. Pulitzer envisioned a dome that would symbolize both the ascendance of his paper and, as he professed, the highest ideals of journalism: liberty, justice, democracy and "true Americanism." Indeed, the World's 5-floor gilded dome, which housed the writers, editors, and Pulitzer's private office, lifted the publisher high above the city. In its booklet printed for the building's debut, the paper effused: "From Jersey's shores, from Brooklyn Heights, from the beach of Staten Island, from points far remote, it is first discerned as one approaches New York looming above the busy metropolis, above Trinity's lofty spire, above the tall towers and high roofs of its neighbors-a giant among the giants." In an architectural competition, Pulitzer selected George B. Post, architect of the Times Building, to design his tower. Some stories claim that Post won the commission by wagering $20,000 with Pulitzer that he could complete the project for its $1,000,000 budget. He got the job, but lost the bet, since the costs reached $2,000,000. No expense was spared on the elaborate façade of red sandstone, Renaissance ornament, and figurative sculpture that gave the tower an Old World character and made it look to be made of masonry rather than the advanced metal-cage construction that Post used within the walls. The language with which the World celebrated its new head-quarters was as richly laden with rhetoric as the building itself: "There is a sermon in these stones: a significant moral in this architectural glory. Fidelity to the Public Welfare, fearless opposition to the Wrong and vigorous defence (sic) of the Right, a persistent aspiring to loftier Ideals are the lessons it teaches."

Construction for the IRT East Side Line near the intersection of Park Row and Centre Street, November 13, 1902. The open pit, seen here, for subway construction, does its best to not disrupt the activity of this busy street. The trolley car #593 of the Metropolitan Street Railway still runs on the shored up roadway. The Old Hall of Records (at right) is likewise shored up and numerous elevated walkways and wooden sidewalks allow for movement over and around the construction.

Chatham Branch, NYPL, ca. 1903. Chatham Square Branch was the first of twelve Carnegie libraries designed by McKim, Mead & White. Completed in 1903, the structure remains one of the most intact Carnegie libraries (interior and exterior) in the city. The Chinatown-located library has served that community nearly since its opening. The library began a circulating Chinese language collection in 1911. Today the Chinese Heritage Collection, a unique collection of materials in English and Chinese, is housed on the lower floor.

My Archive Spring 2019 "Old family photo circa the early 1920s. Elizabeth Stasa and Frances Stasa, my mother, probably on a Sunday before or after going to St. Peter's Church on Barclay Street (at that time the family was living in the South Street Seaport area either Dover St. or Peck Slip). Formerly, they lived at 109 Washington Street and 66 Greenwich Street when they first came as children with their family from Moravia in Austria-Hungary (now the Czech Republic ) in 1912. By 1927 they were living in Brooklyn. My aunt and mother were seamstresses working in sweatshops near Union Square." —Joseph Svehlak

Foley Square Courthouse (today the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse), 1936. The Classical Revival courthouse at 40 Foley Square was designed by Cass Gilbert, and finished by his son, upon Gilbert's death in 1934. Completed in 1936, the colonnade entrance on Foley Square fits in well with its neighbors, including the Municipal Building and the New York County Courthouse. The imposing main tower is set back from the base and rises 20 stories to a pyramidal roof. One of the first federal skyscrapers constructed, it was originally called the Foley Square Courthouse. In 2001, the United States Congress passed a bill renaming the building in honor of Thurgood Marshall, the Supreme Court Justice, who had sat on the resident Second Circuit Court of Appeals in the early 1960s.

Tweed Courthouse, ca. 1975. The Old New York County Courthouse is better known as Tweed Courthouse, for the infamous Tammany Hall political boss who oversaw its funding (and the rampant kickbacks associated with construction costs). The massive Italianate courthouse, designed by architect John Kellum, quickly ran over its initial budget, with inflated materials costs used to fill Tammany coffers. In 1873, twelve years after the cornerstone was laid and two years after original architect Kellum's death, Tweed was convicted of embezzlement in an unfinished courtroom. Tweed's trial and imprisonment ground construction to a halt. Though architect Leopold Eidlitz was hired in 1874 to complete the courthouse interior and design a new wing, work did not resume until 1876. When Eidlitz's Romanesque south wing was completed in 1881, it was initially unpopular and considered incongruous to Kellum's Renaissance Revival design. For all its notoriety and expense, the Tweed Courthouse's utility as a civic structure was relatively short-lived. By the turn of the 20th century, the courthouse's association with political graft led politicians and press alike to call for its demolition, often as an element of redevelopment proposals for City Hall Park. When the new New York County Courthouse was completed in 1927, City Court operations shifted to the imperiled Tweed Courthouse. Over the next two decades, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia and Robert Moses each called for the structure's removal. Still, the Tweed Courthouse survived, albeit without its grand entrance stairway, a casualty of the 1942 widening of Chambers Street. In 1984, the Landmarks Preservation Commission recognized both the historical and architectural significance of the long-unpopular courthouse in its designation as a New York City Landmark. A lengthy restoration project commenced in 1999, with the Giuliani administration declaring that the courthouse would become the new home of the Museum of the City of New York. The Bloomberg administration reversed these plans, instead determining that the Department of Education would become the next long-term Tweed tenant.

Bridge Cafe 279 Water Street Architect unknown 1794 Adjacent to the Brooklyn Bridge, the Bridge Café is the district’s only extant wood-frame building. The building originally housed a grocery and a wine and porter bottler, and was initially only two-and-a-half stories high with a peaked roof. In 1888, the exterior was altered: its peaked roof was removed and the façade was covered with novelty Victorian-era siding. At present, the façade is painted brick red with black trim. The building has retained its commercial use for over 200 years. In fact, the Bridge Café was the oldest continuously running tavern in New York City until it closed in 2012 after Superstorm Sandy. Former Mayor Edward Koch was a regular customer in the 1970s. The owners are currently repairing the building and are hoping to re-open the Café in 2016. The Bridge Café is located in the New York City and State and National Register of Historic Places South Street Seaport historic districts.

Welcome to Chinatown, Manhattan! One of over 50 Chinatowns in the U.S. and nine in New York City alone, Manhattan’s Chinatown is home to the largest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere. The story of Manhattan’s Chinatown begins in the middle of the 19th century. Immigration to the US from Asian countries, especially China, boomed due to factors such as the California gold rush, Chinese labor recruitment for the transcontinental railroad, and the Taiping rebellion in China. Post Civil War, resentment towards Chinese immigrants due to competition with white laborers drove members of the Chinese population towards larger cities in the East, such as New York, with the added incentive of job opportunities and a more diverse population. Chinatown was born as Chinese New Yorkers, mostly men, settled around Mott, Pell, and Doyer streets in the 1870s, forming a Chinatown of only 3-blocks which, when compared to the 55-60 block span of today’s Chinatown, creates a clear image of Chinatown’s impending growth. Though the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 along with other exclusionary laws passed by Congress slowed Chinatown’s population growth, its cultural development was not impeded, with many notable business and organization establishments taking place between the passing of the act in 1882 and its lifting in 1943. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 led to a dramatic population increase of Chinatown, with its boundaries expanding to an approximately 55-block area. Immigration groups shifted–where early Chinatown had been primarily populated by Taishanese-speaking Chinese immigrants, the second half of the 20th century saw a wave of Cantonese speaking Chinese immigrants from Mainland China followed by Mandarin-speaking Taiwanese immigrants and other Non-Cantonese immigrants in the 70’s and Mandarin-speaking immigrants from Fuzhou in the 80’s and 90’s. In recent decades, the vibrant community of Chinatown has been impacted by modern issues facing both New York City and the rest of the world. Gentrification and displacement have become increasingly prevalent throughout the past few decades, with luxury developments threatening to raise real estate prices and push out working class residents and longstanding family businesses. Chinatown was also hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, with businesses being affected as early as January 2020 due to stereotypes and racism surrounding Asian and specifically Chinese communities, and a 361% increase in anti-Asian hate crimes in 2021. Despite the challenges that have impacted Chinatown both then and now, it has remained rich in culture and community, and its resilience and character has cemented its importance in the past and present both in New York and throughout the country and world.

New York City is full of Revolution-related history and sites, but you need to know where to look. We’ve compiled 5 key places to visit and discover the American Revolution history that’s all around us. Check out these sites below in a family-friendly tour. As you make your way around town, be sure to take recreations and pictures and tag us on Twitter or Instagram at @nyhistory.

Potter Building, ca. 1980. The Potter Building, constructed from 1883 to 1886, was designed to the plans of architect Norris G. Starkweather. Commissioned by Orlando B. Potter, a prominent politician and real estate developer, he built the 11-story building to replace his former World Building, which was destroyed in 1882 by fire. In addition to employing the most advanced fireproofing methods that were then available, the newly erected Potter Building was designed in a combination of Queen Anne and neo-Grec styles. Making using of rolled iron beams, cast iron columns, brick exterior walls, tile arches, and terra-cotta, the building's elaborate details even provoked Mr. Potter to later start his own terra cotta company on Long Island. In 1980, the iron-frame office building was converted by Martin Raynes to a co-operative apartment building with 41 units.

While most people think of chop suey as a specific dish, in reality, it is more of a style of cooking. It is an Americanized style, an often improvised stir fry of mixed ingredients, namely meat, vegetables, and a starchy gravy. First popularized in Chinatown around the turn of the 20th century, it spread throughout the city, becoming more Americanized (read-more bland) over the course of time. It is sometimes referred to as one of New York’s first fusion cuisines.

146 Beekman Street, date unknown. Constructed in 1885 as a smokehouse, the building at 146 Beekman has been tied to the NYC fishing industry, centered in this neighborhood, since its construction. By 1904, the building was also the headquarters of the New York Wholesale Fish Dealers Association. The painted signs on the facade that read "Fresh, Salt Smoked Fish" were in place by the 1930s, though likely were painted earlier. From 1914 to 1997 the building was home to the The Meyer and Thompson Smoked Fish Company. In 2004 a bar and cafe called Fresh Salt opened in the ground floor space and, despite damage endured during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, remains open, serving the neighborhood under its historic sign.

214 Front Street Architect unknown 1802 214 Front Street was built for merchant William Shotwell, and has been altered many times over the years.The cast-iron façade is ornamented with decorative, paneled square columns and a modillioned metal cornice. On the four upper stories, the smooth-pressed bricks were assembled in a stretcher bond pattern and several gudgeons from the 19th century shutters still remain at the windows. 214 Front Street is located in the New York City and State and National Register of Historic Places South Street Seaport historic districts.

ca. 1890 The Newsboys Lodging Home depicted here by Jacob Riis was, in fact, the third incarnation of the Newsboys Lodging home. Also called the Duane Street Lodging House or the Brace Memorial Lodging House, it was set up for young boys (not necessarily newsboys) who would be otherwise homeless. The boys would pay a fee and in return, they would receive schooling, food, and a clean place to spend the night. A replacement for a smaller lodging house, the Duane Street Newsboys Lodging Home opened in 1873. Costing more than 200,000$, the Duane Street location was aimed at expanding it mission to serve the ever-increasing homeless child population of New York. It was managed, like most of the Children's lodging houses of the city, by the Children's Aid Society. With a gymnasium, school rooms, dining hall, and washrooms, the home attempted to provide an education to those that lodged with them. If a boy wanted to stay the night, the ensuing classes were mandatory. Those that could not afford to pay could defer the payments until they had the means. The rules at the home were strict, the boys had to be out by 7 am and were allowed in no later than 9:30 pm. Moreover, all were expected to pitch in with the upkeep of the house, with duties from cleaning to laundry to cooking. During the day, the boys were out, selling newspapers, shining shoes, and earning money. The mission operated until 1919.

Park Row Restaurant, ca. 1940. The Depression era deals advertised on this restaurant front include 'Pigs head and cabbage' and '2 broiled lamp chops' both for 15 cents. For 25 cents you could get '3 broiled pork chops' with soup and coffee.

Hall of Records, ca. 1935. Built as the Hall of Records (to replace the old and decrepit Hall of Records in City Hall Park), the ornate Beaux Arts building was constructed between 1899 and 1907. Architect John R. Thomas had actually won the commission for a new City Hall building in 1896. When the state legislature decided that the city was not permitted to replace the old City Hall, Thomas adapted his design for a new Hall of Records. He would, unfortunately, not live to see the completed building. Thomas died in 1901 and the firm of Horgan & Slattery took over the project. The completed building was an impressive civic structure, very much in line with the in vogue "city beautiful" movement. Entered through a triple arched entrance with eight, thirty-six foot high granite Corinthian columns above, the building is also topped with a grand mansard roof. Though the Surrogate's Court was one of the original tenants of the building, it wasn't until 1962 that the structure was renamed the Surrogate's Courthouse (though the Department of Records is still housed there as well). Both the interior and the exterior of the building have been designated New York City landmarks.

Olliffe Pharmacy, ca. 1950. In 1805 Dr. William F. Olliffe opened his druggist business. The location of the original shop is unknown, though it could have possibly been here at 6 Bowery. The wealthy Olliffe family lived on Broome Street (described as a "then a fashionable quarter of New York"). Olliffe's son, also William (M.) took over the pharmacy business likely in the 1860s. A late biography of the man noted that he "continued as proprietor in such a way as to leave him large leisure for social and other engagements." William M. died in 1885, but the Bowery shop survived with his name on the sign until 1957, when it closed after more than 150 years in business!

Crowd gathers in City Hall Park for a Liberty Bond sale under the auspices of the the Mayor's Committee of Women on National Defense, ca. 1917-18. A man perched atop a fully extended firemen's ladder waves an American flag. In the background is the former City Hall Post Office and Courthouse; the mammoth French Second Empire civic building was torn down in 1938.

Public art represents and is represented with many different forms and ideas, its creation, concept and location all come into play when looking at a piece's place in an urban landscape such as New York City. Public art takes up a space, one that is always shared with a community, part of this story would like to address how the two intersect. In some cases a piece can even cultivate its own community, in the case of 5 Pointz, which in itself was its own piece of public art but also a space that created a community of artists. The Graffiti Mecca can also lead us to ask the question, “What is considered public art and where is the line drawn?” This question will be explored as well as looking to an ideal future for a city where public art is put at a higher priority and invested in. Where graffiti artists aren’t criminalized for their work or commodified for profit. Take a look at spaces and experiences where communities are represented and enhanced by public art, while considering the way public art can give back and engage all people in ways of expressing themselves.

In November 1952, the young Israeli state, a mere 4-years-old, sent their Minister of Police, Behar Sitreet, on an official fundraising tour. While in New York, Minister Sitreet paid a holiday visit to Mayor Vicent Impeliterri, who was also part of further holiday festivities at Madison Square Garden's massive Hanukkah pageant and fundraiser.

This office block was built as a speculative venture by the American Tract Society. Revenue from this investment would fund the charitable works of the Society which published and sold inexpensive Bible editions to Foreign Missionary Societies and newly arrived immigrants. Rising from a plot 100 by 94 feet, this 22-story building contained 700 offices. The tower is topped by an elaborate open-arched pavilion with spectacular terra-cotta caryatids on its four corners that recall the figureheads of nineteenth-century schooners. Inside the building's lobby, the elevator hall is a semicircular space with the cabs arranged around it in an arc, one of the few surviving examples of this early configuration in New York. The building is currently undergoing renovation for residential use.

St. James Roman Catholic Church, 1938. This fieldstone Greek Revival church (right) was built between 1835-37 and is the second-oldest Catholic church building in Manhattan. Despite its status as a New York City Landmark, the church was closed in 1983 due to deterioration and concerns that its roof could collapse. The structure was damaged in a 2011 fire, but remains intact. In the middle ground, the two-level elevated tracks of the Second and Third Avenue elevated lines run above New Bowery (St. James Place), between Franklin Square and the split at Chatham Square. In the far background, the elevated tracks of the IRT City Hall Spur are visible over Park Row.

One of the most interesting structures in the State and National Register of Historic Places South Street Seaport Historic Districts is the Romanesque Revival building that was erected in 1885 for Ellen S. Auchmuty, a Schermerhorn family descendent. It was designed by George B. Post, an architect trained in the Beaux-Arts tradition, who also designed the old New York Times Building (1889) at Printing House Square, Bronx Borough Hall (1897), and the New York Stock Exchange (1904).

The New York City Department of Sanitation was established in 1881 to attack an overwhelming problem. New York City of the late 19th century was plagued with relentless filth. Horses left 2.5 million pounds of manure and 60,000 gallons of urine on the streets every single day. The unceasing expansion of the city left layers of grime on the streets.

My Archive Spring 2019 "Apolina Stasa, my grandmother, from Moravia (now the Czech Republic ) worked Downtown as a cleaning lady. Old family photo circa the early 1920s probably on a Sunday before or after going to St. Peter's on Barclay Street." —Joseph Svehlak

Christmas trees for sale outside Gogel's Delicatessen. December 23, 1941.

The image shows the business card of Chinatown-born architect Poy Gum Lee. He used the location to serve as his base of operations.

Opposite Mulberry Bend ca. 1898 This stretch of East Broadway was enjoying a revival of sorts after the 1892 demolition of the adjacent notorious slum, the Mulberry Bend. Here the well-dressed families and closed shops- one with a sign in Hebrew- suggests that it is Saturday and families are milling about after attending synagogue. Lazarus Levy- the proprietor of the shop at 30 East Broadway- was among twelve and a half pages of Levys listed in the 1898 city directory. He moved his business to East Houston Street within the year.

New York County Courthouse Interior ARCHITECT: Guy Lowell DATE: 1913-27 STYLE: Neo-Classical The Interior of the New York County Court House is one of the last neo-Classical public buildings erected in New York City and ranks as one of the best. The interior design reveals maximum attention to detail, a rich variety of materials, and elegant classical symmetry and design. It is distinguished by excellent murals designed by Attilio Pusterla under the Public Works of Art Project and the Federal Art Project. The murals are some of the earliest executed in New York City under the Projects. It houses the Archives of the County Clerk, an invaluable collection of court records open to the public, and it reflects the Classical spirit that strongly influenced American architecture during the early 20th century.

On October 12, 2021, Municipal Archives digitization specialist Matt Minor presented an illustrated history of the Surrogate’s Court for DORIS’ “Lunch and Learn” program. As he reminded the audience, the original name of the building was the Hall of Records. It was the first purpose-built records hall for the City. The following is a condensed version of his talk. The original format of this story can be found here along with other excellent blogs.

World Building ca. 1890-1899 Completed in 1890, the World Building, (also known as the Pulitzer Building) was commissioned by editor Joseph Pulitzer as a headquarters for his paper the New York World. Designed by the prolific skyscraper architect George B. Post, it was the first building in New York to surpass in height the 284- foot spire of Trinity Church. The number of stories is disputed: estimates range from the 26 stories claimed by the World to the 16 or 18 suggested by recent scholars. The World and Tribune buildings were demolished in 1955 for the expanded automobile entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge.

Staats-Zeitung Building, ca. 1895. The New Yorker Staats-Zeitung, a Greman-language newspaper, began publishing in 1834. Originally founded by a by a society of German-American businessmen, it published weekly for the 10,000 German-born citizens in the city. The newspaper grew in length, population, and reputation over the next few decades. In 1852 a woman, Anna Uhl, took over management and five years later purchased a property on "Newspaper Row" (now Park Row). The first Staats building on the site was a simple narrow structure at 17 Chatham Street. In 1873, Anna Uhl and her now-husband and editor, Oswald Ottendorfer, commissioned German-born architect William Schickel to expand the building. The newspaper, which by the 1870s had a circulation comparable to major, local English-language newspapers, remained here until 1907. The headquarters was to be torn down for roadways for the Brooklyn Bridge. The newspaper moved just a few blocks away to a building on Spruce and William Street, which had previously housed the publishing operations of The New York Ledger.

Man in the excavation cut for the BRT Centre Street Loop, July 22, 1909. The Municipal Building, then under construction, is out of frame at right. Straight ahead is the Technical Press building at 236 William Street. That building has since been demolished; its site was near present-day One Police Plaza and the Brooklyn Bridge offramp toward FDR Drive.

Oliver Street Baptist Church ARCHITECT: Isaac Lucas DATE: 1844-45 STYLE: Greek Revival The Oliver Street Baptist Church is a fine local expression of Greek Revival architecture stated in its simplest terms and it uses inexpensive materials which nevertheless produce an overall effect of great dignity. The recessed portico with its two handsome Ionic columns is flanked on either side by plain wall surfaces relieved only by the introduction of simple panels. This composition is crowned by a well proportioned low-angled gable (pediment). The sidewalls have full length windows which light the aisles and the galleries above them.

174 South Street, 1934. No. 174, a four-story brick building which sat directly under the Brooklyn Bridge, was the home where Al Smith, four-time New York State Governor, was born in 1873.

New York Times Building ARCHITECT: George B. Post DATE: 1888-89 STYLE: Richardsonian Romanesque The New York Times Building, erected in 1888-89 as the home of the New York Times, is one of the last remnants of Newspaper Row, the center of newspaper publishing in New York City from the 1830s to the 1920s. The building was designed by the pioneering skyscraper designer George B. Post and is his sole remaining office building in the downtown area. The Times Building was Post’s first in the Richardsonian Romanesque idiom and was considered “a masterpiece of the Romanesque style.” It has rusticated limestone and granite facades that are articulated in a complex composition featuring a series of impressive arcades and carefully-scaled details including compound colonnettes, roll moldings, miniature balustrades, foliate reliefs, and gargoyles.

EXCELSIOR POWER COMPANY BUILDING, MANHATTAN Address: 33-43 Gold Street Constructed: 1888 Architect: William Milne Grinnell The Excelsior Power Company Building is the oldest power generating station in New York City. 11 power plants, whose energy helped grow New York into the city that it is, have been demolished throughout the five boroughs. The monumental Romanesque Revival style building, complete with rough-cut ashlar and rounded, springing arches, features Queen Anne terra cotta details, while the Art Nouveau letters that read “Excelsior Power Co. Bldg 1888 A.D.” add the final touch. The building, an architectural anomaly in the Financial District, has overcome functional obsolescence in its conversion to residences. Its successful adaptive reuse is a gift to Gold Street. The Excelsior Power Company Building at 33-43 Gold Street is a Romanesque Revival structure designed by the architect William G. Grinnell. The Excelsior Steam Power Company acquired this Gold Street property in 1887 from the Columbia Heating and Power Company. Two buildings from the 1840s were on the property and were altered to meet the needs of the Excelsior Company. The red brick facade is distinguished by ornamental terra cotta detail. Incorporated in the terra cotta design detail is the name of the building and the date--"A.D. 1888."

Municipal Building ca. 1976 The vaulting over the South Concourse of New York’s Municipal Building epitomizes the spatial genius of Guastavino Jr. This irregularly shaped area, punctuated by numerous columns supporting the 580-foot skyscraper above, presented him with particular challenges. Guastavino Jr. designed a deceptively simple and graceful array of vaults—no two of them alike—springing from asymmetrical structural bays. The open-air concourse provides access to the Chambers Street Subway Station below.

In the 19th century, these shot towers soared above all other buildings. This particular tower, built in the year 1855 by James Bogardus, was over 175 feet tall with an octagonal base formed from 11 iron pillars. The height of the towers was necessary for the creation of the shot. Arsenic-laced melted iron would be brought up to the top of the towers and poured through a sieve. As it dropped, the molten iron would cool and form a circular shape before landing in a vessel of water. This would create a perfectly spherical lead shot. With some towers creating 15 tons of shot a day, the noise was cacophonous as the iron clattered down from the top.

Paris Cafe certainly fits the bill of New York's oldest watering holes. The pub has proudly served beer since 1873, as is noted on the building's facade. The bar was founded by Henry Meyers, an alcohol merchant, who opened the pub to accompany his hotel upstairs. In its heyday, the Meyer Hotel hosted numerous celebrities, including a young Theodore Roosevelt, the cowboy Buffalo Bill, and outlaw Butch Cassidy, to name a few. However, once passenger ships diverted traffic by docking at the Chelsea Piers rather than the Seaport, the hotel briefly fell into obscurity. Shortly after, the mob took over the business and the Meyer Hotel saw a rotating cast of mafiosos use its quarters. In 1951, the building was purchased from the Meyer family estate by Silvio (Steve) Schiaffino. It was Schiaffino who christened the establishment with its new name. At first, he renamed the eatery "Paris Bar and Restaurant," after his prior business which he lost to the city. The name has since been simplified to Paris Cafe. Schiaffino made extensive updates to the kitchen and dining area of the Cafe. Despite renovations, the longshoreman's pub kept its original ornate polished wood bar that was shipped from Germany. Both the bar and the sparkling mirrors behind it have maintained their illustrious sheen for almost 150 years, even surviving a devastating flood brought on by Hurricane Sandy. Sadly in 2020, the fabled bar was forced to close its doors due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Did you ever wonder about how historic City records make their way to the Municipal Archives? Did you assume that all the documents, photographs, maps, ledgers, plans, etc. in the Archives had been dutifully maintained in their “creating” City offices, and then carefully transferred to their permanent home at 31 Chambers Street?

Potter Building ARCHITECT: Norris G. Starkweather DATE: 1882-86 STYLE: Queen Anne, Neo-Grec, Renaissance Revival, Colonial Revival The Potter Building was commissioned by Orlando B. Potter, a prominent figure in New York politics with prime commercial real estate holdings in Manhattan. Potter was determined to build a structure with the most advanced fireproofing then available. The eleven-story Potter Building was distinguished stylistically from most downtown buildings, with its picturesque, flamboyant fusion of Queen Anne, neo-Grec, Renaissance Revival, and Colonial Revival motifs. The vertically-expressed design is executed in red brick and brownstone-colored terracotta above a cast-iron-clad base. Among its distinctive features are continuous piers, some of the handsomest brickwork in New York City, a dramatic, colossal three-quarter-round column terminating in a pinnacle on the acute primary corner of Park Row and Beekman Street, walls elaborated by ornamental pediments, segmental arches, panels, and corbelling, and a roofline punctuated by finials and broken scroll pediments with urns.

This iron-framed, brick building is a riot of robust clay capitals and classical details. What was viewed as its greatest innovation at the time of its completion was its virtually fireproof construction, a strength advertised by its iron-clad lower stories and storefronts. The richly ornamented façade is anchored by dramatic eight-story vertical piers in brick with enormous terra-cotta capitals, and the colossal eleven-story embedded column that seems to hinge the corner of Nassau Street and Beekman Place. A builder's plate giving the name of the foundry responsible for the cast iron work remains at the building's southwest corner. The Potter Building is a masterpiece of architectural terra-cotta, and its construction played an important role in the development of terra cotta as a building material in New York. Terracotta, a type of clay that is molded and fired, was chosen by the building’s owner, Orlando Potter, for its fire resistant properties and low price. At the time, no source of terracotta existed in New York, and a Boston company was hired to provide the material. Soon after the building’s completion, Potter founded the New York Architectural Terra-Cotta Company, which would manufacture much of the terra-cotta ornament widely used in later skyscrapers.

The Fish Market on South Street between Peck Slip and Beekman Street, November 26, 1935. By the time Berenice Abbott took this picture in 1936, the South Street fish market filled a six-block area and was the largest wholesale seafood market on the Atlantic Coast. At the southern end of the block (Nos. 116-119) is Meyer's Hotel, notorious for selling alcohol during Prohibition.

Titanic Memorial Lighthouse and stores on Fulton Street, ca. 1976. Originally installed on the top of the Seaman's Church Institute in 1913, the Titanic Memorial Lighthouse has stood on the corner of Water and Fulton Streets since 1976. The 60-foot-tall structure was installed at the insistence of Titanic survivor, socialite, and philanthropist Molly Brown. Originally the ball on the top of the structure dropped every day at noon as a remembrance of the victims. The ball drop stopped in 1967 and the Seaman's Institute moved locations in 1968. The lighthouse was donated to the South Street Seaport Museum and was installed near the entrance of the museum's complex of buildings.

Row of buildings on South Street between James Slip and Roosevelt Street, April 1, 1937. In the background: the Wall Street skyline, with 60 Wall Tower (left), 40 Wall Street (middle) and the top of the Singer Tower on Broadway (right). The South Street buildings were razed in 1950 for the construction of NYCHA's Governor Alfred E. Smith Houses, which opened on April 1, 1953 — sixteen years to the day after this photo was taken.

41 Mott Street in rendering at the far right, 1950.

173 Worth Street, April 7, 1928. A home on the north side of Worth Street, east of Baxter Street. Today this land is part of Columbus Park.

Timbering below street level for construction of the BRT Centre Street Loop, July 31, 1911. Above street level, the steeple and church facade belong to the Church of St. Andrew at the intersection of Duane Street and City Hall Place. Today, these streets have been de-mapped with the plaza where they once ran part of the judicial complex at the eastern side of the Manhattan’s Civic Center. The church building pictured dates to as early as 1812, and was known as Carroll Hall, a meeting place for the Congregational Society of United Christian Friends denomination, until 1842, when it became the Church of St. Andrew. The church, just a short distance from the offices of the city’s major newspaper became known as the “printers’ church,” after Father Luke J. Evers established a 2:30am mass in 1900, accommodating the late hours of printers at work on morning editions. By the late 1930s — by which point St. Andrews was dwarfed by the adjacent U.S. Courthouse by Cass Gilbert — the structure’s condition had deteriorated, and construction started on a new church on an overlapping site. The original church was razed in 1938. The Centre Street Loop, was an early 20th century project connecting lines running over the Williamsburg and Brooklyn Bridge, thereby providing Manhattan transfer for the various Brooklyn lines terminating at Park Row and reducing the need for trains reversals at bridge terminals. The Center Street Loop connection to Brooklyn Bridge lines was not completed as planned. Instead, the Centre Loop connected to the companion Nassau Street Loop (designed to provide a similar service for Manhattan Bridge trains). Together, the remaining tracks form the BMT Nassau Line (J/Z trains) with extraneous loop tracks presently out of service.

Though now populated with shops and restaurants, the South Street Seaport used to be a bustling hub of commerce and enterprise. Come with us as we walk you through its historic past.

Nathan Hale Statue, 1911. Designed by Frederick MacMonnies, the 13-foot-tall bronze statue of Nathan Hale was dedicated in City Hall Park in November of 1893. Hale, a 21 year old American soldier and spy for the Continental Army, infiltrated the British army in an attempt to gather information about the enemy’s Long Island military installations. Caught in September of 1776, Hale was hanged for treason. The figure was cast without life portraits for reference (as none existed) and unveiled by the Sons of the Revolution of New York State on November 25, 1893, which had long been celebrated as Evacuation Day, the date on which the final members of the British army finally left New York following the Revolutionary War.

If you were able to gaze at the skyline of New York in the 18th or 19th century, you might notice some strange towers sprouting up across the city. These towers existed to keep early New Yorkers locked and loaded and were essential in the creation of lead shot for ammunition.

Completed in 1875, the Tribune Building was the first tall building on Park Row. Whether or not one considers it a "skyscraper" it was the tallest office building in the city, with a clock tower stretching to 260 feet-just short of the Gothic spire of Trinity Church. This ambitious architectural statement was the project of Whitelaw Reid, who in 1872 became editor of the venerable New-York Tribune, which Horace Greeley had established in 1841. Reid aspired to erect a "printing palace" that would answer the paper's need for more space and be entirely fireproof, a consideration made key by recent major fires in Chicago and Boston. Reid closely controlled all decisions about the project, including the selection of the prominent architect Richard Morris Hunt, and he acted, in effect, as the contractor, hiring the various vendors of the construction work. The structure, typical of the 1870's, was traditional load-bearing masonry, but the mechanical systems entirely modern. The Scientific American wrote admiringly of the building on May 1, 1875: "On April 10, the 34th anniversary of its commencement, the New York Tribune opened the doors of its new office to the public. The structure is of great height and immense solidity, and is built of brick laid in cement, with dressing of stone and granite. The finial on the clock tower is 260 feet above the sidewalk, surmounting a building containing a sub-cellar, basement, nine stories, and attic. The walls of the lower portion, sustaining the great weight of the masonry, are 5 feet 2 inches to 6 feet thick. The building is claimed to be absolutely fireproof. No wood is used in its construction except for flooring, doors, and window frames; and the wooden floors are mere plankings laid over solid cement. No iron pillars are used, masonry being employed to carry the superstructure. The floors are ingeniously constructed, being flat arches of hollow concrete blocks, resting at the end on the flanged iron beams; they are made of plaster of Paris, coke dust and hydraulic lime of Teil. When the whole building is complete, it will certainly be an exceedingly handsome and commodious structure. "A Hoe web press is already at work in the new pressroom, and has a capacity of 16,000 complete copies per hour. The composing room is fitted up for one hundred compositors, and the editorial and other offices are intended to be models of comfort and convenience. Speaking tubes are used for intercommunication, and pneumatic tubes convey papers and documents between the editors' room, the counting room, and the composing room; and the elevators and heating and ventilating apparatus are all of the most modern design."

St. James School, ca. 1980.

47 St. James Place, ca. 1975.

24 Henry Street, July 1967. The small Federal style two-story house at 24 Henry Street was likely constructed, along with its four-story rowhouse neighbor at no. 22, in the 1820s. The well-known star of Ziegfeld Follies, Franny Brice, once lived with her mother in an apartment in this building. The musical based on her life, Funny Girl, has a scene set at and titled "24 Henry Street." The two buildings were demolished quickly and somewhat surreptitiously in 2010 and replaced with a double lot, contemporary masonry building.

251 Water Street, door detail, ca. 1960. Constructed in 1888 for John N. Eitel, a clothing merchant, the Romanesque Revival and Italianate building is a striking structure. The main entrance facade (at 22 Peck Slip) opens up into three sweeping archways and the residential entrance on Water Street features a detailed terra cotta plaque above the door, as seen here. Suffering through the middle of the 20th century, along with the rest of the Seaport area, the building lost some ornamentation, including its cornice. A more recent renovation has restored the facade of the building, and the once seafood wholesale market now has a bar and restaurant on the ground floor.

Mac Lac Shellac, November 29, 1935. Mac Lac Shellac was an early 20th-century shellac manufacturer that during the 1920s and 1930s (as shellac was utilized on more products) grew through a number of mergers. They had their headquarters at 80 Cliff Street before moving to 127 Maiden Lane. The streets depicted here, Cliff Street from Ferry Street, no longer exist. They were demapped in the 1950s and 1960s for the Brooklyn Bridge-Southwest Urban Renewal. Today the former location of this section of Cliff Street is on the land occupied by the Southbridge Towers.

View of the intersection at Chambers and Centre Streets from the Park Row Station, ca. 1925. The Surrogate's Court Building is at left, and the Municipal Building is at right.

American Tract Society Building ARCHITECT: R. H. Robertson DATE: 1894-95 STYLE: Romanesque, Renaissance Revival The American Tract Society Building was commissioned as a speculative venture by the American Tract Society, founded in 1825 to publish and distribute religious tracts and literature, which emerged as one of the largest American publishers prior to the Civil War. It is one of the earliest, as well as one of the earliest extant, steel skeletal-frame skyscrapers in New York, partially of curtain-wall construction. It was also one of the tallest and largest skyscrapers in the city upon its completion. The design combines elements of the Romanesque and Renaissance Revival styles, with two similar principal facades arranged with an overall tripartite vertical scheme, and the building is clad in rusticated gray Westerly granite, gray Haverstraw Roman brick, and buff-colored terra cotta.

Workers lay pipe for the high pressure water system beneath on New Bowery (now St. James Place); undated photo. The elevated trestle carried trains on the combined Second and Third Avenue lines, which split at Chatham Square (in the distance at far left, obscured by the horse-drawn carriage). The buildings at center-right are No.63, the Atlantic Hotel (left), and No. 59 (right), which housed the shops of furniture maker Timothy A. Garvey and John Dahlgren, a producer of decorative moldings. At far right is the entrance to First Shearith Israel Graveyard, the city's first Jewish cemetery.

Soy Kee Co. Soy Kee and Company was an importer and exporter of Chinese goods, selling curios, chinaware, lamps, silks, ivory carvings, imported Chinese teas, candies, coffees, and other accessories. It was first located here at 36 Pell, under a Chinese eatery before moving to 7-9 Mott Street where it occupied the ground floor space of a building known for its busy upstairs restaurant, called Port Authur. It is unknown when Soy Kee and Company opened, but its move to Mott Street occurred sometime after 1903. In 1921 Soy Kee and Co. became the owners of the building they had long rented at 7-9 Mott Street.

Three-alarm fire at No. 20 Oak Street, February 3, 1917. On a frigid Saturday morning, a fire broke out at a five-story loft building "occupied by printing concerns," near the intersection of Oak, Roosevelt, and New Chambers Streets. The New York Times described the firefighting efforts: "Three times the benumbed fire fighters thought they had the blaze under control, but each time the fire got a fresh start and burst through the roof."

100 years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, a 24-year-old black New Yorker stood her ground on a streetcar. With courage and perseverance, she won the first recorded legal victory for equal rights on public transportation. This story appeared in its original format here.

Surrogate’s Court (Hall of Records) ARCHITECT: John R. Thomas; Horgan & Slattery DATE: 1899-1907 STYLE: Beaux-Arts This building was planned as a magnificent architectural symbol of the prosperity, importance, and achievement of New York City. The opulence, grandeur, and lavish decoration of the interiors are highly characteristic of the Beaux-Arts style. The main lobby, a vast and imposing architectural space, is one of the most splendid interiors in New York City. The magnificent mosaics of the ceiling in the foyer and vestibules are indicative of the high degree of artistic attention lavished on the building. The North and South Court Rooms on the fifth floor are unusually splendid. The building continues to play a vital role in City government as the Surrogate’s Court and Hall of Records.

142-144 Beekman Street Designed by George B. Post 1885 This fine Romanesque Revival style building was designed by George B. Post for Schermerhorn descendant Ellen S. Auchmuty. Post, who trained in the Beaux-Arts tradition, also designed such notable works as the New York Stock Exchange, Bronx Borough Hall and the Fifth Avenue mansion of Cornelius Vanderbilt II. The Beekman Street façade is ornamented with sea motifs, a fitting theme given that its first occupants were businesses associated with the Fulton Fish Market. The four stories above the cast-iron ground floor are decorated with starfish tie rod washers, fish keystones and a cockle-shell roof cornice made of terra cotta. 142-144 Beekman Street is located in the New York City and State and National Register of Historic Places South Street Seaport historic districts.

Chatham Square Cemetery, ca. 1900. The Chatham Square Cemetery is the oldest extant cemetery of the Shearith Israel Congregation and the second oldest cemetery in Manhattan. The Sephardic congregation dates to the middle of the 17th century when Spanish and Portuguese Jews arrived in New York and established a synagogue. Their first cemetery, established in 1656, is long lost. The cemetery was purchased in 1682 with the first interment the next year. Situated on a hill overlooking the East River (or it was a hill in the colonial era) the cemetery was actually used as a strategic position by both General Washington and the British during the Revolutionary War. A ban on burials below Canal Street in 1823 signaled the end to (most) interments here; a second ground for the congregation was opened on 11th Street near Sixth Avenue. Later a third cemetery was established near Sixth Avenue and 21st Street (1829) and a fourth in Ridgewood, Queens (1850s). The size of the cemetery was somewhat drastically reduced in 1855 when the expansion of the Bowery took a sizable portion of the cemetery by eminent domain. In all 256 graves required re-interment. Today the tiny cemetery sits a few feet above the adjacent street level and about one hundred headstones and above ground tombs are visible.

Gruzen & Partners designed this pair of 25-story cement towers in 1965. Part of the Civic Centre Urban Renewal Project, they were built by the Committee of Middle Income Housing and only used 15% of their lot, allowing for an elevated public plaza (designed by often Gruzen collaborator, landscape architect M. Paul Friedberg) and a 125 car garage that sits below the plaza.

Across Chambers Street from City Hall Park is the 10-story granite Hall of Records. The richly sculpted exterior of this city government building is an example of "Beaux-Arts Classicism," a name derived from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris where many American architects pursued an elite education. Originally the architect John R. Thomas's design for the Hall of Records was the winning entry in a competition to replace City Hall. His design was adapted for this site and program after the project to rebuild City Hall became mired in political dispute. On the Chambers street façade is a spectacular three-story Corinthian colonnade, topped with the figures of mayors, administrators, and governors of New York and New Amsterdam. The interior, accessible to the public, is truly spectacular. The foyer has a mosaic tiled ceiling decorated with a pseudo-Egyptian theme, as well as four monumental bronze eagle-topped radiator grills. The three-story main hall, which is surrounded by staircases and hallways and clad at its height in a golden marble, is a work of baroque theatricality.

Northward view along Centre Street from Chambers Street, August 25, 1903. This survey photograph was taken in preparation for the construction of the original IRT East Side line. The building at left, behind the wooden barrier, is the Surrogate's Courthouse (also known as the Hall of Records). Began in 1899, the grand Beaux-Arts structure was under construction at the time of this photograph; it would not be completed until 1907, three years after the IRT subway had opened below. Other than that structure, literally nothing else pictured remains. The massive Municipal Building would rise across the street from the Surrogate's Courthouse in 1914, and the area north of Reade is now Foley Square, which is lined with courthouses and civic buildings constructed in the decades after 1915.

US Navy Admirals arrive at City Hall Park, on their way to the unveiling of the USS Maine National Monument, 1913.

13 Mott Street, October 28, 1927.

25-29 Oliver Street, March 30, 1937. No. 25 (at right) was the childhood home of Al Smith, four-time New York State Governor. Constructed circa the 1830s, the row house was built as a single family house in a Federal style. The two-and-a-half-story home had a full third floor added in the early 1870s by its then owner, Thomas Coleman, a politician. The home was purchased by the nearby St. James Church and used as a rectory and rented out, at one point to a funeral director. Al Smith, an up and coming politician rented the building beginning in 1909 to house his family of seven. During his run for Sheriff in 1916 (Tammany-supported, he won, of course), a large painting of the man bordered in red, white, and blue hung in front of the building. By that time Oliver Street had become something of a Politicians Row, home to magistrates, state senators, and even the coroner. Smith remained on Oliver Street until the mid 1920s. 25 Oliver Street returned to its occupation as a funeral home once again after the Smith family moved upstate while their patriarch was Governor. In 1939 Berenice Abbott photographed the building and two years later a section of bluestone sidewalk from the front of the house was dislodged and placed in the SS Alfred E. Smith, a transport ship. Though named a National Historic Landmark in 1965, today the building is considerably run down.

331 Pearl Street, ca. 1870. In 1854, Harper & Brothers, the preëminent publishing house of 19th century New York, retained architects James Bogardus, the pioneer of "fire proof" architectural cast iron, and John B. Corlies to design a new building for its offices and printing operation. Facing what was then Franklin Square, the Harper & Brothers building was located where the Manhattan approach to the Brooklyn Bridge lies today. "The Harper Establishment; or, How the Story Books Dre Made," an illustrated guide to the state-of-the-art building and the company's printing processes, was published in 1855 by — who else? — Harper's. Although the historic building was razed in 1925, its legacy lives on: the New York Public Library's DeWitt Wallace periodical reading room includes a 1982 mural by Richard Haas documenting landmarks in the city's publishing history, in which Bogardus's facade is featured.

"Rudy’s Lunch, Hungarian American Home Cooking,” the Prohibition-friendly guise of the tavern at the corner of Water and Dover Streets, 1932. Built in 1794 (though the historic district designation report lists 1801), 279 Water Street is the only surviving wood-frame house in Manhattan’s Seaport district. Originally home to a “grocery and wine and porter bottler,” the building’s 19th-century tenants included a variety of alcohol-serving establishments and a brothel, matching the area’s reputation for vice and depravity. The building’s Victorian details date to an 1888 renovation — 5 years after the adjacent Brooklyn Bridge opened — and many of its interior features date to the original construction. The Bridge Cafe opened in 1979 but has been shuttered since Hurricane Sandy, when it was inundated with nine feet of floodwater.

32 Mott Street (tall building, second from right), ca. 1890. 32 Mott Street is a dumbbell-shaped "old-law" tenement that was built in 1897 by the architect Louis Heimeeke. This section of Mott between Pell Street and Chatham Square was the center of late 19th century Chinatown. The ground floor of this building was occupied for more than 100 years by a Chinese store run by generations of the Lee family. The Quong Yuen Shing and Company shop opened here in 1899, changed its name to 32 Mott Street General Store in the mid 20th century and only closed in 2003 due to rising rents. Chinese-American architect Poy Gum Lee lived here at no. 32.

Doyers seen from Bowery, ca. 1900. The Chinese Tuxedo opened in 1897 as a high-class restaurant catering to both Chinese and white patrons. Established around the same time as a number of other eateries of similar ilk (including Port Arthur on Mott and the Chinese Delmonico on Pell), this restaurant had a district advantage over the others. Location, location, location! The restaurant at the corner of Doyer Street and the Bowery was so close to the Third Avenue elevated that passengers could practically climb out the train car window onto the ornate second-floor balcony. The pretty balcony and large eagle that topped it were eye-catching from both the street and the el, and when those same passengers exited the nearby Chatham Square Station, this was the first Chinese restaurant they encountered. The owners spared no expense with decoration. The entrance included a large and colorful stained glass awning with a dragon perched atop. The balcony was not metalwork but delicately carved teak panels. The interior was a showy display of mosaic tile floors, tin ceilings, lush plants, fountains, and hard carved screens, statues, and moldings. The Chinese Tuxedo was out of business by the 1920s (closing its doors decades before some of it local contemporaries). The ornate facade features were lost and today the building houses a Chase Bank. In 2016 a family-run Chinatown investment company opened a new Chinese Tuxedo Restaurant just down the block from its historical predecessor. The new eatery is located at 5-7 Doyers, a building with its own history. In 1983 a local merchant established the Chinese Opera House at no. 5-7, the first Chinese language theater in New York City and the only Chinese theater east of California at the time.

View of the intersection at Chambers and Centre Streets from the Park Row Station overpass, November 12, 1903.

Uptown entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge station of the IRT Lexington Avenue Line (4/5/6), ca. 1910. Originally known as Brooklyn Bridge, and later as Brooklyn Bridge—Worth Street, the station was connected to the BMT Nassau Line in 1914, a year after the Chambers Street station was completed.

251 Water Street Designed by Carl F. Eisenbach 1893 In 1788-89, Water Street was widened to its current size and paved with cobblestones, but Belgian blocks have since replaced them. John Eitel commissioned this tenement for eight families with stores on the ground floor. This building is an impressive example of the Romanesque Revival style, and features gracious terra-cotta ornament, especially above the entrance on Water Street. The building is separated into three tiers, demarcated between the second and third stories by a stylized foliate band course, and between the fourth and fifth by a geometric-patterned band course. The ground floor features a wooden entrance door in the style of a double-X brace barn door, as well as a set of double doors and wide fanlight enclosed within a large horseshoe arch. The fourth story round-arched windows feature terra-cotta keystones with faces peering down to the street below. The great variety of window treatments and decorative motifs enliven the façade and allow this former tenement building to shine. 251 Water Street is located in the New York City and State and National Register of Historic Places South Street Seaport historic districts.

Municipal Building As a consequence of the consolidation of Greater New York in 1898, space was needed to house additional administrative offices and services for the expanded city. The architectural firm McKim, Mead and White won the 1908 Municipal Building competition with their design for the forty-story building that opened in 1914. I.N. Phelps Stokes, the respected New York City iconographer who was also an architect, said of the resulting building: "Of met actually the prototype of the upward tapering type of skyscraper with highly accentuated vertical lines, at least marked an important step in that direction and had a far-reaching effect upon the design of the modern skyscraper." Furthermore, the Municipal Building exemplified the large new "purpose-built" structures developed to accommodate the newly enlarged city's increasingly complex needs, both civic and commercial. The building's open U-shape encompasses the two triangular blocks bounded by Park Row, Centre, and Duane Streets and straddles Chambers Street, thus forming what has been called the "gate of the city." This view looks west toward the early modern emblem of the "progressive city," which towers over the lower profile of Peck Slip, a vestige of nineteenth-century New York's former maritime dominance. Among the first agencies housed in New York's Municipal Building were the city-owned and operated radio station WNYC, a new reference branch of the New York Public Library, and the city's marriage license bureau. The area around Foley Square, which quickly developed into a modern center of governmental activities, formed a marked contrast to the timeworn neighborhoods that bordered the area.

7-9 Mott Street, undated postcard. The restaurant here on Mott Street was once the most famous Chinese restaurant in the world (according to some). Port Arthur Chinese Restaurant, seen here on the second and third floors of no. 7-9, opened in 1897. One of the ethnic enclave's first eateries, it became a neighborhood landmark and an important cultural hub (Sun Yat-Sun may have eaten here while in New York). The ornate pagoda-styled facade hid an equally showy interior, replete with carved teakwood furniture, massive electric fans, and Chinese lanterns The second floor operated as a space for American tourists looking for an "authentic" experience, while the third floor banquet halls were largely used for private parties, political entertaining, and wedding for the business's Chinese patrons. The well-known and loved restaurant survived until 1974. Thousands of postcards of the restaurant still exist in archives, private collections, and on eBay. The postcards were produced and printed by the business itself as promotional material.

New York City Hall, 1917.

The Public Design Commission (PDC) was established as the Municipal Art Commission by the New York City Charter in 1898 (following the consolidation of NYC). The Commission was tasked with the oversight of all public artworks and monuments, but its purview quickly expanded to include public structures and open spaces. Renamed in 2008, the PDC reviews the design of permanent works of architecture, landscape architecture, and art proposed on or over City-owned property. Projects are submitted by City agencies and include the construction, renovation, or restoration of buildings; the creation or rehabilitation of parks, playgrounds, and plazas; installation of lighting and other streetscape elements; signage; and the installation and conservation of artwork, including monuments and memorials. The Commission also acts as caretaker and curator of the City’s public art collection, which is located throughout the city’s public buildings and open spaces, and maintains an extensive archive documenting the history of New York City's public works. The PDC Archive maintains a collection of projects reviewed by the Commission since 1902, documenting more than 7,000 sites throughout New York City and providing a unique view into the history of the City’s public works. The designs that have been reviewed by the PDC throughout its over 120-year history are representative of the policies and focus of Mayoral administrations while simultaneously following historical trends in public design, public health, and artistic and cultural movements in the city and country at large. The following examples illustrate the breadth of projects under the PDC's purview, from large scale developments to streetscape fixtures that often go unnoticed. For an in-depth history of the Public Design Commission, see Michele H. Bogart’s book, "The Politics of Urban Beauty."

The story of the New York World Building begins directly after the Civil War.

World Building, ca. 1910. In commissioning the controversial New York World Building (1890), Joseph Pulitzer hoped to assert his paper's dominance in American journalism. George B. Post's design stood out, not only for its imposing height (it was the tallest building in New York City in 1890), but also for its colorful facade and iconic dome. The building was 309 feet tall (349 at the tip of the spire). The building was condemned in 1953 and razed in 1955 for a new car entrance ramp onto the Brooklyn Bridge.

Cass Gilbert's final work, the United States Courthouse was completed by his son two years after his death in 1934. It is arguably the last classically themed skyscraper built in New York, which Gilbert used to reflect the building’s function as a public federal building. While the thirty-eight story, 590 foot tall tower lacks the rich ornamentation of earlier work, such as the Woolworth Building, or 90 West Street, its pared-down decoration seems more appropriate for a court of law. The building’s shaft emerges from a six-story classical colonnade, decorated with sculpted American eagles. The tower culminates in a dramatic gilded terra-cotta pyramid roof topped by a lantern. For security reasons, the building's interior is not accessible to the public unless on court business.

New York City Hall. Quite aside from its position as the key governmental building of Great New York, City Hall is an architectural treasure without peer. It was ostensibly designed by the architects Mangin and McComb, working together. However, it is now well established that this delicate creation, with its ample fenestration and curving double staircase, was principally the work of the Frenchman Joseph Francois Mangin.

This trompe l'oeil conceals what author Glenn Palmer-Smith called a "twentieth-century utilitarian intrusion," a Con Edison substation. Artist Richard Haas was commissioned by both energy company and City Walls Inc. to paint this Landmarks Commission-approved mural depicting a revivalist Greek facade with a view of the Brooklyn Bridge. The real bridge is, of course, blocked by the building.

The consolidation of the five boroughs into Greater New York in 1898 created the need for an impressive and suitably-sized headquarters for the city government. Between 1907 and 1908 the city sponsored an architectural competition for a large office building to consolidate various agencies. Urged by Mayor McClelland to enter, the firm of McKim, Mead & White won with a proposal for a classically detailed skyscraper. Designed by a partner William Mitchell Kendall (1856- 1941), the U-shaped structure was adroitly placed on an irregular site adjacent to the ramps of the Brooklyn Bridge and crisscrossed underground by transit connections. Completed in 1913, the 25-story block is surmounted by a central "wedding-cake" tower of spires, colonnades, obelisks and the sculpture "Civic Fame" by Adolf A. Weinman. This skyscraper grafts the language of traditional civic architecture onto a commercial office block form. The Municipal Building underwent a complete restoration of its exterior masonry in 1999, which entailed a the replacement of the badly corroded metal pins which hold the granite cladding in place.

Mariners’ Temple Baptist Church, Oliver Street, ca. 1977. The Mariners’ Temple Baptist Church was completed in 1845 as the Oliver Street Baptist Church for a congregation likely dating to the 1790s. The first Oliver Street church, a wooden structure, was lost in an 1843 fire. The Landmarks Preservation commission credits the present Greek revival structure to architect Minard Lafever, while other sources suggest Isaac Lucas, a member of the congregation. In 1863, the church was renamed to Mariner's Temple to reflect its ministry to seamen and immigrants. After decades of declining attendance during the 20th century, church membership has lately rebounded.

155 Worth Street. ca. 1911. The Italian school opened by the Children's Aid Society on Worth Street was originally established in 1855. Situated in the neighborhood known as Five Points, the school (located within the building known as the Five Points' House of Industry) was considered a successful experiment of public education. The eight-story classical designed building seen in this ca. 1910 photograph was likely constructed in the early years of the 20th century. It would not survive long. In 1930, it was replaced by the Egyptian decorated Art Deco New York State Office Building (which today is the location of the Manhattan Marriage Bureau, and thousand of 'city hall' weddings).

New York City Hall ARCHITECT: Joseph-François Mangin; John McComb, Jr. DATE: 1802-11 STYLE: Federal, French City Hall displays unusual architectural detail throughout representing both Federal and French influences. It is a marble building executed in the best tradition of fine craftsmanship. It is a building which – for over one hundred and fifty years – has provided the dignified setting in which the most important events in the history of the City have taken place. It is basically C-shaped in plan with two end wings projected forward at the front. It consists of two stories above a high basement. At the center, an attic story rises above the main roof level and is surmounted by a handsome domed cupola.

20 Mott Street (three-story building with double balconies), ca. 1900. The Baohuanghui (Protect the Emperor Society or the Chinese Empire Reform Association) was founded by exiled Chinese reformer Kang Youwei in 1899 to promote constitutional reform in China (and the return of Guangxu Emperor to power). It became the first and the largest Chinese transnational organization. Various locations on Mott Street housed the New York headquarters of this organization in the first half of the 20th century. In 1902 and 1903 the Baohuanghui used an address at 20 Mott Street to communicate with their members, before moving on to nos 5, 6, 7-9, and 12 Mott in later years.

Architect John McComb, who had designed Castle Clinton in Battery Park, joined forces with Joseph Francois Mangin, an emigré architect from France, to win the competition to design a new home for the city government. McComb and Mangin eschewed the standard English forms and simple materials that had until then defined the architecture of the new republic. Instead, their design referenced French sources reflecting post-revolutionary politics City Hall Park has recently undergone extensive remodeling which created an open space with a nineteenth-century character. The elaborate tiled fountain and gaslights at the center of the park are reproductions of the park's mid-nineteenth-century fixtures.

The Walter Franklin House (also known as the Samuel Osgood House), where President George Washington lived between April, 1789 and February 1790, making it the First Presidential residence. The building was demolished in 1856. Today, the Brooklyn Bridge approach rises over its site.

Manhattan Company Reservoir, 1855 The Manhattan Company Reservoir opened on Chambers Street in 1801. Rather than following a more costly plan to bring water from the Bronx, the Manhattan Company cut corners, using ground wells with risk of contamination by sewers, all supplied by the polluted Collect Pond nearby. Wooden mains made of pine logs supplied water to the area via principal streets, which risked freezing in winter or damage by tree roots. While the company promised a one-million gallon reservoir to support the city’s growing population, it delivered one 10% of the size. The reservoir was razed in the early 20th century, following the opening of the Croton System.

By Harold Schechter When Joseph Pulitzer purchased the New York World in May 1883, a typical front page consisted of a half-dozen columns of densely packed type, unrelieved by illustrations or eye-catching headlines. Viewed from a slight distance, the page resembled a solid block of gray print, so dreary in appearance that the layout was referred to as a “tombstone.” The content was equally numbing. On May 10, 1883—its last day under the ownership of the financier Jay Gould—the World ran page-one stories on the recent nominations submitted to the Board of Aldermen, the forthcoming dedication of the Brooklyn Bridge, and the election of the executive committee of the American Cocker Spaniel Club. Little wonder that the paper had a daily circulation of fewer than 12,000 copies and was losing $40,000 a year. Read this in its original format here.

"Riots in New York July-Aug '63; northeast corner of Catherine and Cherry Street during the Draft Riots in 1863." The New York City Draft Riots were a week-long violent action that occurred in Manhattan in the summer of 1863. The impetus for the riots was discontent among working-class populations (largely Irish immigrants) with new laws regarding a draft for the Civil War. The working classes were upset at the wealthy who could buy their way out of conscription for $300. What began as a discontent regarding the draft, in the days as the first draft numbers were being drawn, quickly devolved into race riots. White mobs attacked black people and their homes, public buildings, the homes of abolitionists, churches, and in a violent conflagration, the Colored Orphan Asylum at 44th Street and Fifth Avenue was burned to the ground. The police department attempted to quell the violence but had little luck. (The police superintendent John Alexander Kennedy was brutally beaten.) The military eventually arrived and by July 16 (four days after the riot had begun) there were several thousand Federal troops in the city, and news had begun to spread that the draft was being postponed. The results of the riots were drastic, 120 people killed, more than 2000 injured, hundreds of homes and business damaged and 11 black men lynched. As a result of this violence, many blacks who lived in Manhattan left the city and moved to Brooklyn. The population shift was so dramatic that by 1865, the number of blacks living in Manhattan was lower than it had been in 1820.

41 Park Row ca. 1975. The New York Times moved to Park Row in 1857 after outgrowing its rented quarters at Nassau and Beekman streets. 41 Park Row would be the third office location for the rapidly growing Times since its founding in 1851. The Times Building was designed by architect Thomas R. Jackson as two mirror-image five-story stone buildings facing onto Printing House Square and City Hall Park. Printing presses and other machinery occupied the basement levels and the paper's offices were located on the first, fourth, and fifth floors, leaving two floors available for rent. Tenants included the Surrogate Court Office and the Patent Office. By 1888, the high-rise development of Park Row and the demand for rentable space in the area prompted the Times to capitalize on its prime location with a building that would more than double their space and provide additional rental income. George B. Post, the country's pre-eminent architect-engineer, was hired to design and erect the new building on the same site without interrupting any of the paper's operations. As the cover of Scientific American here shows, the replacement literally went up around the old. Stone load-bearing walls were gradually replaced by a metal-cage construction favored by Post that embedded iron members within the granite walls. King's Handbook of 1893 declared the new Times Building: "discreet, moderate, bold, vigorous, perfect in every detail of ornamentation, in moldings, in capitals, in gargoyles, so beautiful that it charms the naïve and the refined, the ignorant and the most learned, in art; the Times Building is the Times expressed in stone." After the paper relocated to Times Square in 1905, the former Times Building was renamed 41 Park Row and enlarged. Architect Robert Maynicke designed the alteration, which included the removal of the original mansard roof and the inclusion of two additional stories. Today, Pace University occupies the building.

Soy Kee Co. Store, undated postcard. Soy Kee Co. was a department store of Chinese goods, offering silks, antiques, ceramics, embroidery and tea leaves. Originally established prior to 1897 at a space at 36 Pell Street, the shop moved to nos. 7-9 in the early 20th century. The date of the store's closing is unknown, but it was out of business by 1970.

41 Mott Street, 1933. No. 41 (at the center of the frame with the balcony at the top) was home to the Chinese Merchants Association or the On Leong Tong, in the first half of the 20th century. The Association celebrated the opening of their new headquarters in 1921 with an eleven-day celebration. Its opening night saw 15,000 revelers crowding the narrow street of Chinatown and more than 6,000 merchants from 20 different cities. In 1950 the On Leong Tong Merchants Association moved into a new Chinese Modern building on Mott and Canal Streets. Since 1977 No. 41 was has been owned by the Lee Family Association, the oldest and largest tong in New York City. The building today has a modern style white facade, installed at an unknown date in the midcentury. Its lower floor has long been home to Golden Fung Wong Bakery, one of the oldest bakeries in Chinatown.

207-211 Water Street Architect- uncertain but probably David Louderback 1835-36 The three warehouses at 207-211 Water Street were likely built by David Louderback, a mason who owned one of them. Excellent examples of the Greek Revival style, they feature monolithic granite piers with Tuscan capitals, brick bearing walls and Flemish bond brickwork in a distinguished, warm orange color. The façades are unified by granite lintels above the six-over-six windows and the granite cornice that spans all three rooftops. The South Street Seaport Museum owns the buildings, which they adaptively reused: No. 207 is the Museum Visitor’s Center; No. 209 is the Museum Books and Charts Store; and No. 211 is Bowne & Co. Stationers, a 19th-century print shop where old printing techniques and equipment are still in use. 207-211 Water Street is is located in the New York City and State and National Register of Historic Places South Street Seaport historic districts.

South Street between Peck Slip and Dover Street, April 1, 1937. No. 45 Peck Slip is the last building on the left of the row. Towers in the background are (left to right): Farmer's Trust, 60 Wall Tower, Bank of Manhattan, and 116 John Street. The large chimney is the New York Steam Corporation at 130 John Street.

Henry Street view towards City Hall and the Woolworth Building, 1938. Surprisingly little has changed on this block in nearly eighty years: many of the tenement buildings are still standing, and a parking lot continues to operate on the south side of the street.