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

Wong Family Association, 1960s. One of Poy Gum Lee's final designs in Chinatown, the Wong Family Association Building is also perhaps his most strictly modern. While most of his other designs in New York were somewhat heavily influenced by Chinese architectural styles, this structure had an overt mid-century modern facade. The building was constructed for a Chinese benevolent society which assisted new immigrants and created and organized social, political, and economic structures within the Chinese community.

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.)

361 Broadway Building ARCHITECT: W. Wheeler Smith DATE: 1881-82 STYLE: Cast-iron This building is an important survivor of the mid-19th century commercial development of New York. It is a rare extant work of W. Wheeler Smith, a prominent late-19th century New York architect. It is among the last commercial 11 palazzi 11 built in New York and one of the last and largest cast-iron buildings constructed in the city. Its unusual abstract floral ornament is almost entirely intact. It is one of the handsomest representatives in New York of cast-iron architecture, an extraordinary and uniquely American architectural development.

My Archive Spring 2019 "Tent & Trails: self-portrait with my buddy Nate on a downtown open house day in 1997." —Ethan Wolff

Kitchen, Montross & Wilcox Store ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1861 STYLE: Cast-iron The 85 Leonard Street Building is the last remaining building in New York City by James Bogardus, self-described “inventor of cast-iron buildings.” It is one of the few extant buildings of cast iron designed in the so-called “sperm candle” style, a style which uses classical elements in combination with a non-classical emphasis on verticality, lightness, and openness, and that the fine quality and wealth of detail enhance the basic forms of the building and illustrate the desirability of cast-iron as a building material in the 19th century.

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.

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."

By Robert Pigott As a bit of greenery opposite the Criminal Court on Centre Street has replaced an unsightly municipal parking lot, the name given this new park -– Collect Pond Park -- evokes 400 years of New York City history. The soggy origins of the block containing the new park pre-date the 17th-century encounter of the Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam and the Native Americans who inhabited the woods, fields, streams, and ponds that were pre-colonial Manhattan. Read this in its original format here.

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.

Cary Building ARCHITECT: King & Kellum DATE: 1856-57 STYLE: Cast-iron The Cary Building’s two cast-iron facades are among the earliest surviving in New York. It was built in 1856-57 for the early dry goods department store of Cary, Howard & Sanger. It was one of the first important cast-iron buildings fabricated by D.D. Badger’s Architectural Iron Works, the most important architectural iron foundry in 19th-century New York. Its design is a key monument in mid-19th-century commercial architecture, marking the joining of the Italianate style with the cast-iron technology.

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

Bo-Bo Restaurant, ca, 1975. The Chinese restaurant called Bo-Bo's (at 20 1/2 Pell Street, right) was a well-loved local institution between the 1950s and 1980s. The menu was up on a board on the wall and with less than a dozen tables, the wait could be an hour. Those who remember the spot even today say the wait was always worth it. The signage notes the restaurant's name and states "the home of Chinese actors." Ester Eng, who was a partner in Bo-Bo's and owned another nearby eatery was an early director in Chinese cinema, and many Chinese actors frequented the spot.

Woods Mercantile Buildings ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1865 STYLE: Italian Renaissance The Woods Mercantile Buildings are fine examples of the palazzo node of architecture which was based on Italian Renaissance prototypes. The elegant simplicity and restraint of the facades indicate their original utilitarian function. They are representatives of a period of the city’s history when White Street was part of the country’s textile and dry goods center.

39 Worth Street Building ARCHITECT: Isaac F. Duckworth DATE: 1866 STYLE: Italianate, Second Empire The 39 Worth Street Building was constructed for James Smith, a prominent manufacturer of fire engines. It was designed in a transitional style incorporating elements of the Italianate and Second Empire styles. The deep cornice features foliate modillions, a central segmental pediment, four large brackets with pellet molding and latticework, classically-inspired frieze and scalloped corbel table. Each story is separated by paneled spandrels and plinths or molded sill course.

Church Street, east side, south from White Street, 1928. The major street work depicted in this 1928 photograph is the cut and cover method of subway construction for the IND Eighth Avenue Line. The groundbreaking ceremony for this new line was held in March of 1925 at St. Nicholas Avenue and 123rd Street and the line opened to the public right after midnight on September 10, 1932 (four years nearly to the day after this photo was taken). Church Street needed to be widened to accommodate the planned infrastructure. The west side of the street was moved back some 65 feet, with buildings demolished or truncated. 257 Church Street is the building at left on the south corner of Franklin Street, and in the hazy distance stands the Woolworth Building.

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.

378-374 Broadway, showing the Remington Company Building, ca. 1920. Remington is most well known as a manufacturer of guns, but at various points in their history they (and related firms) also produced items such as sewing machines and typewriters. In 1873 they released for sale the the first commercial typewriter. The machines were produced in Ilion, New York and introduced QWERTY, the keyboard layout for Latin script. In 1886 Remington sold the typewriter business to the Standard Typewriter Manufacturing Company, Inc. the three buyers were former employees, Misters Wickoff, Seamans, and Benedict. The company that would become Remington Typewriter Company (so named c.1905) originally had their headquarters at 327 Broadway (as early 1892, perhaps earlier). Circa 1910 they retrofitted a series of buildings (no. 327 and the surrounding ones) to make one large structure for Remington. After outgrowing the space they moved to the pictured structure at 374-378 Broadway. This building was replaced in 1988-1990 with the 26-story apartment house currently on the lot.

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.

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.

287 Broadway ARCHITECT: John B. Snook DATE: 1871-72 STYLE: Second Empire The 287 Broadway Building is notable for its combination of the Italianate and French Second Empire styles as executed in cast iron, and one of the few surviving examples in New York city. It is executed in richly detailed cast iron and is crowned by a prominent slate mansard roof with iron cresting. The prestige of the building was indicated both by the mansard roof and the installation of an early Otis passenger elevator. The building graphically illustrates the transformation of lower Broadway in the 19th century from a residential boulevard into the city’s commercial center.

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.

Workers lay pipe for the high pressure water system along Chambers Street, between Church Street and West Broadway; undated photo.

“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.

96 Bayard Street, 1932.

New York Life Insurance Company Building STATUS Designated Exterior and Interior Landmark 346 Broadway ARCHITECT: Stephen Decatur Hatch; McKim, Mead & White DATE: 1894-99 STYLE: Neo-Italian, Neo-Renaissance This building is a fine example of the neo-Italian palazzo mode popularized by Mckim, Mead & White. The interiors of the building are designed using excellent craftsmanship and lavish materials, typical of the finest buildings of the turn of the century. These interiors are designed in the neo-Renaissance style, and they bear the personal stamp of their architects.

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.

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.

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

South from 125 Worth Street, view of Thomas Paine Park and Foley Square beyond. In the late 18th century the land that is now Thomas Paine Park was part of a freshwater swamp. Now surrounded by municipal buildings and courthouses, during the Revolution it was encircled by three former British prisons for American rebels. Later part of the notorious Five Points, most of its buildings were condemned in the late 19th century. The City acquired the land in 1913, and it was officially named for the patriot and author Thomas Paine in 1977. In 2000, it along with nearby parcels in Foley Square were combined to form one larger open space.

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.

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.

No 380-382 Broadway, at the northeast corner of White Street, ca. 1912. The Italianate style white marble corner building was completed in 1860, with its first tenants including a variety of commercial interests related to the Civil War effort (garment and shoe makers, recruiters). In the opening decade of the 1900s, the Cincinnati-based Globe-Wernicke Co., manufacturers of office furniture, became the building's anchor tenant, with advertisements adorning the facade and roof. Today, the building is home to the offices of several performing arts organizations.

The Wah Yan Mue Temple was located above the Temple Garden Restaurant at 16 Pell Street in the Hip Sing Building. Hip Sing Tong is one of a dozen tongs or business and neighborhood associations that assisted new immigrants with services, jobs, and a community. Hip Sing, established in the 1850s, is also well known in the 20th century as a criminal organization. The original temple on the upper floors of 16 Pell was the Fut Cho Mue Buddhist Temple. Its successor was the Wah Yan Mue Temple, which seems to have utilized some of the same items, including the ceremonial gong (seen at right).

Broadway Chambers Building ARCHITECT: Cass Gilbert DATE: 1899-1900 STYLE: Beaux-Arts The Broadway-Chambers Building was important within Cass Gilbert’s career because it was his first design built in New York City. It is designed in the Beaux-Arts style and, as is characteristic of the style, the building is richly ornamented with monumental sculpted figures, a dramatically arcuated crown, and a wealth of garlands, wreaths, and festoons. The Broadway Chambers Building is notable for its polychromy and early use of glazed terra-cotta. At the time it was built, the building was considered one of the best examples of the tripartite design scheme which is analogous to the classical column.

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.

Public Buildings and Court Houses: Manhattan, Department of Health, 125 Worth Street, 1938

The Chinese Merchant's Associaton was built in 1950 by Poy Gum Lee. The Museum of Chinese America describes the building as, "a boxy modernist block with modest Chinese decorative motifs...the most iconic building in Chinatown, the pagoda-topped On Leong Tong building typified Lee’s Chinese modern style." Poy Gum Lee, born and educated in New York, was the architectural consultant for the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association. This was the first building to be constructed in a style reflective of Chinese-American culture. Additionally, Poy Gum Lee was the first well-known architect of Chinese-American descent to build in Chinatown. The building houses the On Leong Tong, or the Chinese Merchants Association, a tong society established in 1893. This building was part of the tong's territory. Upon its formation, the On Leong Tong feuded with the Hip Sing Tong over control of the area. Tongs were mutual aid societies established to protect Chinese families and businesses against racism and prejudice in the United States. Many tongs were quickly associated with street gangs as violence between tongs was not uncommon. In extension, tongs found profit in appealing to vices, and many tongs were sustained by running brothels, opium dens, and gambling houses. However, tongs acted as the court and police force for Chinese-American communities, providing a semi-legitimate structure for communities otherwise unprotected by the government. The On Leong Tong is still operational and maintains over 3,000 members.

39-41 Worth Street, ca. 1970-1990. No. 39 (at left) and no. 41 (center) are two cast-iron store-and-loft buildings constructed within one year of each other and designed by Isaac F. Duckworth. No. 39 was constructed ca. 1866 in mix of Italianate and Second Empire styles as an investment for James Smith, a manufacturer of fire engines. For more than 100 years (1860s through the 1970s) the building was occupied by various dry goods companies. Today it is, unsurprisingly, a residence. No. 41 was designed by same architect one year before no. 39. The “Venetian” Italianate style store-and-loft building also included a cast-iron facade by Daniel D. Badger’s Architectural Iron Works. Both buildings have retained much of their original detail above the ground floor. The AIA Guide to NYC notes that the first floors have been "castrated by banal 'modernization'."

Prisco State Bank, 1927. Prisco State Bank was founded in by an Italian man named Raffaele Prisco in the mid 1920s and occupied this classical style bank building on Mulberry Street in the heart of what was Little Italy at the time. In 1931 the bank was closed by a New York State Banking Agency and Prisco was arrested and charged with grand larceny. The charges involved withdrawing funds from an account held by the bank to pay a personal debt. Along with Raffaele, his two sons and a third employee were also charged and served time for the crime. When the bank closed, many of its clients, small businessmen of the neighborhood, lost their funds.

My Archive Spring 2019 "This is my great-great-great grandfather’s hat shop. His name was John Henry Day. He was born in New York in 1832 and died in 1909." —Todd Hirsch

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.

Northwest corner of Church and Chambers Streets, 1927. The two five-story buildings on this corner were demolished in the early 1930s widening of Church Street. Today the building at the northwest corner of this intersection is the arched window Cary Building seen at the far left of this image.

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.

Chambers Street: Ruby's Book Sale (No. 119, left) and the former Irving Savings Bank (No. 115, center), ca. 1976. Ruby’s Book Sale, which opened in 1960 and moved to Tribeca in 1970, closed in March of 2005 after 45 years of business.

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.

Cary Building Designed by King & Kellum, 1856-57 New York’s commercial influence grew in the mid-19th century, with the help of buildings like this one. Its early use of cast-iron and Italianate forms (most likely influenced by the A. T. Stewart Store) makes it a great example of some major trends and developments of its time. Cast by Daniel D. Badger’s Architectural Iron Works, it was one of the first to incorporate a façade made entirely of cast-iron. Its upper four stories are identical, with arched window openings supported by paired Corinthian columns and faux rustication to imitate stone. At its crown are a bracketed cornice and a pedimented roof with a cartouche bearing the building’s name. The Cary Building is a New York City designated Individual Landmark and listed on the State and National Register of Historic Places.

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

Workers install bracing ahead of excavation for the construction of the BRT Centre Street Loop, October 8, 1909. This building, No. 112 Centre Street, stood at the northeast corner of Centre and Franklin Streets. All the buildings on this block were razed in the 1930s in preparation for the construction of the Manhattan Criminal Court building at 100 Centre Street.

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

"White Street, at, adjoining and east of the north east corner of Centre Street, showing prominently three 2 1/2 story buildings bearing No's. 118 to 122 inclusive, 1938."

Broadway Chambers ca. 1905 Architect Cass Gilbert worked in New York as a draftsman for the renowned firm of McKim, Mead & White for a year before establishing a successful practice in Minnesota. The opportunity to design the Broadway Chambers building however, lured him back to New York. The success of this project (completed in 1899) established Gilbert in the City, where his distinguished career continued with his winning design for the U.S. Custom House and later, the commission for the iconic Woolworth Building. Still used as office space, the Broadway Chambers Building was designated a landmark in 1992.

125 Worth Street, 1936. Designed by Charles B. Meyers in a mix of Classical Revival and Art Deco styles, 125 Worth Street was constructed between 1932 and 1935. The large structure first housed the city's Department of Health. Today it is home to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the Health and Hospitals Corporation and the Sanitation Department.

Signage at 319 Broadway, looking at the facade of 317 Broadway, March 6, 1936.

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.

City Hall Subway Station, ca. 1905. Considered the "crown jewel" of the original 28 IRT subway stations, the Old City Hall Station was in service from 1904 until 1945. Designed by architects Heins and LaFarge, the ornate station, with its curved track, was the showpiece of the city's new transit system. Tiled Guastavino ceilings rendered as soaring arches, brass chandeliers, and gorgeous leaded glass skylights wowed crowds on opening day October 27, 1904. By the 1940s the station was hardly being used. The nearby Brooklyn Bridge station was more convenient. Likewise the tight curve of this station made it difficult to operate as train technology developed and trains got longer. During the Second World War the skylights were blacked out and in 1945 the station was closed entirely. Renewed interest in the station prompted a plan for restoration and a museum annex location in the 1990s, but safety concerns (it sits directly under City Hall) stymied the plans.

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.

City Prison (1902) ca. 1939 The City Prison on Centre Street, nicknamed the Tombs after type of Egyptian edifice that inspired the original building, was notorious for its poor incarceration conditions. This imposing Gothic structure, the second prison erected at this site, opened in 1902 and contained 320 cells and two chapels. Prisoners were led to trial at the Criminal Courts Building next door through the mid-air Bridge of Sighs connecting the two buildings. This structure was replaced in 1939 with the present city prison located across the street.

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.

The building at 280 Broadway has been known by a number of names since it was erected in 1846 (later additions and alterations occurred between 1852 and 1884). Built for the A.T. Stewart Company, it was not only the first commercial building in the Italianate style in the United States but is also considered the country's first department store. The John B. Snook and Joseph Trench-designed marble structure remained home to Stewart's dry goods store until 1876. During the last 14 years, it housed only the wholesale trade, as the retail business had moved further uptown to 9th Street. Converted into an office building (two new stories were added to the five-story structure), it became the home to the New York Sun newspaper when they purchased it in 1917. Known as the Sun Building, the new owners installed a bronze clock (seen here) at the building's southwest corner. The paper folded in 1953 and the city took the title during condemnation proceedings. Though the building was to be razed for a planned civic center development, it remained. Substantially renovated between 1995 and 2002, today the building is home to the city's Department of Buildings and lower level retail.

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.

City Prison, 1938.

Former A.T. Stewart Building 280 Broadway, Joseph Trench & John B. Snook, 1845-46 280 Broadway is one of New York’s most significant commercial structures. Built for Alexander Turney Stewart’s department store—the city’s first—the building and the business greatly impacted the city’s economic growth and American merchandising. With this building, Stewart introduced America to the pleasant shopping experience and to the idea that architecture can be employed to reflect a business’ image. Its marble façades emulated an Italian Renaissance palace, a trend for commercial architecture in London, with which Stewart was familiar. This style was a major departure from New York’s low-scale, simple commercial buildings, and it was imitated into the 20th century.

Mutual Reserve Fund Life Association ARCHITECT: William H. Hume DATE: 1892-94 STYLE: Richardsonian Romanesque Revival The 13-story (plus basement) Mutual Reserve Building is one of New York City’s most significant examples of a tall late-19th-century office building designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque Revival style, with its two designed facades featuring granite and limestone cladding, rusticated piers, foliate carving, and arcaded base and upper section. The building is notable as an early steel cage-framed structure in New York, constructed just prior to the full development of the skyscraper.

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.

Centre Street, west side, from Leonard to Franklin Street's, showing the entrance to the original 'Tombs," ca. 1890. Formally called the New York Halls of Justice and House of Detention, the Tombs was the municipal jail in Manhattan. A series of jail buildings in this location have used that nickname, though the one pictured here was the first. Designed in an Egyptian Revival style in 1838, the jail was a huge structure at 250 feet by 200 feet. The site of the massive building was the former location of the Collect Pond, which had once supplied the city with drinking water.

Fire Engine Company No. 7/Hook & Ladder Company No. 1 ARCHITECT: Trowbridge & Livingston DATE: 1904-05 STYLE: Beaux-Arts Firehouse was designed in the Beaux-Arts style–or what at the time was described as the “modern French” style. Its three-bay width was dictated by the two-bay requirement of an enlarged engine company and a third bay for a separate hook & ladder company. The architects created a facade remarkable for its symmetry and emphatic horizontality. It is visually unified by superimposed architectural elements drawn from early seventeenth-century French civic architecture: the boldly rusticated Indiana limestone ground story, the brick and raised limestone bands of the upper stories, the entablature and parapet.

The corner building at 85 Mott Street began its history as a luxurious brick-fronted home, complete with all the trappings of a Federal-style while also holding on to some Georgian elements. It featured dormers on a peaked roof, a pair of chimneys, and charming arched windows. Owing to its corner location, it perhaps received much more sunlight than most mid-block Federals. It likely only remained a single-family home for a short time, as the density of the city closed in on it. By 1835 it, and its two Mott Street neighbors, were bought by the Bull family and became multifamily dwellings. . Over the next century, the structure at no. 85 saw likely thousands of residents cycling through the various ethnic communities that inhabited the neighborhood. In the 1870s the ground floor was converted into commercial space, occupied by variously by a tavern and retail shops. . The Bull family sold the three buildings in 1939 and Chinatown-born architect Poy Gum Lee was hired to design a new structure for the On Leong Tong, or Chinese Merchants Association. The resulting building, completed in 1951, was a cultural hybrid, which combined a Modern style with stereotypical “Chinese” features, like a pagoda roof and projecting balconies.

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

Built in 1895 and designed by architects Napoleon LeBrun & Sons, the firehouse has the look of a 16th-century French chateau. It has ornate decorative stonework details of shells, dolphins and floral wreaths. The main section of the building has a high hip-roof, towers, elaborately embellished dormer windows, and an iron railing at the peak. The building was occupied by the fire department until 1972. Since that same year, it has been occupied (and the exterior lovingly maintained) by the Downtown Community Television Center, a non-profit media arts center.

New York City is known for many things: Art Deco skyscrapers, picturesque parks, the world’s greatest theater district, venerable museums and educational institutions, not to mention bagels and pizza! But above all of these, New York is most important as home to some of the world’s most fascinating and significant people and as the site of impactful and significant happenings throughout history. The city’s cultural influence is, perhaps, its greatest contribution to the world, and its built environment stands as a grand scavenger hunt of clues waiting to be uncovered. Lucky for us, the city’s Landmarks Law, passed in 1965, provides the legal framework for protecting the physical reminders of the city’s cultural wealth. In fact, one of the stated purposes of the Landmarks Law is to “safeguard the city’s historic, aesthetic and cultural heritage.” In the first 50 years that landmarks were designated by the City, much emphasis was placed on the historic and aesthetic. In recent years, though, more consideration has been made for the importance of sites associated with people or historical events, rather than just for their architectural or historical value. In 2015, the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) designated the Stonewall Inn as an Individual Landmark solely for its association with the Stonewall Uprising of 1969. In 2018, the Commission designated the Central Harlem—West 130th-132nd Streets Historic District, describing it as “not only representative of Central Harlem’s residential architecture, but the rich social, cultural, and political life of its African American population in the 20th century.” Also, in recent years, Greenwich Village’s Caffe Cino and Julius’ Bar were listed on the National Register of Historic Places as significant and influential sites connected to the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBTQ) community, The New York Times profiled a historian giving tours of Muslim sites of significance in Harlem, and the City is commemorating some of our most storied and accomplished female citizens with the installation of statues in all five boroughs. Indeed, grassroots preservation activism around the city is also swelling around sites of cultural significance: Tin Pan Alley and Little Syria in Manhattan, Walt Whitman’s house in Brooklyn, Arthur Avenue in The Bronx and a recently-rediscovered African burial ground in Queens, to name a few. In response to this movement of interest in cultural landmarks, the Historic Districts Council undertook an initiative to highlight such places as one of its Six to Celebrate in 2018. The culmination of that effort was a conference in October 2018 entitled “Beyond Bricks and Mortar: Rethinking Sites of Cultural History.” The conference convened preservationists, historians, artists, planners, place-makers and more to work together to clarify what cultural significance is and how it can work, how to document and create compelling narratives around cultural sites, and how to identify the specific challenges of cultural sites from a preservationist perspective. This tour provides just a sample of some of the city’s cultural landmarks, organized thematically and representing all five boroughs. The list includes some sites that are legally protected — in some cases by more than one government body — and some that are unfortunately in danger of being lost. Preserving culturally significant sites that may not possess overtly aesthetic value often requires a particularly active and engaged form of advocacy to achieve protection from the wrecking ball. But, as long as there are interesting people making their mark on New York City and crucial events taking place here, that effort will never be in vain, since those stories are the lifeblood of this vibrant place.

Cortlandt Alley looking south to White Street (77 White Street visible), 1994. Cortlandt Alley is one of the few New York City alleys that retains its dark, seedy charm. In sunlit, polished (and often posh) Manhattan, this small, secluded stretch looks like what you might imagine the movie version of a New York alley looks like. Here the graffiti, fire escapes, metal shutters, and backdoors remain, creating a narrow street that was first laid out in 1817 and is named for the founding Dutch family, the Van Cortlandts.

The former "Idea Warehouse," 22 Reade Street, 1999. In 1973, Clocktower Gallery and P.S. 1 founder Alanna Heiss leased space in a city-owned building on Reade Street, under the imprimatur of the Institute of Art and Urban Resources. Studio occupants included the composer Philip Glass, performance artist Charlemagne Palestine, and avant-garde theatre company Mabou Mines, while an additional space was reserved for performances and exhibitions. The space closed in December 1975, following a fire. In materials for the New Museum's 1981 survey of the city's history of alternative spaces, "Alternatives in Restrospect: An Historical Overview 1969-1975," Palestine reflected: "Recalling the Idea Warehouse to my mind, I remember a space of haunted power, seemingly possessed by strange spirits. Any works that took place there seemed to contain something extraterrestrial, almost as thought it housed ghost refugees from a seance long ago. I loves that space as did many other people. Spaces like that are almost extinct now."

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.

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.

New York Post Office, 1912.

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."

Langdon Building, 1922. Originally known as the Mutual Reserve Fund Life Association Building, the Langdon Building is a Romanesque Revival structure designed by William Hume. The 13-story building was completed between 1892 and 1894 and it was one of the first towers in the city to use a steel frame structure (a sort of early version of a skyscraper). While the Mutual Reserve Fund Life Association occupied a number of floors, the other floors, including the ground level, included a barber shop, cigar stand, bike showroom, ticket office, and telegraph and telephone offices. The Association moved out in 1909 when it went into bankruptcy and the building was renamed the next year. This building later served as the headquarters for the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission between 1967 and 1980.

St. James School, ca. 1980.

47 St. James Place, ca. 1975.

317 and 319 Broadway, March 6, 1936. Constructed in 1869–70, Italianate cast-iron buildings at no. 317 and 319 were designed by D. & J. Jardine. This firm is well represented in surviving 19th century commercial and residential buildings in the Ladies Mile, Upper East Side, Soho, and Greenwich Village Historic Districts. Called the "Thomas Twins" for the street they straddled, the mirrored five-story buildings remained together 1971 when no. 317 was demolished. The entrances to the buildings were both originally at what is now the second story, and were moved to altered ground floors in 1912. In this 1936 photograph, the second story of no. 319 seems to be encased in glass. Today the glass has been removed and the original entrance (now window) arch and its two neighbors on the second floor are unobstructed.

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.

The intersection of Canal, Baxter, and Walker Streets, ca. 1870. The above view is westward, toward the Hudson River. At center left, west of Centre Street, is the warehouse of the M\&G Wilkinson wood and willow ware wholesalers. At bottom left is the Grand Street Ferry-bound streetcar, likely en route from the Cortlandt Street Ferry downtown. The image, credited to "American Photo," also appears in the New York Public Library's Photographic views of New York City collection. Notes there date it to ca. 1860, though the presence of M\&G Wilkinson advertising (founded 1867) indicate a later date.

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.

74 Franklin Street, date unknown. This Federal-style building was constructed in 1815 by a John Wood, likely a successful merchant. In 1853 the structure was purchased by G. A. Bradbrook and the ground floor was converted into a venue for his 'outfitting store.' At that time the cast iron storefront was added, as well as the full fourth floor with an Italianate pressed metal cornice. Later tenants of the storefront included shops that sold 'fancy goods and corsets' and one that produced and sold umbrellas and parasols. The upper floors were converted into a factory space. Throughout the 20th century the building cycled through a long lists of owners and tenants. In 1998 the upper floors returned to residential occupation, likely for the first time in nearly 150 years, while the lower level remains a commercial showroom.

Kitchen, Montross & Wilcox Store, No. 85 Leonard Street, ca. 1974. Constructed on property owned by the estate of Thomas Swords, this cast iron structure was commissioned in 1861 by dry goods merchants Kitchen, Montross, & Wilcox. The firm, leased the land to architect James Bogardus under the condition that he erect “a good and substantial store house.” When completed in 1861, he unveiled a five-story Italianate structure that amazed its owners. Unlike the neighboring buildings made of stone, the facade at No. 85 Leonard Street was made from cast-iron, allowing for greater detail in its ornamentation. Kitchen, Montross & Wilcox operated a retail store in the building until 1868, whereafter the ground floor remained in use by various other dry goods merchants. In the late 20th century, Joseph Salamon of FRF Promotional Fabrics purchased the building and rented out the fourth floor as an artists' studio. In 1974, the site achieved Landmark designation, in recognition of its significance as perhaps the only extant structure by Bogardus (while a handful of other Bogardus-designed cast iron facades remain on buildings associated with other architects, the design construction of 85 Leonard is believed to have been executed by Bogardus, alone). A plaque testifying to his influence reads: "James Bogardus, Originator and Constructor of Iron Buildings, New York."

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.

51 Chambers Street ARCHITECT: Raymond F. Almirall DATE: 1908-12 STYLE: Beaux-Arts The Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank, established in 1850, was an important aid to Irish immigrants settling in New York during the second half of the 19th century. This building, the third for the institution on the same site, was designed by Raymond Almirall, a noted New York architect. Almirall’s Beaux-Arts style design represents an important stage in the early development of the design of skyscrapers. He pioneered the use the “H”-plan to provide good interior lighting.

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."

The Wood's Mercantile buildings, Nos. 46 and 48-50 White Street, ca. 1982. The Wood's Mercantile Buildings, described as "handsome examples of mid-19th century commercial architecture," were built in 1865 as storehouses for the brothers Samuel and Wood, importers of dry goods. The five-story marble buildings include a ground floor cast iron facade, in keeping with the Civil War-era fashion for commercial buildings throughout present-day Soho and Tribeca.

The African Burial Ground is considered the largest colonial- era cemetery for enslaved African people, and in addition to being of great historical and spiritual significance, is a major resource for the study of the African diaspora. The African Burial Ground is part of the African Burial Ground & The Commons Historic District; a National Historic Landmark and listed on the State and National Register of Historic Places.

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.

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.

My Archive Spring 2019

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

Storefront and barbershop at the southwest corner of Church and Reade Streets; February 27, 1927. The building at left, No. 170 Church Street (a.k.a. 85-87 Reade Street) would soon be demolished to facilitate the widening of Church Street for construction on the IND Eighth Avenue line. The demolition exposed the eastern wall of the Cary Building, the 1850s-era cast iron fronted loft building stretching the full block between Chambers and Reade Streets.

254-260 Canal Street ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1856-57 STYLE: Italianate This building is one of the earliest surviving cast-iron fronted buildings in New York. It is an excellent early example of the successful adaptation of the Italianate style to cast-iron architecture. It is representative of the development of the “commercial palace” type in response to the unparalleled commercial growth of New York City in the early 19th century

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.

277 Broadway - Broadway Chambers Building Architect: Cass Gilbert Completed: 1900 Cass Gilbert's first building in New York was this boldly designed tower. Gilbert's design juxtaposes the grandly ornamented pink granite clad base with the plain red and blue brick clad shaft. The tower culminates in a highly ornamented colonnade, attic story and projecting cornice. At the time, this design was hailed by architectural critic Montgomery Schuyler as "the last word" in the period’s dominant skyscraper style, which looked to the classical three-part column for inspiration. The building also features the first large scale use of polychrome terra-cotta architectural ornament in New York, a material that Gilbert would use extensively in later buildings. Even before construction began, building owner Edward Andrews, a Boston banker, aggressively pursued tenants that could pay some of the highest rents in the city, including the main tenant, the United States Life Insurance Company. By 1901, with the building fully rented, Andrews was able to collect $100,000 per year in rent, a considerable sum at the time.

Looking east on Leonard Street toward McKim, Mead & White's Clock Tower Building, the former headquarters of New York Life Insurance Company, 346 Broadway; ca. 1977. In 1868, the New York Life Insurance company purchased a fire-damaged property at Broadway and Leonard Street from the Appleton's publishing house, and enlisted architect Griffith Thomas to design its new headquarters. By the 1890s, New York Life had expanded domestically and internationally was in need of a larger building for its main office. The firm solicited proposals for an eastward extension of Griffith's 1870 building, selecting Stephen D. Hatch's design for an extended structure to occupy the square block bounded by Broadway, Catherine Place, Elm (Lafayette) and Leonard Streets. Hatch — whose winning bid notably included a lower commission that his more-celebrated competitors — died just three months into construction in 1894. McKim, Mead & White took over the commission, and completed Hatch's design, with some alterations, in 1896. However, where Hatch's design was grounded in the materials and scale of the original Thomas building, New York Life and MM\&W came to favor a grander statement. The original, Thomas-designed building was razed later that year. The new design, supervised by partner William Rutherford Mead and architect Henry Bacon, associate called for a commanding, three-story pavilion and clocktower atop a new, twelve-story neo-Italian Renaissance building flush with the completed structure along Leonard Street. The updated building, complete with its signature clocktower, was completed in 1898. The clock itself was designed by the E. Howard Clock Company and installed, along with its 5,000-pound bell, in 1897. New York Life's tenure was relatively brief: the company moved to a new, Cass Gilbert-designed headquarters on Madison Square Park in 1928, with 346 Broadway and its clocktower passing into City ownership. In 1972, the curator Alanna Weiss, who would go on to found and direct the P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center (now MoMA PS1), established the Clocktower Gallery in the building's top story of the former New York Life Insurance Company building. The gallery, a multidisciplinary space for exhibitions and performances by contemporary artists, operated until 2013 when the building was sold by the city. The fate of the clocktower and its clock became the subject of litigation and intense debate Following the sale to developers Peebles Corporation and the El Ad Group, who planned to convert the tower into a multi-story penthouse apartment. The condo conversion plan would have required the electrification of the clock — which was restored in 1980 and continues to be wound manually every week — a move initially approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, but later overruled by a State Supreme Court Judge. The Clock Tower's fate remains in limbo (the prospective developers are mired in court battles over project funding), but for now the massive, mechanical timepiece continues to tick away, still guaranteed to be accurate within 10 seconds per month.

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.

Fire Engine Company No. 31 ARCHITECT: Napoleon Le Brun DATE: 1895 STYLE: French Renaissance Eclectic Fire House Engine Company is a fine example in the realm of public architecture. It was built in French Renaissance Eclectic style. Its main features include the delicacy of details displayed in shell forms, dolphins, floral wreaths. The main mass of the building is well composed with its high, hip-roof and iron crestings embellished by dormer windows and low corner towers.

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

The Bruce Building, 254-260 Canal Street, ca. 1974. The cast iron corner building at Lafayette and Canal Streets was designed for George Bruce, a Scottish-born polymath and printing magnate in mid-19th century New York. The facade was likely designed by James Bogardus, the foremost practitioner of architectural cast iron in the pre-Civil War period, and completed in 1857. While Edmund Vincent Gillon's mid-1970s photograph shows the ground floor encased with contemporary storefronts (Billy's Donuts, off-track betting), the street level has since been restored to its original condition.

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.

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.

City Hall Post Office and Courthouse, May 25, 1938. Construction on the City Hall Post Office and Courthouse — nicknamed “Mullett’s monstrosity” for architect Alfred B. Mullett — began in 1869, but was not completed until 1880, by which time the building’s elaborate French Second Empire design had fallen out of fashion. By the early 20th century, calls for the reviled building’s demolition were frequent. It was finally torn down in 1938, about one month after Berenice Abbott took this photograph.

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.

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.

94-100 Lafayette ARCHITECT: Howells & Stokes DATE: 1907-08 This building at 94-100 Lafayette is the only known store-and-loft building designed by the eminent architectural firm of Howells and Stokes. It is an excellent and intact example of a later commercial-style construction. The building served as an important showcase for hardware in New York City; that its original tenants were two of the most important hardware manufacturers in the country and that the building reflects the area’s role as a center for wholesale businesses.

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.

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.

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.