Siegel-Cooper ca. 1975 When the Siegel-Cooper store opened its doors on September 12, 1896, 150,000 people attended for a glimpse of what the New York Times called "a shopping resort." The store, which ran from 18th to 19th street on Sixth Avenue, and could be reached by the new El, sold everything from feather boas to feather dusters, abdominal bands to zephyrs, as well as live animals and birds, on four selling floors and a basement. The fifth and sixth floors were stockrooms, and a conservatory could be found on the roof where plants were for sale. Adjacent to the conservatory was a photography studio and a staircase which led to a public observatory on the roof. The tower at the top of the building housed a searchlight with a lens thirty-six inches in diameter, "the largest ever made," whose light could be seen for 30 miles and was used "for the benefit of the public in signaling the results of elections and like matters, and for the benefit of the Big Store by throwing advertising announcements upon the lower surface of clouds by night." Services included a bank, telegraph office, dental parlors, a barber shop were "especial attention is paid to children's haircutting," and a restaurant which could seat 350 people.

38 East 14th Street, June 15, 1938. 14th Street (across foreground), at the S.E. corner of University Place, showing the former Springler Hotel under demolition. It will be replaced by a 2 story commercial structure. It is on a part of the old Brevoort farm of 22 acres that Elias Brevoort sold about 1758 to John Smith and whose heirs four years later sold to Henry Springler. The demolished building was originally a private dwelling and became a hotel after the Springler House of No. 5 Union Square burned down in the 1870's. It was a favorite rendezvous for actors playing at the old Academy of Music, Tony Pastors, the Union Square and other theaters of the vicinity. Tradition has it that well known Thespians lived here and that the "Lambs" had their inception here, though that organization has no record of having formally used these rooms.

The apartment building at 2 Fifth Avenue has been home to several notable LGBT figures who have made impacts in the fields of activism, health, theater, and literature. One resident, Larry Kramer, (b. 1935) helped catalyze the response to the AIDS epidemic as co-founder of Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) and the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). His literary achievements as playwright include The Normal Heart (1985) and its sequel The Destiny of Me (1992). He is also well known for his controversial book Faggots (1978) and his screenplay of Women in Love (1969). Edith “Edie” Windsor & Dr. Thea Clara Spyer also lived here. Edith “Edie” Windsor was a LGBT rights activist and her wife Thea Spyer moved into their apartment in the mid-1970s. Windsor, who resided here at the time of her death in 2017, was the lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court of the United States case, which overturned Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act.

The Rhinelander Gardens row houses on West 11th Street, February 3, 1937. The Unadilla Apartment building is to the right of the image at 126 West 11th Street. A Sheffield Farms milkwagon stands out front.

453-463 Sixth Avenue (formerly 141-149), west side, from north of 10th to 11th Streets. February 14, 1932. The rowhouse at 457 Sixth Avenue near the Jefferson Market police court (now the Jefferson Market Library) was the last residence and office of well-known Tammany politico Murray H. Hall, who today would be considered gender non-conforming. Murray H. Hall (c. 1840-1901) was a Tammany politico who lived as a man for decades without his gender being questioned. Following Hall’s death, however, the New York Times reported that Hall’s “true sex” was revealed by the doctor. As an early instance of a gender non-conforming person in New York, this attracted worldwide attention, including that of pioneering English sexual psychologist Havelock Ellis. According to one source, Hall was born Mary Anderson in Scotland and around age 16 began dressing as a male, taking the name John Anderson. Anderson married young, but had a roving eye and a jealous wife who disclosed Anderson’s gender to the police. Fearing arrest, Anderson fled to America in 1870 and assumed the name Murray H. Hall. In 1872, Hall married Cecilia Florence Lowe, a schoolteacher, and by 1874 Hall had established an employment agency chiefly representing domestic help. The couple moved several times but remained close to the Jefferson Market police court (now the Jefferson Market Library) since Hall was also a bail bondsman. Hall’s last home and office was an upper-story apartment at 457 Sixth Avenue. As a Tammany figure, Hall played poker and pool with city and state officials and political leaders and was often able to secure appointments for friends.

Tiffany and Company Building, 1903. The origins of Tiffany & Co date to 1837 when Irish immigrant Charles Lewis Tiffany opened a stationery and fancy-goods shop. Within a few decades Tiffany's was one of the most prominent jewelry stores in the country. In 1869, the business began construction on a new store on Union Square, The new building at 15 Union Square West (it is the first full building at left in the photograph) was designed by John Kellum. Clad in an elaborate cast iron facade, it was an imposing sight on the square. The New York Times called it a "palace of jewels." Louis Comfort Tiffany, the son of the founder, became the firm's first Design Director in 1902, creating jewelry with glass, enamel, and gemstones. Tiffany & Co. moved further uptown in 1906. The building on Union Square was then home to a number of garment companies and factories before becoming the headquarters for the Amalgamated Bank in 1925. In 1952 a piece of the cast iron facade fell from the building and struck a pedestrian, who later died. Following this accident the bank hired an architect to stripe the building of its projecting ornamentation and cover all the rest. The end result was a simple (almost Brutalist) white brick structure. In 2008 the building was sold and redeveloped in condos. The original structure was surrounded by dark glass and black aluminum framing, and an additional six stories were constructed.

The Margaret Louisa Home located at 14-16 East 16th Street is part of the Ladies’ Mile Historic District. It was commissioned by YWCA-benefactor Margaret Louisa Shepard, daughter of William H. Vanderbilt. It was built in connection with the YWCA to serve as a temporary home for Protestant women seeking employment. Robert Henderson Robertson designed the six-story home to accommodate 100 female residents. Construction was completed in 1891.

Images of every one of the 2,200 buildings in the Greenwich Village Historic District, prior to designation in 1969 and today, along with tours of the district’s history, architecture, artists, theaters, houses of worship, and more. All pre-designation images: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission. All 2019 images: Village Preservation Explore these images from the 1969 Designation of the Greenwich Village Historic District on Village Preservation's GVHD50 Then and Now map.

Church of the Ascension, ca. 1979. Built by architect Richard Upjohn between 1840-41 in the Gothic Revival style, the Church of the Ascension is compared in the registers listing to Trinity Church, also built by Upjohn between 1839-1846. The listing also details a remodeling of the interior from 1885-1889, undertaken by Stanford White of McKim, Mead, & White. This remodeling lightened the space considerably, removing galleries on the north and south and adding stained-glass windows and the mural “the Ascension of Our Lord” by artist John La Farge. The sculptured angels over the main altar are the work of Louis St. Gaudens and the two angels in the mosaic were done by D. Maitland Armstrong.

The Krueger Cafe and Restaurant at No. 56 Union Square (later 213 Park Avenue South), ca. 1910. This space would later become the legendary Max's Kansas City, the venue of choice for New York School artists of the 1960s and Andy Warhol's coterie of avant-garde performers and hangers-on. Later, the bar was reinvented as a music venue, becoming a crucible of the city's nascent punk, post-punk, and no-wave scenes.

The New York Society Library was founded in 1754 as a subscription library and calls itself the oldest cultural institution in the city. The library was first housed in a room in the original City Hall during the colonial era. During the Revolutionary War, the collections were extensively damaged by looting and soldiers tearing up books to use for wadding in their muskets. During the years that New York City served as the country's capital (1789-1790), the Society Library effectively served as the first Library of Congress. (It is said that President Washington borrowed two books which he never returned). Following a number of moves in the first half of the 19th century, the Library settled in this purpose-built structure at 109 University Place building in 1856 where it remained for 81 years. In this venue, the Library was visited by luminaries such as Herman Melville and Willa Cather. The Library made its final move in 1937 into an Upper East Side mansion at 53 East 79th Street. At the time of this move the institution held 150,000 volumes; today, that number has nearly doubled. The building seen here was demolished for a new apartment building completed in 1940.

East 11th Street.

Manhattan: 11th Street (East) - 4th Avenue.

St. Francis Xavier High School, 30 West 16th Street, ca. 1928. Founded in 1847 by Father John Larkin, a professor at St. John's College (now Fordham University), the school was originally known as the College of St. Francis Xavier and offered instruction to boys from the ages eight to twenty-one. A military training operation began at Xavier High School in 1886 under the direction of the National Guard; membership became mandatory in 1892. In the years that followed, collegiate and secondary studies were separated, and the college level department at the school closed in 1912. From 1935 to 1968, Xavier High School acted as a Junior ROTC unit. Students took four years of military science and training, which was recognized upon enrollment in any branch of the United States Military. After 1971, participation in military studies was no longer mandatory. Today, Xavier High School is an independent Jesuit university-preparatory high school for boys. Since 1928, when the school was first accredited, Xavier High School has held membership in the Jesuit Schools Network, the National Catholic Education Association, and the New York State Association of Independent Schools.

Tammany Hall ARCHITECT: Thompson, Holmes & Converse; Charles B. Meyers DATE: 1928-29 STYLE: Neo-Georgian Tammany Hall features a rusticated stone base, pedimented portico, and double height pilasters, sculptural reliefs in limestone and terra cotta, and neo-Georgian details. It is in the words of New Yorker architectural critic George S. Chappell (T-Square) “an exceptionally charming design” and “a real adornment to the neighborhood” and remains a significant reminder of New York City’s political, theatrical, and labor history.

9th Regiment Armory, ca. 1921. The colossal granite fortress of the 9th Regiment Armory was built in 1894 to the designs of architects Edward Sargent and W. E. Cable. In addition to military use, the cavernous main hall was used as an exhibition space, athletic venue, and welfare administration center. The 19th-century redoubt was demolished in 1969, only to be replaced by a new armory for the 22nd Regiment, in 1971.

Trade and banking energized New York in the early 1800s, drawing new businesses and people. Growth fueled prosperity. And prosperity fueled more growth. Railroads were a vital part of this dynamic cycle—both a response to and catalyst for the city’s expansion. This story originally appeared in the Grand by Design virtual exhibition here.

Luchow's Restaurant ca. 1975 Luchow’s was a German restaurant/beer garden. It opened in 1882 at 110 East 14th Street at a time when the East Village was known as “Little Germany”, or Kleindeutschland. The restaurant would expand over the years in size and prominence, eventually occupying a space eight times as large as the original venue. In its heydey, Luchow’s was the place to see and be seen if you were a part of the music, theater, or literary crowd. It imported 70,000 half-barrels of beer a year, a daily consumption of 24,000 liters. Famous diners include Theodore Roosevelt, Diamond Jim Brady, Oscar Hammerstein, John Barrymore, Arturo Caruso, Sigmund Romberg, Lillian Russell, O. Henry, Theodore Dreiser, Thomas Wolfe, and Edgar Lee Masters. Luchow’s was the first restaurant in the city to get its liquor license following Prohibition’s repeal in 1933. Union Square lost much of its luster and Luchow’s moved to midtown in the early 1980s. The Palace restaurant and disco opened in Luchow’s former space, followed by a gay bar. But a 1992 fire led to the building’s demolition in 1995, despite efforts to landmark the Victorian building. NYU bought the site and locals were hopeful when plans were announced to revive Luchow’s with a ground-floor “Gay 90’s”-themed restaurant with a (less warmly-received) 600-bed dorm atop it. In the end, the dorm was built, but the restaurant was never revived.

The time-honored tradition of window shopping truly comes alive during the holiday season, when retailers pull out all of the stops to make their window displays ever more eye-catching, festive and uplifting. Countless visitors and New Yorkers alike participate in this yearly ritual, which has its roots in the Gilded Age. That era of rapid economic growth and industrialization, which began in the 1870s and lasted until around 1900, generated the building technology that made window shopping in the city possible.

Rhinelander Gardens, February 3, 1937. Designed by James Renwick Jr. in a High Victorian Gothic style the balconied houses with ornate ironwork were built in 1855 for William C. Rhinelander as rental properties. The homes of Rhinelander Gardens were set back from the street, which allowed for lovely and somewhat uncommon front yards. The buildings survived more than 100 years; they were demolished in 1958 for the construction of a new school building.

Did you know that this eight-story Arts & Crafts style loft building designed by Robinson & Potter now known as “The Petersfield,” was once known as the “The Fish Building” due to its direct connection to the area’s Dutch-colonial history? This building’s name comes from Stuyvesant Fish, who constructed the building and was a direct descendant of the last Dutch colonial governor Peter Stuyvesant. The loft building was converted to residences in 1986 and was named The Petersfield after the name given to the original home of Peter Stuyvesant, which was located nearby. This and surrounding blocks were part of the original Stuyvesant Farm. Click here to read more.

Salmagundi Club, November 24, 1937. The Salmagundi Club was an art club founded in 1871. Initially called New York Sketch Class and later the New York Sketch Club, the organization was a men's only group of artists, students, and friends who met once a week. It was renamed Salmagundi in 1877 and meet at a number of Greenwich Village locations during its first 40 years. In 1917 the club purchased and moved into the1853 Italianate-style townhouse at 47 Fifth Avenue. For the last century it has operated in this building as a center for fine arts, artists and collectors, exhibitions, classes, demonstrations,and auctions.

Edith Jones Wharton (1862-1937), one of America’s most important authors, lived at 14 West 23rd Street, Manhattan at a time when 23rd Street marked the northern boundary of fashionable New York. There, in her father’s extensive library, young Edith Jones discovered the world of literature. Wharton wrote with authority on gardens and design, but was most celebrated for her fiction. Her novels and stories are characterized by her intelligence, perception and the great beauty of her prose. Wharton lived in France for the latter part of her life, but the complex world of patrician New York remained the source of her greatest fiction. This includes The House of Mirth (1905) and The Age of Innocence (1920), for which, in 1921 she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature.

Klein Department Store, ca. 1984. S. Klein On The Square was department store whose flagship location sat in two buildings on the corner of 14th Street and Union Square East. Considered a more affordable option to stores such as Macy's and A\&S, Klein still offered a furniture department, fur salon, and a full service pet department. The original store (at 14th Street) opened in either 1905 (as stated in the founder's obituary) or by 1912 (as noted in the Landmarks Preservation Commission's East 17th Street/Irving Place Historic District Designation Report). The store expanded in 1930 to include the former Union Square Hotel building at the southeast of 15th Street (out of frame at left). During the 1960s the business expanded opening stores in New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia. By the late 1970s the parent company of the store began closing the locations en masse and selling off the property, including the flagship location, which closed in 1975. The building was demolished in the mid 1980s for the 1987-completed, Zeckendorf Towers apartment complex.

14 West 10th Street (second building from the left), May 29, 1933. The Greek Revival house at 14 West 10th Street was constructed sometime in the 1850s. The house, in the fashionable area near Washington Square Park, was home to members of New York's high society in the 19th century. In 1900 Mark Twain lived in the house for a year or so. In the long history of the house at least 22 people died while residing there. (This is not an inconceivable number given the home's age and the fact that for much of history people died at home). In 1937 the single family home was divided into multiple apartments. Starting around that time residents began taking note of strange occurrences and haunting visions. Author Jan Bryant Bartell lived in an apartment there for seven years and wrote about her supernatural experiences there. It has been called the "House of Death." Unfortunately the building also hosted a real life gruesome event in 1987 when a former New York defense attorney beat his illegally adopted daughter to death in the house.

Union Square Savings Bank ARCHITECT: Henry Bacon DATE: 1905-07 STYLE: Academic Classic, Bank The Union Square Savings Bank was designed in a bold and monumental Academic Classic style popularized by the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. Bacon’s design accentuates its prominence with a freestanding portico supported on four giant Corinthian columns and a monumental entranceway behind the columns.

On August 6, 1966, the first known recording of “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” was made by the Miracles. Written by Motown pioneers Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, the song was re-recorded several times, most famously by Gladys Night and the Pips and Marvin Gaye, whose version landed on the top of the charts for seven weeks in early 1969. But where did it come from? Plentiful evidence and credible sources say it all goes back to a beloved tavern on the corner of 6th Avenue and 11th Street in Greenwich Village.

German Savings Bank, ca. 1905. The Central Savings Bank was constructed between 1870 and 1872 as the German Savings Bank. The bank, founded by successful German businessman Jacob Windmuller, dated to 1859. Windmuller created the bank for the large and growing lower Manhattan German population. Business was conducted in German and the immigrant community flocked to the institution. In 1864 the successful bank moved north to a location at the corner of 14th Street and Fourth Avenue. They outgrew their original building, purchased some of the surrounding lots, and hired German-born architect Henry Fernbach to design a French Second Empire style building. The resulting five-story structure had a facade of arched openings, separating pilasters, and cornices at each level. While the bank occupied the lower floor, the upper floor tenants included artist and glassmaker David Maitland Armstrong and sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Following the anti-German sentiments of the First World War, the banks changed its name to ‘The Central Savings Bank in the City of New York.' The bank left the neighborhood in 1928, relocating to a large new building that occupied the entire block between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, 73rd to 74th Streets. The upper floors of the 14th Street bank building housed the New York County Committee of the Communist Party for a number of years in the 1940s. The bank building was demolished in 1962 and replaced by a no-style red brick apartment building.

Grove St Press moved here after a brief stay at 80 University Place from 1964-67. Less than half a block down to 53 East 11th Street the move came at a crucial time for the enterprise. In 1967 Grove became a public corporation, vastly expanding its scope and resources. According to “From the Third Eye: The Evergreen Review Film Reader”, in January of that year, the Press also announced the acquisition of the prestigious Cinema 16 Film Library, consisting of two hundred shorts and experimental works, including films by Stan Brakhage, Kenneth Anger, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Peter Weiss, all darlings of the cinematic avant-garde.

By the late 19 century, not only were unmarried working-class women toiling in factories, mills, shops, and various trades, but middle-class women were employed in new white-collar jobs as clerks, secretaries, stenographers, journalists, and telephone operators. An 1879 report of the Association for Inquiry into the Condition of Professional and Business Women estimated that there were about 50,000 women pursuing “professional, literary, and artistic pursuits” in and within 50 miles of New York, while there was only accommodation for 500. The need for housing was so great that the LCU and similar organizations were turning away three applicants for everyone they could house.

31 Union Square West ARCHITECT: Bruce Price DATE: 1902-03 STYLE: Neo-Renaissance A limestone-faced bank and office tower, the Bank of the Metropolis, a columnar tripartite skyscraper, is a representative example of the major New York architect Bruce Price’s neo-Renaissance commercial architecture. The design incorporates classical elements which were traditionally associated with American bank architecture. Notable features include the bowed two-story portico with monumental polished granite columns, lions’ heads, consoles, foliated spandrels and spandrels with open-mouthed lions.

George Bruno residence at 1 Macdougal Alley (aka 176 Macdougal Street), August 5, 1927. Macdougal Alley was created in 1833, for access to the carriage houses of property owners on Washington Square North and West Eighth Street. The corner building was home to the Prohibition-era Jumble Shop tearoom (later tap room, following repeal), and in recent decades a restaurant, laundromat, florist, and bridal shop. Macdougal Street and Alley are both named for Alexander McDougall, the Scottish born merchant and Revolutionary War figure who was a representative to the Continental Congress, the first president of the Bank of New York, and New York State Senator.

29 Union Square West when it was Jason's Restaurant, 1978. In the 1890s this plot was the location of a five-story brick building that housed the Bank of the Metropolis. In 1903 the bank moved across the street to a new building at 31 Union Square West (where they had been founded in 1871). The building at no. 29 was demolished by 1928, and a one-story structure was erected on the site (likely as a taxpayer during the years of the Depression). The current blue-walled midcentury mundane building currently on the lot rose in 1959. It is unknown when the iconic coffee sign was installed. In the 1960s it was a coffee shop called Chase, and it was Jason's in the late 1970s and 1980s. The Coffee Shop, a dependable late-night spot opened in 1990. Slinging coffee, cocktails, and Brazilian fare, the locale became a well-known spot for a diverse crowd of students, East Villagers, scenesters, and celebrities. It often appeared on the show, Sex, and the City. After 28 years the restaurant closed in mid October 2018. A rumor the next week suggested that the location was to become a Chase Bank (ironic given that its first coffee shop tenant was Chase too)

Germania Life Insurance Company Building ARCHITECT: D'Oench & Yost DATE: 1910-11 STYLE: French Second Empire This twenty-story commercial building, crowned by an early and impressive example of modern signage, was designed by the architectural firm of D’Oench & Yost and built in 1910-11 as the national headquarters for the Germania Life Insurance Company of New York. The building is a tripartite columnar skyscraper which incorporates in its design motifs from traditional European architecture, most prominently the grand four-story mansard roof with varied dormer windows. The mansard roof and other features tie the building’s design to French architecture, both the Second Empire style and the modern French mode that dominated Parisian architecture of the 1890s.

Trench prepared for the installation of the high pressure water system on Fifth Avenue, south of Madison Square; undated photo. 20th Street crosses Fifth Avenue in the middle ground. At right is No. 127-129, the second storefront south of the southeast corner of the intersection. The loft space was leased by Lord & Taylor between 1906-1914, and the brand name is visible above the storefront.

The Century Building, East 17th Street, ca. 1975. William Schickel’s Queen Anne style headquarters for the Century Publishing Company was built in 1880-1, facing south toward Union Square.

The former Hotel Albert complex consists of four buildings at 23 East 10th Street/40-52 East 11th Street/65-67 University Place. The buildings were constructed in 1875-76, 1881-82, 1903-1904, and 1922-1924. From the 1880s through the early 1970s, the Hotel played a large role in New York City’s cultural life. During the postwar era, prominent painters, writers, photographers, and musicians found inspiration at the hotel. LGBTQ and African-American artists established communities here, as did radical, Jewish, and working-class organizations such as the Progressive Labor Party. The hotel hosted dramatic productions at the “Albert Theatre for a brief period.” To learn more about the Hotel Albert, click here.

Century Association Building ARCHITECT: Gambrill & Richardson DATE: 1869 STYLE: Neo-Grec The Century Association Building is the oldest known surviving structure erected as a clubhouse in Manhattan. Its stone-trimmed brick exterior, which remains remarkably intact, heralded a wave of neo-Grec buildings in the early 1870s.

The Whitney Museum is now one of New York City's unparalleled art institutions. But it took a while to get there. Here's a brief history of the Whitney Museum

Constable Building, ca. 1900. While the earlier building and extensions of the Arnold Constable flagship store in the Ladies' Mile shopping district were designed by architect Griffith Thomas in the 1870s, William Schickel was involved in the 1880s expansions of the monumental emporium complex. He designed the Renaissance Revival annex on 18th Street in 1884, as well as the 12-story structure at the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 18th Street, seen here, completed in 1895.

Southeast corner of 14th Street and Fourth Avenue, ca. 1977. The now unrecognizable corner of Union Square where today a large CitiBank occupies the corner lot.

The original Rhinelander Mansion, No. 14, on the west corner of Fifth Avenue, was built in 1839-1840 for Mary (Rogers) Rhinelander as her family’s residence and continued to serve the family until the death of her daughter in 1914. The house, and adjoining No. 15, were a pair of splendid Greek Revival town houses, each 42 feet wide and three and one-half stories high, with attic windows in the fascia. At each, a stoop led to the entrance portico, framed by Corinthian columns, and an iron balcony graced the parlor floor. No. 15 was built as the residence of Gardiner Greene Howland, who had previously lived with his brother Samuel at No. 12 Washington Square North on the block east of Fifth Avenue. They were important shipping merchants.

12-14 West 12th Street ca. Architect Alexander Jackson Davis was born on July 24, 1803. Davis, one of the most successful and influential American architects of his generation, is perhaps best known for his association with the Gothic Revival style of architecture and rural settings. Though many surviving examples by Davis exist in upstate New York and at other locales along the East Coast, some very prominent examples of Davis’ fine work once stood on lower Fifth Avenue. In 1849, Davis designed two matching Italianate mansions on West 12th Street, Nos. 12 & No. 14. A description of these buildings can be found on Daytonian in Manhattan: ” …abutting the churchyard of First Presbyterian Church, which had been completed three years earlier. The handsome brick residences reflected the refined neighborhood. Each two bays wide, they featured arched entrances four steps above the sidewalk and a cast iron, second floor balcony that ran the width both structures. Brownstone lintels and a simple cornice added to the understated elegance of Davis’ design.” These mansions survived into the mid-20th century, changing hands a couple of times throughout their lifespan. Most famously, No. 12 was the home of Thurlow Weed, an influential statesman. After the death of Thurlow, ownership of No. 12 fell to his daughter Harriet, and after her passing both buildings were taken over by the First Presbyterian Church, becoming their parsonage. However, in 1958, the church, in need of a modern church house, made the decision to tear down Nos. 12 & 14. A necessary decision for the church proved to be an unpopular one with the community, as reported by The Times: “Though church folk dislike the idea of having the old mansions torn down, and architects in town frown on the notion, too, they know they must go. The space is sorely needed for the children. So, one by one, the master works of great architects vanish from the city.” Davis, who worked along with the architect Ithiel Town, had a hand in other architectural works within the Village, including a portion of the now-demolished Brevoort Mansion on 5th Avenue, and the designs for Colonnade Row. However, with the loss of Nos. 12 & 14, the city lost a truly wonderful example of Davis’s designs. As lamented by The Times, “All that will remain of his dreaming on paper when the Twelfth Street mansions go down in rubble…will be a few villas up in Hudson River Valley.” Architect Alexander Jackson Davis was born on July 24, 1803. Davis, one of the most successful and influential American architects of his generation, is perhaps best known for his association with the Gothic Revival style of architecture and rural settings. Though many surviving examples by Davis exist in upstate New York and at other locales along the East Coast, some very prominent examples of Davis’ fine work once stood on lower Fifth Avenue.

72 Fifth Avenue ca. 1915 In 1847, on Bond Street in London, a young man named Philip Morris opened a small tobacco shop. Eight years later, Morris began to produce his own cigarettes. When, in 1873, he died, his widow Margaret and brother Leopold took over the business. In 1885, the company gained international fame and was officially named Philip Morris & Co. LTD. By 1902, Philip Morris was incorporated in New York. After some shuffling around and restructuring, in 1917, the business moved to 72 5th Avenue, at the northwest corner of 13th Street. This 7-story building was erected in 1893 as a warehouse. The masonry façade ornamentation and rhythm is very characteristic of loft warehouse buildings in this area at the time. In 1913 an alteration was performed by the architect Adolph E. Nast who worked for the firm of John L. Sands. In 1931, after disappearing from his New York hotel, Nast’s body was found in Baltimore with a pistol wound to the head. It was believed to be a suicide. Up until the 1930s the building was owned by the estate of Katherine Lorrilard and throughout the 1940s a bank was located in the storefront. In 1960, Ginn & Company publishers occupied three floors of the space, totaling 15,000 square feet. Philip Morris relocated to 5th Avenue and 19th Street in 1938, where they continued to grow. In 1954 the company launched a major campaign with Marlboro Cigarettes, marketing them specifically to men. In 1970 Philip Morris acquired Miller Brewing Company and in 1985 acquired Kraft. In 2003 the name Philip Morris disappeared when Altria Group, Inc. took over the company. Five years later the entire company was relocated to Richmond, Virginia.

The Macmillan Co. Building (later Forbes Building), April 1, 1925. Called a “pompous limestone cube” by the AIA Guide to New York, the Macmillan Co. headquarters was built between 1923-1925, in a collaborative effort by two firms known for New York City landmarks: Carrère & Hastings (New York Public Library, 5th Avenue) and Shreve & Lamb (Empire State Building). In 1965, the building was acquired by Forbes Magazine, whose Malcolm Forbes opened a small gallery there, showcasing his eclectic art collection. New York University purchased the building from Forbes in 2010.

Here at Urban Archive, we often focus our stories on the city streets and the public-facing architecture of the city. However, being stuck inside our apartments has given us a new appreciation for interiors so we thought we'd take a look at a diverse array of New York's interiors over the years. This particular story dives inside the homes and lives of New York's elite at the turn of the century and what their interiors meant to them.

United States Post Office, Station D (Peter Cooper Station), August 12, 1937. Though the Village isn’t known for having too many stand-out post office buildings (many are small offices located within other buildings scattered throughout the neighborhood), Cooper Station is an exception. Located at 93 Fourth Avenue, on the northeast corner of 11th Street, the building was designed by William Dewey Foster and constructed in 1936-37 as part of the W.P.A. (Works Progress Administration) to combat the Great Depression. Foster was responsible for designing structures in both New York City and Washington D.C., including ten post offices in New York City and its immediate suburbs. Cooper Station was designed in the Classical Revival style and its most dramatic feature is the curve of the facade at the irregular corner of the site. Further highlighting the curve of this building is the two-story colonnade comprised of six receded Doric columns which delineate the corner bays.

853 Broadway, ca. 1945. The Domestic Sewing Machine Company Building, which previously occupied the lot at the southwest corner of Broadway and 14th Street, was designed by Griffith Thomas. The structure was tall (for its time!) and capped with an eye-catching cupola and “DOMESTIC” sign at its rooftop. At the time of its 1873 construction, it was hailed as an early skyscraper, the tallest cast-iron building yet built. It’s hard to imagine a seven-story building as a skyscraper nowadays, but in the late 19th century it certainly was. The Domestic Sewing Machine Company showcased its sewing machines on the first floor. Its corporate headquarters were on the upper floors.

For much of New York's history, its Easter Parade was one of the most important parts of the Easter holiday. Starting in the 1880s, it quickly became one of the social events of the season.

Hancock Building, 1978. Built in 1897 by the firm of Marsh, Israels & Harder, the Hancock Building was the home of Hammacher & Schlemmer beginning in 1904. The city's first hardware store, established in 1848 in a building on the Bowery, moved into this new structure after its small local storefront boomed into national company and popular mail order catalog. The seven-story building has Romanesque details such as the arched windows on the top floor. It also features Beaux-Arts decoration, like the elegant scrolled detail above the entrance and Ionic pilasters (columns projected from the facade) on the middle stories of the building. The hardware company moved once more to a larger location out of necessity in 1926. (The new location was 147 East 57th, which remains the flagship store today.) Today the building looks very much the same as it did in this 1970s photograph.

Southeast corner of 14th Street and Broadway, ca. 1977.

First Presbyterian Church ca. 1900 Set in ample grounds where it may be seen from three sides, this handsome exemplar of the Gothic Revival makes us realize that all was not necessarily fuss and gingerbread in this period. Joseph C. Wells, the architect, attempted a scholarly representation of an ecclesiastical style which, at best, was foreign to this country before 1835.

Forbes Building, 60-62 Fifth Avenue, ca. 1977.

23 East 11th Street, ca. 1971.

From Washington Square Park to the Whitney Museum, there is always a new piece of New York City social and cultural history to discover on a walk through Greenwich Village. The neighborhood is steeped in history. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Village was the center for the LGBT and counterculture movements and still continues to be a welcoming and accepting place for all. With a plethora of jazz clubs and local music venues to stop in and soak up the local scene, you’ll need to stop for a coffee or a quick bite at one of the storied cafes or restaurants along your way. Many of the great dining options around the neighborhood have been around for decades—some boast over a century of service—and whatever cuisine you’re in the mood for, Greenwich Village is sure to serve it up.

The Union Square Theatre, on the southeast side of the Square, was next to the Union Square Hotel. It Opened in 187 as a variety house and was transformed into a legitimate theatre the following year. Originally the most prestigious dramatic house on the Square, it faltered after a series of managers who tried to continue the tradition of serious fare, and became a vaudeville house which enjoyed a successful twenty year run under the management of B.F. Keith and E.F. Albee.

Siegel-Cooper department store, ca. 1975. The crowds at the opening of Siegel-Cooper department store on September 12, 1896 were so crushing the police had to call in for back up. Eleven thousand pushed inside the doors within just the first ten minutes, and there was a solid wall of people stretching along Sixth Avenue, from 14th to 23rd streets. By the time doors closed at 10:30pm, 150,000 shoppers had been inside. Siegel-Cooper was the largest retail space in New York, occupying the entire block between 18th and 19th streets on Sixth Avenue. It quickly became a spectacle on a par with museums, theaters, and other cultural attractions. It felt like a small city, with aisles as wide as streets. Inside, shoppers were greeted by a 10-foot high fountain with a statue of The Republic in marble and gilded bronze- a replica of the one Daniel Chester French had designed for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. After dropping their children at a nursery, women could wander through the store's 125 departments on six floors, admiring goods as diverse as canned food, feather boas, live animals, and sheet music. They could then lunch on lamb stew or chicken pot pie in the restaurant and head up to the roof for a view of the city from the observatory. Before picking up their kids—and without ever leaving the building—they could visit the dentist, send a message from the telegraph office or deposit a check at the bank. Department stores, epitomized by Siegel-Cooper, were unlike anything shoppers had experienced before. Over the course of the 19th century there were dramatic changes in what retail stores looked like, what they sold and how they sold it. Before the Civil War, shops mostly specialized in one type of item, such as books, purses, or carpets. Or there were dry goods stores that sold ready-made items, fabrics, and other sewing materials. Window displays and interiors were cluttered and customers went in to negotiate the best price for just the items they needed. A.T. Stewart and Macy's ushered in the era of New York City's department stores—building marble and cast-iron palaces with window displays that lured passersby. They had dozens of departments with ready-made goods from corsets and parasols to furniture and toys. They had lounges and lunchrooms that fortified customers to stay and buy items on impulse. And throughout the store, scores of shop girls, trained in the art of selling offered merchandise at a fixed price.

17 West 16th Street, Manhattan (ca. 1846) NYC IL, NHL From 1930 to 1973, this Greek Revival style townhouse was home to the clinic of birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger (1879-1966). Sanger moved to New York City in 1911 and began working as a nurse on the Lower East Side, where she treated women with frequent births, miscarriages and self-induced abortions. At the time, birth control, a term she popularized, was not available in the United States, and the federal Comstock law of 1873 prohibited the distribution of information on the topic. She founded a monthly newsletter entitled The Woman Rebel in 1914, and was indicted for sending “obscene” material through the mail. In 1916, Sanger opened her first clinic in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and in 1921 she helped found the American Birth Control League, which later became known as the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. In 1930, she established a more permanent home for her Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau here at 17 West 16th Street, where research was performed, patients were treated and instructed on contraceptives, and medical professionals from across the country were educated about sex, contraception and disease. The building, today a private residence, still stands as a reminder of Margaret Sanger’s groundbreaking work to advance women’s health and quality of life. Photo from Wikipedia

St. Francis Xavier R.C. Church, ca. 1895. St. Francis Xavier Church was established in 1847 by Jesuits who came down from Fordham (then in Westchester) to start a Manhattan parish. The original building was a simple classical style building, constructed in the 1850s. In 1877 the original church was site of a false alarm panic after someone yelled 'fire' during a service. The ensuing stampede caused the death of seven people. The first structure was demolished a year after this event, and a new church was built in a grand neo-Baroque style, completed in 1882. The tall church with an imposing granite-block facade was designed by well-known church architect Patrick Charles Keely. At the time of its completion it dwarfed most of the surrounding buildings. The interior too was designed in a colossal scale, with frescos, carved plaster and stone, arches, niches, and inlaid marble. A local newspaper in 1884 called the church "sumptuous and exhilarating.”

Moquins Restaurant. ca. 1910. Though today no. 456 Sixth Avenue is located at 11th Street, when this photograph was taken ca. 1910, no. 456 was located further uptown between 27th and 28th Streets. In 1929, during the extension of Sixth Avenue south from Greenwich Village to Canal Street for the Sixth Avenue IND subway, the addresses on the avenue were renumbered.

Sprague Building ca. 1905 On the corner of 12th Street, the highly ornamented 817 Broadway is a visual treat. The building, which turns 120 years old this year (in 2015) , was constructed in 1895 to the designs of prolific architect George B. Post. Post designed several well-known buildings in New York that have long been demolished, so it was nice to come across his name during our survey of the Broadway/University Place/14th Street area. As with many other buildings along Broadway at the turn of the century, 817 Broadway housed clothing manufacturing. This particular structure was designed for Meyer Jonasson & Company, cloak manufacturers, for a cost of $250,000. The building later became known as the Sprague Building. This 1905 photo, taken by Irving Underhill (courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York), shows what the intersection of Broadway and 12th Street looked like 110 years ago. Needless to say, this building made quite a statement. Post was known for his innovative skyscraper designs; his now-demolished New York World Building was, for a time, the tallest in the world. It seems surprising today that this would be considered a skyscraper, but when you look at the surrounding buildings in the photo you can see what an impression this building must have made. An alteration permit from 1940 indicates that the storefronts were changed in that year. The thing that is particularly striking about this building is the way the triangular piers change the look of the facade depending on where you’re looking. There is also the sense that there are two different facade designs – Broadway versus 12th Street – when in fact they are both exactly the same (except that Broadway is only three bays wide).

The Fifth Avenue Hotel, 24 Fifth Avenue ca. 1926 Replacing the Brevoort mansion at the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and West 9th Street, the Fifth Avenue Hotel was built in 1926 as a high-class apartment hotel. Apartment hotels provided people with the option of a permanent residence with the provision of housekeeping and cooking services. Typical units ranged in size from one to three rooms and each came with a serving pantry in lieu of a kitchen. This handsome building is 15 stories in height with a limestone, two-story base and brick in two different shades of buff to lend texture to the upper floors. Terra-cotta ornament is featured throughout the exterior colored in blue, brown and gold

The Brittany Hotel ca. 1922 The Brittany dates to 1929, and was built as an apartment hotel. It was consciously and respectfully built in the Gothic Revival style in deference to the magnificent Grace Church across the street — one of New York’s great Gothic landmarks designed by one of America’s most prominent architect’s, James Renwick.

70 Fifth Avenue (at far right), May 19, 1933. Constructed in 1913 as a speculative office building, the 12-story structure on the corner of Fifth Avenue and West 13th Street was advertised as "office space at a prestige address." In 1914 it became the headquarters for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the offices of its official publication, The Crisis. (The NAACP had previous worked from offices at 20 Vesey Street for the first five years of their existence.)

Bryant's Minstrel Hall, Later Tony Pastor's New Fourteenth Street Theatre, was the first tenant of Tammany Hall, which was dedicated on July 4, 1868. Audiences flocked there to enjoy the best in entertainment at what became the most famous vaudeville house of the eighties and nineties. It would later be renamed yet again as the Olympic Theatre

801 Broadway, unknown date. The middle of the 19th Century saw an influx of wealthy New Yorkers moving north of Washington Square. To cater to this growing population, lavish new developments began to spring up around Union Square. Gothic Revival religious institutions such as the James Renwick-designed Grace Church and the Richard Upjohn-designed Church of the Ascension (a 2011 GVSHP Village Award winner) served as local landmarks. For the more informal daily routines of wealthy women, stately department stores became the trend. Often known as dry goods stores (to distinguish their goods from those carried in hardware and grocery stores) , these large shopping meccas also served as social gathering places where women could mingle with their peers, have lunch, and, of course, spend money. The original Macy’s store was located on 14th Street (which was landmarked in 2011) and the A.T. Stewart store was on East 10th Street and Broadway. Another important retail presence was James McCreery & Co. James McCreery & Co. Dry Goods opened its doors in 1869. Previously, Mr. James McCreery was employed by Ubsdell, Pierson & Lake, a department store located on Broadway and Grand Streets. He worked his way up to become a partner in the company. Upon Lake’s retirement in 1867, the company was renamed James McCreery & Company. He then commissioned a new store on Broadway and 11th Street that would come to be known as one of the nation’s most esteemed dry goods stores. The building was designed by architect John Kellum, known for his work in the new medium of cast-iron. His reputation stemmed in part from his design of the A.T. Stewart Department Store. The James McCreery & Co. building occupied a large lot fronted by both Broadway and 11th Street. Both facades were cast-iron from the foundry of J. B. & W. W. Cornell Ironworks. The Italianate/French Second Empire style exemplified the extravagant goods housed inside, namely the luxurious silks unavailable elsewhere. Around 1895, McCreery followed the department store trend up to “Ladies’ Mile,” 6th Avenue between 14th and 23rd Streets, when he opened his second store on 6th Avenue and 23rd Street. According to CastIronNYC.org, “McCreery sold the \[11th Street] building to the Methodist Book Concern and Missionary Society and leased back space in the lower floors; McCreery repurchased the building in 1889. James McCreery & Co. remained in the building until 1902. By 1910 the original mansard roof had been replaced….and the storefront housed Fleischman’s Restaurant.” The original mansard roof referenced here was lost to a fire on July 3, 1909 and replaced by a one story addition. The upper floors were occupied by factories that produced suits, shoes, and leather wares. In 1971, a fire begun in one of the factories destroyed the interior of the building. Thanks to the cast-iron construction, though, the façade was left unscathed but the top story was lost. The following year, the building was purchased by the Elghanayan brothers. As noted by Daytonian in Manhattan, “When their intentions to demolish the remaining shell and erect a high-rise apartment building in its place were announced, the community protested. Residents rallied along with the Friends of Cast Iron and community groups, appearing before the Board of Appeals. The Board granted variances that made renovating the existing structure to residential use economically feasible.” This project became an early example of a commercial building converted to residential use. During the adaptation, the two setback stories were added at the roof. It was renamed the Cast Iron Building. There are 144 apartments, none of which are identical. The building is currently calendared for landmark designation.

120 East 14th Street, September 2, 1936. Irving Place, south from East 15th to 14th (where it terminates) Streets, showing prominently what was once the City Theatre.

56 West 14th Street Everyone knows the iconic Macy’s flagship store on 34th Street and Broadway. But before moving to 34th Street, Macy’s operated out of a series of buildings on West 14th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues. H. Macy & Co. was founded by Rowland Hussey Macy in 1858. The original Macy’s stood on the southeast corner of 14th Street and 6th Avenue. As the company succeeded over the next few decades, claiming to have “pioneered such revolutionary business practices as the one-price system, in which the same item was sold to every customer at one price, and quoting specific prices for goods in newspaper advertising. Known for its creative merchandising, Macy’s was the first to introduce such products as the tea bag, the Idaho baked potato and colored bath towels.” it expanded into neighboring buildings on West 14th Street. After Macy’s passing in 1877, the company remained in family hands until 1895, when brothers Isadore and Nathan Straus took over the company. In 1898, the Straus brothers built a new Macy’s Annex at 56 West 14th Street. This tall (nine stories) and narrow (25 feet) building is ornately designed in the Neo-Classical style popular at the time. Landmarked in 2011, the building is now home to a 5 Guys Burgers and Fries. Macy’s moved to 34th Street in 1902. It is not clear if any retail took place in the 14th Street Macy’s Annex, or whether it was just used for offices, storage, or rented out. According to the designation report, “The former Macy 14th Street Annex, owned by the Straus family until 1939 and internally connected to the 13th Street Annex through the 20th century, housed a variety of firms over subsequent decades.” The Macy’s logo has always featured a red star, which allegedly comes from a tattoo that Macy got as a teenager when he worked on a Nantucket whaling ship. 56 West 14th Street is still ornately decorated, and if you look closely you can still see the Macy’s logo and stars on the building facade.

Marion Parker, a graduate of Michigan State University, designed the structure for the Whitehall, and Broad-Exchange buildings, and assisted in designing the Flatiron Building. Elmina Wilson, a graduate of Iowa State University, designed the structure for the Whitehall Annex, the Manhattan Municipal Building, and the Metropolitan Life Insurance Tower — the tallest building in the world from 1907 to 1913. Learn more here.

Chickering Hall, ca. 1888. Chickering Hall was New York headquarters and concert hall of the Chickering & Sons piano manufacturing firm. Architect George B. Post’s design made use of brick, marble, and brownstone and included a tiled hipped roof and massive, two-story arches on the building’s 18th Street and Fifth Avenue frontages. Indoors, Post’s 1,450-seat performance hall hosted its first event on November 1875. Events at Chickering Hall included an early telephone demonstration by Alexander Graham Bell (1877) and a lecture by Oscar Wilde (1882), among many musical performances showcasing Chickering & Sons instruments. In 1901, Chickering & Sons lost their lease for the property and the building was demolished in early 1902.

Grace Church ca. 1893 Completed in 1846, Grace Church in New York is one of the earliest examples of Gothic revival architecture in New York City. Designed by James Renwick, Jr. at the age of twenty three, the building and its campus hold three celebrated distinctions: New York City Landmark, National Register of Historic Places, and National Historic Landmark. Grace Church remains an active Episcopal congregation, with worship throughout the week and abundant opportunities for service and fellowship. Its landmark buildings feature designs by Renwick, a renovation and extension by Heins & La Farge, decoration by Tiffany, windows by Clayton & Bell, along with many other celebrated artisans. The Bicentennial Organ, Opus 65, one of the finest instruments in the city, was completed in September 2013 by Taylor & Boody of Staunton, VA. It's comprised of 97 ranks and over five thousand pipes. Throughout the last decade, Grace Church has undergone significant interior restoration, including the Te Deum window rising above the altar and chancel at the front of the church. In the summer of 2017, the entire expanse of the high ceiling was restored to its original condition. Taken together, this important work will ensure that Grace Church lives on as a Greenwich Village landmark for generations to come.

New York's Doughnut Hut of the Salvation Army. The Salvation Army's connection to donut making originated in 1917 when a troop of 250 American volunteers traveled to the front lines in France during World War I. Stationed to provide spiritual and emotional support for the fighters, the volunteers, primarily women, wanted to give the soldiers a taste of home by serving them home-baked goods. However, they found it difficult to procure the ingredients necessary to bake pastries or cakes and so opted for a simple dessert that wouldn't even require an oven: donuts! Ensign Margaret Sheldon and Adjutant Helen Purviance began coordinating an effort to provide this taste of home to the soldiers in the trenches. They were quickly able to produce around 2,500 to 9,000 donuts daily, using a cutter fastened out of a condensed milk can and a camphor ice tube. This heroic effort has been credited for donuts' popularity in the states today. During the Great Depression, the Salvation Army used the donut in yet another campaign to boost morale. National Donut Day, celebrated on June 4th, was invented in Chicago in 1938 to fundraise for aid efforts provided by the Salvation Army.

New York City Fire Engine No. 72 Cinema Village, located at 22 East 12th Street, is the oldest continuously operated cinema in Greenwich Village and one of the oldest continuously operated art cinemas in the city. Information from GVSHP’s research notes the following about the Cinema Village building: The façade appears to date from a 1964 alteration. The NB application shows that the structure was built as a three-story fire engine house in 1898 and designed by Horgan & Slattery for the City of New York. (Horgan & Slattery designed the Butterick Building at the Corner of 6th and Spring Streets in 1903 and other sites around the city during the early twentieth century). The building at 22 East 12th Street remained in use as a firehouse until it was converted to a movie theater in the 1960s. A 1964 Certificate of Occupancy shows it was operating as a “moving picture theater and entrance lobby.” The theater opened on October 5th of that year with Ingmar Bergman’s All These Women. Through most of its early years, Cinema Village was one of the city’s many repertory cinemas, showcasing vintage movies, cult classics, and contemporary favorites on double bills (aka double features) that would usually change three times a week. This once essential programming format has mostly died out in commercial movie theaters throughout New York City and the United States. By the late 1980s – and due to the surge in home video, buy outs by large-name theaters, and real estate development – commercial repertory cinema all but disappeared in New York City. Cinema Village escaped closure, surviving by presenting limited engagements of unconventional first run shows. In the early 1990s, before Jackie Chan, John Woo, Michele Yeoh and their stunt coordinators went to Hollywood, Cinema Village became known, through its annual festivals and other bookings, as the place to see the Hong Kong films of what would soon be acknowledged as a filmmaking golden age.

Century Building ARCHITECT: William Schikel DATE: 1880-81 STYLE: Queen Anne Schickel designed the Century Building in the Queen Anne style, an English import defined by a picturesque use of 17th- and 18th-century motifs. The Century is an unusually handsome example of the Queen Anne, notable particularly for its richly carved stonework, its two-story oriel window, its gambrel roof framed by massive chimney stacks, and its terra-cotta details including sunflowers, the trademark of the style.

Mabel Dodge Luhan Residence, 23 5th Avenue ca. 1915 Mabel Dodge Luhan was born in Buffalo, New York, to wealthy banker Charles Ganson and his wife Sarah Cook and grew up among the social elite. While living in New York City in 1912, Gertrude Stein introduced her to the Greenwich Village intelligentsia and provided Dodge's introduction to the artists and collectors organizing the Amory Show of modern art, which is considered the event that launched Dodge into action. Dodge organized weekly salons in her apartment at 23 Fifth Avenue (since replaced by the building with the address 25 5th Avenue) to include a mix of intellectuals and artists. John Reed and Max Eastman met with Margaret Sanger and Charles Demuth. Most importantly, the salons often crossed class barriers as Dodge invited those of different classes such as Emma Goldman and Bill Haywood to bring new voices into the conversations she hosted. She wrote that she wanted her guests to mix “in an unaccustomed freedom a kind of speech called Free.” In 1919, she moved to Taos, New Mexico and began a literary colony and hosted a number of influential artists and poets including Ansel Adams, Willa Cather, Georgia O'Keeffe, Aldous Huxley, and D.H. Lawrence. She died in 1962 at her home in Taos, which is now a National Historic Landmark.

The Salvation Army National and Territorial Headquarters ARCHITECT: Ralph Walker; Vorhees, Gmelin & Walker DATE: 1929-35 STYLE: Art Deco The complex includes a 12-story office building, adjacent to a 4-story auditorium building that included modern broadcast facilities. The building was designed by preeminent modernist architect Ralph Walker of the firm of Voorhees, Gmelin & Walker, using an Art Deco style. Both of these buildings are clad in brick, with a small amount of cast-stone ornament near the top and around the entrances.

"Taken from above and across Broadway of Grace Church in the snow at 11th Street with adjacent courtyard and parish house," 1902.

Amid the cast-iron facades of commercial and converted residential buildings between Broadway and University Place in the Village resides a large brick and brownstone institutional building. With its Police Athletic League (PAL) banners and Police Department signage over the door, it looks like it could have been an old station house re-purposed for PAL uses. In fact, this building on East 12th Street between University Place and Broadway is one of the city’s oldest surviving school structures and was the workplace of one of the pioneers of higher education for women.

The Hotel Grosvenor Apartments were constructed in 1926 on the site of the 1876 Grosvenor Hotel. The original hotel was one of the earliest businesses in the fashionable mansion district.

Lincoln Building ARCHITECT: R. H. Robertson DATE: 1889-90 STYLE: Romanesque Revival A classic example of the layered arcade design solution, a solution in which New York pioneered, the Romanesque Revival Lincoln Building is representative of an important transitional phase in the history of tall buildings. Using interior metal skeleton skyscraper construction in combination with traditional masonry bearing walls, the building is executed in limestone, granite, and brick, and has exceptionally fine carved and terra cotta detail, which includes the corner griffin, acanthus scrolls, Byzantine capitals, crisp moldings, human and lion heads.

2 Fifth Avenue visible above MacDougal Alley, ca. 1955. Designed by the firm of Emery Roth Sons for the developer Samuel Rudin between 1951 and 1952, 2 Fifth Avenue is a massive 353-apartment building. The major portion of the structure is the large 20-story white-glazed brick building (visible in this photograph). At the south end of the lot the building faces Washington Square Park, and it was designed to complement the low rise structures that face the park. 2 Fifth Avenue here is a five-story red brick building that works with the 19th century mansions that sit to its west. The building has been the home of a number of well-known New Yorkers including former Mayor Ed Koch and writer and activist Larry Kramer. The pair had an acrimonious relationship, as Koch was mayor for the first decade of the AIDS epidemic and his failure to act had serious repercussions for the gay community.

Statue of the Marquis de Lafayette, Union Square, March 20, 1936. S. Klein, a discount department store, the Union Square Savings Bank and the tower of the Consolidated Edison Building are visible in the background. Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s bronze sculpture, a gift from prominent French residents, was installed in Union Square on September 6, 1876. Bartholdi is best known for another iconic, French-funded civic sculpture: the Statue of Liberty.

The Brevoort Hotel and "Mark Twain House" on Fifth Avenue, between 8th and 9th Streets, October 24, 1935. Berenice Abbott’s 1935 photo captures lower Fifth Avenue in its waning days as a boulevard of the stately townhouses. The 27-story apartment building at 1 Fifth Avenue (extreme right) is a harbinger of the developments to come. The corner townhouse at left was known as the “Mark Twain House,” but its historical significance long predates the author’s brief residence in the winter of 1904 (or 1906, sources differ). The house — called “one of the most architecturally notable houses in all New York” in the 1969 Greenwich Village Historic District Designation Report — was built by architect James Renwick Jr. for his family’s estate. The light-colored building at right (actually a set of multiple townhouses connected by a shared cornice) is the Brevoort Hotel, named for Henry Brevoort, Sr., the owner of a large farm north of 9th Street that predated Greenwich Village development. Brevoort, a vehement opponent of the grid plan, successfully persuaded the city to bend Broadway at Tenth Street to accommodate his property. In 1953, the entire block was razed for the construction of the Brevoort superblock apartment building.

The three townhouses combined to form the new museum building.

The Decker Building was the site of Andy Warhol's Factory from 1968 and 1973. Fittingly, the building was designed by a radical anarchist architect, John H. Engelmann when he worked for Alfred Zucker in 1892. Engelmann had been expelled from the Socialist Labor Party and immediately formed the American Social League. Its name comes from the piano company that commissioned it: Decker. Andy Warhol moved his Factory to the Decker Building in 1968 after the original Factory's building on East 47th Street was slated for demolition. Warhol used a large portion of the sales of his work to fund his "Factory." It was at this factory where a bulk of Warhol's screenprints were produced by an assembly-line of workers. Conveniently, the Decker was in close proximity to Max's Kansas City, a nightclub he and his entourage would frequent. Warhol's sixth-floor unit was both a workspace and hangout frequently crowded with socialites, intellectuals, artists, adult film stars, drag queens, drug users, musicians, and many other characters on the fringes of society. These friends of Warhols became his "art-workers," producing his paintings, starring in his films, and generating the atmosphere the Factory became known for. It was here on a fateful afternoon in June (the 3rd) of 1968 that Warhol would be shot by Valerie Solanas. Solanas was a radical feminist and author who asked Warhol to produce her play titled "Up Your Ass," which she later accused Warhol of stealing. Solanas followed Warhol and Paul Morrisey into the elevator to the 6th-floor Factory where she shot Warhol three times and art critic Mario Amaya once. Warhol and Amaya recovered from their injuries and Solanas turned herself in. The Factory remained at this location until 1973.

Union Square West, north from and including the southwest corner of 15th Street, 1904.

Lafayette Hotel, February 3, 1937. The Lafayette Hotel consisted of three historic townhouses which functioned as the hotel (first at the Martin Hotel, then the Lafayette) from the 1880s until 1953 when they were demolished. During and after the First World War, the hotel became a favorite gathering location for airmen (both American and French stationed in New York). The owner of the Lafayette, Raymond Orteig, was the person who offered up the prize money for the first trans-Atlantic flight, won by Charles Lindbergh in 1927. The ground floor cafe was a well-known spot for writers and artists of the bohemian movement. The building was depicted not only by Berenice Abbott in this photograph by also by painter John Sloan.

39 Fifth Avenue ca. 1923 Emery Roth designed this 14-story apartment building, his first in Greenwich Village, in 1922. It was the first of many of the larger apartment houses which would line this part of Fifth Avenue, typically replacing the 19th-century mansions which originally lined the thoroughfare. It is clad in Flemish bond brick and is restrained in its ornament with the exception of the multi-colored terra-cotta loggias at the third and the eleventh and twelfth floors.

The Renwick, 808 Broadway, ca. 1978. Named for James Renwick, Jr., the celebrated architect of Grace Church, this mixed-use Gothic Revival building was designed by Renwick’s firm — Renwick, Aspinwall & Russell — in 1887. Renwick himself is unlikely to have been involved in the design, which features repeated arch motifs echoing the facade of Grace Church next door. Over the years, the Renwick’s tenants included a variety of clothiers and manufacturers of consumer goods, with a storefront available at street level (in recent years it has been occupied by a Halloween-themed costume store). In 1981, the building was converted for residential use.

Marquis de Lafayette Statue, ca. 1917 Located at a prominent site of protest and political gathering, this statue, designed by Henry Kirke Brown, with assistance by John Quincy Adams Ward and Richard Upjohn, depicts this founding father as an equestrian hero. Celebrating the General's arrival in New York on November 25, 1783, the day the British troops evacuated the city after a seven-year occupation, the monument was unveiled on July 4, 1856. It remains one of the earliest examples of bronze statues cast in the United States and a unique record of nineteenth-century American foundry techniques. After over a century of vandalism, corrosion, and missing elements, such as a sword that once fit into the scabbard, MAS's Adopt-A-Monument program facilitated restoration efforts in 1989 with a grant from the Glick Organization.

Civic Repertory Theater, 1900 This building is a theatre with a long history. The structure was originally constructed in 1866 as the Theatre Francais, a venue for French dramas and opera. Designed by German-born architect Alexander Saeltzer, his inspiration came from 18th century English styles. The resulting theatre was a large stone building with a two-story portico, classic pediment with sculptural figures, and supported by numerous Corinthian columns. Saeltzer is better known for his still extant buildings, including the Public Theatre (former Astor Library) and the Gothic Revival Anshe Chesed Synagogue, which is now the Angel Orensanz Center. The theatre would change hands and names with great frequency over the next 50 years. It was renamed the Lyceum in 1871 (one of a number of theatres to use that moniker). In 1879 it was taken over by J.H. Haverly and renamed Haverly's 14th Street Theatre. By the next decade it was called just the 14th Street Theatre. The theatre became a movie venue in the 1910s but returned to theatrical productions in 1926 when it was taken over by British actress Eva Le Gallienne, who was very involved in the American Repertory Movement. She successful produced high quality, low cost shows until the Depression forced the theatre's closure in 1933.

Milligan Place is a small alley off of Sixth Avenue, one of a number of hidden alleys in the Greenwich Village. Named for Samuel Milligan, the original owner of the property, the alley is lined with brick homes constructed in the 1850s. Today the small alley looks much like it did in this circa 1915 photograph and likely just as it did in the second half of the 19th century, quietly tucked away from the busy nearby street.

The Rhinelander House, Washington Square North, January 1950. Built for William C. Rhinelander in 1940, the Greek Revival mansion at Washington Square North and Fifth Avenue became a preservation flashpoint after the Rhinelander Real Estate Company sold the property for development in 1944. After a half-decade in limbo, the house was demolished in 1951, over the objections of the nascent Washington Square Committee, formed in January 1950. Today, the nineteen-story 2 Fifth Avenue stands on the site.

Liquor Raid at Luigi's, Greenwich Village Progressive-era and Prohibition reformers often took aim at saloons, arguing that spent wages and alcohol consumption hurt working-class families. While $60,000 of illegal liquor was confiscated from Luigi’s in the raid shown here, the owner was not charged, as he claimed that the alcohol was left over from before Prohibition. Image Info: January 24, 1923 CREDIT: Museum of the City of New York, Cityana Collection, gift of Mr. Benjamin Blom, 91.69.20.

52 West 9th Street ca. 1933 52 West 9th Street has a rather unusual studio window. According to the designation report for the Greenwich Village Historic District, this house was built in 1848 for physician Austin Sherman. But the unusual studio renovation took place some time in the early 20th century. Here the studio is not only unusually high (seemingly a nearly double-height space), but is recessed enough to supply a balcony with a balustrade for the lucky resident.

Most of us remember the famous line from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 thriller, Rear Window, “Meet me in the bar at the Albert Hotel,” delivered hauntingly by Jimmy Stewart to Raymond Burr. Today the building is a co-op complex comprised of four distinct structures functioning as a single entity and occupying the entire blockfront of University Place between East 10th Street and East 11th Street. The oldest of the buildings dates back to the 1870s, while another section was built by one of New York’s greatest and most celebrated architects. Collectively, the four buildings of the Albert Hotel have hosted a nearly unrivaled list of historically significant figures over the years. In 2012 the complex was listed on the New York State and National Registers of Historic Places — a largely honorific designation.

61 Fifth Avenue, ca. 1983. 61 Fifth Avenue first opened in 1938 as a Schrafft's luncheonette. The cozy restaurant, framed by a grand staircase, semi-circular open ceiling, and heaps of flowers, gift baskets and boxes of chocolate, was designed by architects Bloch & Hesse. By 1969, Schrafft's became the “official dining spot” for what New York Magazine then called “L.O.L.’s,” or Little Old Ladies. With the hope of reinventing its image, the owners hired Andy Warhol to film a trio of young girls in miniskirts with the tagline, “Have you seen the little old ladies in Schrafft's lately?" for a commercial. Despite efforts to appear hip, the restaurant closed in the 1970s and was replaced by a Brew Burger. Then came The Lone Star Café. Known for its “honkytonk” live music and the giant 40-foot iguana statue that sat on its roof, the Texas-themed cafe and club was the top venue for country music in New York from 1976 to 1989. Mr. Fuji's Tropicana opened at 61 Fifth Avenue in the early nineties, but only remained open for a short period of time. The club was famous for its tie to Vin Diesel, who is rumored to have worked the front door as a bouncer. A Korean deli with a secret karaoke bar on the second floor opened after Mr. Fuji’s shut down, and following that, a 24-hour convenience store. In 2006, the building was destroyed in a fire. The land was sold to a developer who recently erected a 10-story condominium at 61 Fifth Avenue. Designed by architect Alta Indelman, the building today is surrounded by a fence that has become a showcase for street art.

Old Grapevine Tavern ca. 1895 On August 6, 1966, the first known recording of “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” was made by the Miracles. Written by Motown pioneers Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, the song was re-recorded several times; Marvin Gaye’s cover landed on the top of the charts for seven weeks in early 1969. While the song now a Motown standard, the famous saying about receiving important news or information through a person-to-person chain of communication significantly pre-dates the Motown era. In fact, plentiful evidence and credible sources trace it back to a beloved tavern on the corner of 6th Avenue and 11th Street in Greenwich Village. A wooden two and a half story house built in the 1700s that stood at the southeast corner of this intersection housed a saloon called the Hawthorne. Originally a private home, by the early 19th century it had become a refuge for those escaping the beehive of activity in Lower Manhattan. But by the late 19th century, as the city grew around it, the tavern took on a different role. In 1877, the Tavern became a noted hangout for lawyers and politicians, including future presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Chester A. Arthur. There they shared information from and speculated about the many goings-on at the nearby courthouse, and the tavern became known as the best place to hear political gossip in New York. Also in the 19th century was the growth of an ever-expanding grapevine along the 11th Street façade of the building. So prominent was the climbing plant that the Hawthorne simply came to be known as “The Grapevine.” And thus, at least according to legend, this fertile ground for gossip and reconnaissance became the source for the figure of speech that information could be “heard through the grapevine.” In 1915, the old Grapevine Tavern was demolished to make way for the six-story apartment building which now stands at 78 West 11th Street.

Mansard roof of 881 Broadway, ca. 1973.

Union Square Park, 1902. In 1815, the former potter's field at the intersection of Bowery and Bloomingdale Road (Broadway) was designated Union Place, a public commons. Official establishment as a park came in 1833, and re-designed in 1839 to adopt the spirit of the public spaces dotting the London city map. Development in the surrounding neighborhood accelerated during the middle decades of the 19th century, as Manhattan's fashionable residential and commercial districts shifted uptown. In 1872, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the celebrated landscape architects behind Central Park and Prospect Park, were enlisted to redesign Union Square. The Olmsted and Vaux design is still evident in today's park, with its emphasis on space for public assembly and greenery.

Union Square West looking south, including the Decker Building (extreme right), date unknown. This 1893 building, designed by John H. Edelmann for the Decker Brothers piano company, replaced the company's previous headquarters designed by Leopold Edilitz. Edelmann, notable for his anarchist views and his mentorship of the architect Louis Sullivan (Edelmann came up with the idea for Sullivan's maxim "form follows function"), drew upon Venetian and Islamic influences in the design, which featured balconies, elaborate cast iron filigree, Islamic style terra cotta tiles, and culminated in a domed minaret. Later, from 1967 to 1973, the Decker building was the site of Andy Warhol's studio the "Factory," which was located on the 6th floor. This was where, in June of 1968, Valerie Solanas shot and injured Warhol, as well as art critic Mario Amaya.

Salmagundi Club ca. 1965 As written in the designation report, the four-and-a-half story Italianate style building at 47 Fifth Avenue was constructed in 1852-1853 for Irad Hawley, the president of the Pennsylvania Coal Company, which had yards along the Hudson River in the West Village. The building’s arresting entrance, up a flight of wide steps, is framed in original stone ornament and flanked by French doors that open onto cast-iron balconies. And, the report indicates, the inside is no less stunning. The first floor of the building showcases Italianate-style carved marble chimney pieces, rose wood doors, and an arcaded Corinthian screen dividing the front and back parlors. The dining room features elements of the Gothic Revival style and is one of the few remaining interiors in New York to do so. The Salmagundi Club, by 1969, was one-of-a-kind, the last architectural relic of the swath of mid-nineteenth century Anglo-Italianate brownstone mansions that once lined the lower portion of Fifth Avenue. Its dignified, former northern neighbors at 49 and 51 Fifth Avenue were razed to make way for a 19-story apartment building, built-in 1929 by Thomas W. Lamb, but the Salmagundi Club stayed put. Beyond the architectural significance of 47 Fifth Avenue, the designation report cites the building’s cultural significance as a key reason for its designation. The Salmagundi Club, before moving into its longtime home, was organized in 1871 for the “the promotion of social intercourse among artists and the advancement of the art” and named for the “Salmagundi Papers,” a satirical magazine published by short-story writer Washington Irving in which he coined the term “Gotham.” The Club purchased the grand Fifth Avenue mansion in 1917, and has resided there ever since. The designation report credits the maintenance of the historic building to the club, which had been, and continues to be, a reliable and generous steward. Notable members of the Club include illustrators Edwin Abbey, N.C. Wyeth, and Howard Pyle; Impressionist painters William Merritt Chase and Childe Hassam; Arts and Crafts pioneer John LaFarge; designer Louis C. Tiffany; Hudson River School artist Thomas Moran; and architect Stanford White. But that’s not all there is to celebrate today. The building is not only a historic cross-section of Fifth Avenue history and an esteemed center of orbit in the city’s art world. It is noteworthy also as one of the first individual landmarks named and protected by the city. The designation report is a mere page long, absolutely minuscule compared to the over 50-page reports put together today, but it set a crucial precedent in New York City’s landmarking process. And, from April 1, 1982 until 1999, Village Preservation’s offices were located in the building’s attic!

In 1981, a “rare cancer” first seen in a group of gay men primarily in New York and San Francisco eventually became a widespread epidemic more accurately known as acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). This curated collection includes the residences of influential AIDS activists and artists, venues where fundraising events were held, and meeting and demonstration locations of AIDS organizations.

100 East 12th Street ca. 1925 This 12-story terra cotta and brick building was completed in 1920. It was designed by Starrett & Van Vleck Architects as manufacturing lofts for the International Tailoring Company with a retail ground floor. In 1938, an adjoining 3-story building on the northeast corner of the lot was demolished by the W.P.A. and turned into a loading dock. In 1955, the dock gave way to a parking lot. Starrett and Van Vleck became known for their designs of department stores, including those buildings for Bloomingdales, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Lord & Taylor (their first department store commission, which is now a designated New York City Landmark).

West 14th Street looking east from Sixth Avenue, ca. 1892. No. 36, is at right, in the middle of the block. In the middle of the 19th century a brownstone occupied the lot. In 1858, sugar merchant Moses Lazarus (father to Emma Lazarus) and his family moved into the mansion. They remained in the home until at least 1876, when Emma wrote a letter to Thomas Wren Ward from this address. In 1877 the home was replaced by a five-story cast iron commercial building for Lazarus (as a headquarters or office, or as a rental property, it is unknown). That building is visible at right. In 1899 the Lazarus building was replaced by an addition to a neighboring structure, the Ludwig Brothers building. It soon after became Rothenberg & Co., "New York's most up-to-date store." Today that Neo-Grec commercial structure still stands at 34-42 West 14th Street.

Rock pit at 17th Street and Fourth Avenue (as Union Square East and Park Avenue South were then known), during the construction of the IRT Lexington Avenue Line, January 9, 1901. The trees visible at upper right are in Union Square Park. Note the subterranean surveyor at the bottom of the image.

830 Broadway This eleven-story brick building was constructed in 1897 for owner Ferdinand H. Mela, and designed by the architectural firm of Cleverdon & Putzel in the Renaissance Revival style. On January 1, 1898, the Real Estate Record and Guide noted that “Builder F.H. Mela has just completed a new 11-story mercantile building at no. 830 Broadway which contains several features that are likely to be imitated, notably the arrangement of stairs and elevators. Mr. Mella reports a good demand for lofts, and the fact that more than half of his new building is already rented testifies forcibly that the inquirers have meant business.” During the 20th century, a number of businesses were located at No. 830, largely within the clothing industry. Beginning in the 1970’s, artists occupied the building for studio and living space.

Palladium, ca. 1985.

Fleischmann’s Vienna Model Bakery, Broadway and 10th Street, 1898. Sometime after 1876, Louis Fleischmann built his bakery on Broadway, in the shadow on James Renwick’s Grace Church (left). The bakery, which sold a popular “new dough” style of bread made with yeast, also operated a restaurant and rented storefront space to other vendors. Beyond baking technique, Louis Fleischmann’s influence endures in an evocative turn of phrase: the bread line. Noticing the indigent New Yorkers who gathered near the bakery, Fleischmann instituted a practice whereby the bakery would give away its unsold loaves at the close of business. When hungry men lined up for their daily loaves, the phrase was born. Fleischmann’s Broadway bakery remained open until 1908, when the property was razed, having been acquired by Grace Church. Today, the Fleischmann name lives on in a brand of baker’s yeast available in supermarkets.

840 Broadway ca. 1927 840 Broadway was constructed for garment industry tenants in 1899-1901. This 12-story, steel-frame Renaissance Revival style building was designed by Robert Maynicke, and is a prominent reminder of Broadway’s turn-of-the-20th century development below Union Square. The report tells us that permits to construct 840 Broadway were filed with the Bureau of Buildings in December 1899. Construction began in 1900 and was completed in 1901. The structural framing was fabricated by the Hecla Ironworks, possibly at their North 11th Street Williamsburg factory During the first half of the 20th century, the ground (or first) floor was leased to companies that sold men’s clothing. Thompson & Company was first, signing a ten-year lease in 1899. A 1901 ad described 840 Broadway as “The Thompson Building.” It was the clothier’s uptown branch, selling “haberdashery and hats, as well as men’s and youth’s clothing.” The store closed at the end of 1907. Lester & Lester, another men’s clothing company, was the next tenant, followed by the Goodyear Waterproof Company, which sold raincoats and waterproof apparel. Goodyear operated in this location until 1953.” The architect of 840 Broadway was the German-born Robert Maynicke (1848- 1913). He took night courses at the Cooper Union (also a New York City Landmark). He supervised the construction of the New York Times (1888-89), Equitable (1886- 89), World/Pulitzer (1889-90), Union Trust (1889- 90) and Havemeyer (1891-93) Buildings, as well as the New York Produce (1881-84) and New York Cotton (1883-85) Exchanges. Further south on Broadway and Waverly Place, Maynicke was also responsible for the Guggenheimer Building. Maynicke was an expert on the structural properties of iron and steel and, consequently, tall buildings. Not just an engineering expert, Maynicke used various types of classical ornament here. The upper stories have elaborate terra-cotta details that draw from Greek, Roman, Renaissance, and Baroque sources. Such features include wreaths, garlands, margents, fasces, rosettes, banded arches with keystones, and banded Ionic columns with fluting.

A hot spot for writers and artists, this bar is credited as an important incubator of the Abstract Expressionist movement in the mid century. The Cedar Street Bar first opened in 1866 on (unsurprisingly) Cedar Street in lower Manhattan. After nearly a century and a number of moves further uptown, in 1964 the bar relocated to 82 University Place (seen here) after its venue a few blocks to the south was demolished for apartment buildings. While at its previous location at 24 University Place (1945-1964) the Cedar Tavern became a popular watering hole for many Abstract Expressionists. Artist Robert Motherwell held weekly salons in his nearby studio and this was the closed spot for a drink after the meetings. This group of patrons included Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, Michael Goldberg, Landes Lewitin, Aristodimos Kaldis, and others of the New York School of Abstract Expressionists. Beat Generation writers and artists, including Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Bob Dylan, also frequented Cedar Tavern. The 82 University Place location closed in 2006 and its century-old, 50-foot mahogany bar was sold and transported to a bar in Austin, Texas.

80 Fifth Avenue, an elaborately-detailed Renaissance Revival style office building constructed in 1907-1908 by the architecture firm of Buchman and Fox, has been a striking presence at the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 14th Street for well over a century. The stunning architecture would be enough to warrant landmark designation of the 17-story office, store, and loft building, which has housed law firms, clothing and jewelry shops, magazines and real estate offices, a school, and civic organizations over it’s more than one hundred ten year history. But beginning in 1973, the top floor was also home to the National Gay Task Force, the country’s first national LGBT rights organization, during its early period when it made groundbreaking advances — the first in fact ever made — for LGBT rights on the federal level. This building was constructed in 1908 to be used as manufacturing and office space. Known as both 80-82 Fifth Avenue and 2-4 West 14th Street, its facades facing two of New York’s busiest streets is full of stately embellishments. This beautiful building’s lower and upper levels feature decorative floral and geometric ornamentation, elaborate cornices, and angled bay windows on the third floor. Ornamented pilasters are found at either side of these windows, with slightly more austere middle floors and in its arched windows and elaborate ornamentation at the top story. The National Gay Task Force, now renamed as The National LGBTQ Task Force, works to advance full freedom, justice, and equality for LGBTQ people. The organization is the country’s oldest national LGBTQ advocacy group. The founding members of the Task Force included Dr. Howard Brown, Martin Duberman, Barbara Gittings, Ron Gold, Frank Kameny, Nathalie Rockhill, and Bruce Voeller. They were inspired by the Stonewall uprising and the burgeoning LGBTQ rights movements in the Village. Among the Task Force’s accomplishments during the time it was located at 80 Fifth Avenue included getting the American Psychiatric Association to end its classification of homosexuality as a mental illness; getting the federal government to end its ban on employing gay or lesbian people in any federal agencies (though a guarantee not to discriminate based upon sexual orientation was not implemented until decades later); and brokering the first meeting of gay rights advocates with the White House in 1977.

Grace Church at night, ca. 1975. Grace Church was first organized in 1805, and they built a church at Broadway and Rector Street three years later. The parish moved uptown in 1843. They commissioned 24-year-old James Renwick Jr.—in his first major work—to design their new edifice. The cornerstone of the French Gothic Revival masterpiece was laid in 1843, and the church was consecrated in 1846. The stone of the church was Sing Sing marble (cut by inmates of the infamous prison). At the time of completion, the steeple was built of plain wood (a cost saving measure). They also used plaster and lath (and not cut stone) for some of the interiors—it was quite the scandal! Over the next few decades, through the generous support of various congregants, most notably philanthropist Catharine Lorillard Wolfe, the church complex was expanded. The new features included a beautiful stained glass East Window (1878), a small chapel next to the church (1879), and a stone spire (1883). Additions and updates continued into the early 20th century. In the second half of the 19th century, the church was one of New York's most fashionable. Minister and author Matthew Hale Smith wrote in 1869 that, "To be married or buried within its walls has been ever considered the height of felicity." Pews within the society church were traditionally rented at a premium, though this practice was abolished in the 1960s. According to the Municipal Art Society, it is "one of the few buildings in New York that closes a vista." Visible from far south on Broadway and prominent at its location where Broadway begins its path northwestward, the church is one of the most significant examples of Gothic Revival architecture in America. It underwent a multi-million dollar rehabilitation project in the mid-1990s which focused on the restoration of crumbling marble exterior and the stained glass windows.

Townhouses on West 10th Street, October 11, 1940. (Note the growth of the tree in front of No. 17!)

Civic Repertory Theater, July 2, 1936. From the 1860s to the turn of the century, New York’s theater district centered on 14th Street. Abbott photographed four 19th-century theaters in the old district, anticipating their imminent destruction. The Civic Repertory opened in 1866 as the Theatre Francaise and acquired its modern name in 1926, when Eva Le Gallienne reopened it to produce classic revivals and new plays at low prices. Between 1932 and 1935, it housed the Labor Theatre, which performed plays with social themes. When Abbott photographed the Civic Repertory in 1936, it was closed, and two years later, a motion picture chain tore it down with plans for a new movie house, which was never built. In 1974, a six-story apartment house went up on the site.

31-41 Union Square West, October 26, 1938. The building at the far left is the Metropolis Bank, a neo-Renaissance structure designed by Bruce Price and completed in 1903. Next to it at no. 33 is the Decker or Union Building.The 1892 building was designed by John H. Edelmann. The style of the facade includes Venetian and Islamic traditions, rendered in terra cotta detail. From 1967 to 1973 the building was the venue for Andy Warhol's "Factory." It was here in 1968 that Valerie Solanas shot Warhol and critic Mario Amaya. The Hartford Building (no. 41 at the corner of 17th Street) dates to 1895 and was built as the headquarters of the Hartford Carpet Company. Today all of these buildings remain standing.

Streetcar tracks alongside the high pressure water system trench on Union Square West; undated photo. At left is the shop of Victor S. Flechter, violin dealer, at No. 23 Union Square West. Flechter was not a merchant of high moral character: He twice ran afoul of the law during the 1890s: first for selling an imitation violin as a Gasparo Duiffopruggar original; and again in 1896, for possessing a Stradivarius violin stolen from the late Prof. Jean Joseph Bott, for which he was sentenced to one year in prison.

8 and 10 West 8th Street. This pair was building in 1838 (along with nos. 12 and 14 to the east). In 1914, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney turned 8 West 8th Street into the Whitney Studio Gallery. In 1931, she turned nos. 8,10, and 12 into the first home of the newly established Whitney Museum.

29 West 14th Street, August 10, 1927. No.29, the old house at the right, belonged to the estate of the late Frederick T. Van Beuren.

The University Place Presbyterian Church was officially established in 1845 by members of the Duane Street Presbyterian Church who wished for a community further uptown. With more than $60,000 in donations (or subscriptions), the new parish purchased a plot at the corner of University Place and 10th Street from the managers of Sailors' Snug Harbor who owned this and much of the surrounding acreage. The parish commissioned famed architect Richard Upjohn to design their new home. Rendered in an English Gothic style with soaring spire, the church was dedicated in June 1845. In the ensuing decades, the once wealthy surrounding neighborhood began to decline as well-to-do New Yorkers moved further uptown. The church merged with Mercer Street Church in 1870 while continuing to use this edifice. Further financial struggles due to declining membership necessitated the 1918 merger of this church and the Madison Square Presbyterian into the nearby Old First Presbyterian Church on Fifth Avenue and 12th Street. In 1927 the old church was razed and in its place, the Devonshire House, a 14-story apartment building, was erected the following year.

Northwest corner of 14th Street and Fourth Avenue, ca. 2001.

Lincoln Funeral on Broadway, 1865. This 1865 photograph of President Lincoln's funeral procession shows Broadway looking north from 13th Street. The large home on corner is that of Cornelius van Schaack Roosevelt, grandfather of future president Teddy Roosevelt. Cornelius was a very successful plate glass importer and he owned the entire blockfront of Broadway from Union Square to 13th Street. In the 1940s a filmmaker and author named Stefan Lorant was putting together a pictorial biography of Lincoln. Upon closer inspection of this photograph he noticed two small figures in the second-story window. Lorant proposed that the two children were Teddy and his brother. He was able to ask Roosevelt's widow, Edith Carow Roosevelt, who was then in her late 80s, and she confirmed that it was very likely them.

Everett Building ARCHITECT: Goldwin Starrett & Van Vleck DATE: 1908 STYLE: Chicago Built in 1908 for the Everett Investing Company, was designed by Goldwin Starrett & Van Vleck, a firm known for its commercial architecture. In its design, the Everett Building synthesizes classical elements with key aspects of both the New York and the Chicago styles. Goldwin Starrett, the architect, brought to his New York practice familiarity with the Chicago style. The building reflects its structure in its cladding while employing a design vocabulary that includes classical motifs.

Village Preservation successfully advocated for this building's landmark designation in 2021. This building housed the headquarters of the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organizations, the NAACP, the first magazines for an African-American audience, The Crisis Magazine, and what would become the American Civil Liberties Union, among many other entities. To learn more about 70 Fifth Avenue, click here.

The Renwick The striking loft building at 806-808 Broadway/104-106 Fourth Avenue, which runs the entire block from Broadway to Fourth Avenue behind Grace Church at 11th Street, was designed in 1887 by James Renwick (architect of the adjacent landmarked church forty years earlier) and the partners in historic successor firm –James Lawrence Aspinwall and William Hamilton Russell, Renwick’s grand-nephew. Though a utilitarian structure housing offices, storage, and manufacturing, Renwick and partners designed it with vivid Gothic detail to serve as an appropriate backdrop to Grace Church, a New York City and National Historic Landmark. Aside from some storefront signage, the building is almost completely intact to its original design, from the gothic arches and tracery to the more robust, industrial Romanesque detailing of the Fourth Avenue façade. Both sides of the building maintain beautifully intact cast-iron storefronts, while the Broadway side boasts florid Art Noveau-style ironwork over the doorway and entry. The harmony between this structure, built as a store and manufacturing building, and one of the most delicate and important Gothic Revival structures in the United States, is nothing short of remarkable. In 1981 the building was converted to residences and renamed ‘The Renwick,’ in honor of its architect. The building gained additional notoriety with the publication of Caleb Carr’s The Alienist, in which the building serves as the headquarters for the team of investigators looking into the murders at the heart of the book’s story. The Grace Church, Grace Church Rectory, Grace Church Memorial House, The Renwick, and The Lancaster, an 1887 apartment building at 39-41 East 10th Street also designed by Renwick –all within feet of one another –provide an unrivaled example of the skill of James Renwick as an architect. The sadly recently-demolished St. Denis Hotel at Broadway and 11th Street added even further to this rich ensemble of Renwick designs added over time. While the master architect constructed other ensembles elsewhere, few if any span nearly half a century as these do, and serve such varied purposes –religious worship, residences, and commercial loft space –while maintaining such compatibility and dialogue between the pieces.

Every year millions of tourists make their way to New York City. While many of them may bypass the Village to flock to Times Square or the Statue of Liberty for a photo, there are many spots here that have gained popularity as a top spot to Instagram. Many of the popular spots draw tourists with their pleasing aesthetics. But often these traveling shutterbugs know little about the vast amount of history behind the sites. So for our many visitors, today we provide some history of some of the spots they use as a backdrop for their social media feeds.

21 Fifth Avenue ca. 1933 At 21 Fifth Avenue at the southeast corner of 9th Street stood a stunning brick townhouse and a one-time residence of Mark Twain. Referred to in the Greenwich Village Historic District designation report as “one of the most architecturally notable houses in all New York,” the Romanesque Revival style home was likely designed by the noted architect James Renwick, Jr. for his parents, James and Margaret Ann (née Brevoort) Renwick. Renwick, Jr. was also the architect of Grace Church at Broadway and 10th Street in 1843. In designing his family’s home, Renwick, Jr. employed graceful round arches at the window lintels and colonette door surround. Brick corbelling at the window sills and cornice as well as ironwork at the parlor floor balcony added extra dimension to the façade. The side street elevation was equally as detailed with its peaked gable and numerous windows of varying sizes. In 1906, the noted author Mark Twain lived here when he began dictating his autobiography to his collaborator, Albert Bigelow Paine. Despite the beauty of its architecture and its link to famous figures, 21 Fifth Avenue – along with its four townhouse neighbors and the famous Hotel Brevoort to the south – was razed in the early 1950s to make way for the fourteen-story apartment building at 11 Fifth Avenue, known as the Brevoort. Paired with the Brevoort East, the apartment complex occupies the full city block bounded by Fifth Avenue, East 8th Street, University Place, and East 9th Street.

Prohibition began in 1920 with the passage of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. For the next thirteen years, the production, sale, and consumption of alcohol in the United States was illegal. The Prohibition Movement originated with organizations like the Women's Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League in the second half of the 19th century. Belonging to the Progressive Movement, these temperance organizations sought not only to address the effects of society's problems, but to eliminate the root cause of crime and poverty by prohibiting the sale and consumption of alcohol. While these ideas might seem noble, they involved a darker side. These organizations were rooted in Protestant ideas of the Social Gospel and exhibited prejudice towards the growing number of immigrants and Catholics in America's cities. Many supporters of Prohibition viewed the newly arriving immigrants' enjoyment of beer and whiskey as the reason for the rising poverty and crime rates in many American cities, especially New York. Prohibitionists' intentions of eliminating crime and poverty not only failed, they backfired! Prohibition actually led to an increase in crime and illegal activity, as many began to profit from the illegal importing, production, and selling of alcohol. While the experiment with Prohibition ultimately ended with the passage of the 21st Amendment, it transformed American society and culture. NYS Social Scope and Sequence Standards: 8.4 & 11.7 For Teachers: Prohibition Lesson Plan

Manhattan: 11th Street (East) - 4th Avenue, 1936. Corner buildings shown in the process of demolition for the new United States Post Office.

In 1892, 27% of the country's millionaires lived in New York, when the city only made up 2% of the country's population! Welcome to the society of the Gilded Age. This tour takes its inspiration from an exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York that explores the visual culture of New York's richest residents from the mid-1870s to the start of World War One. It stops at several places, such as the old headquarters of Tiffany \&Company that are connected to the dazzling objects in the show. It also introduces you to some of the people at the center of Gilded-age society, and illuminates how-over the course of three decades- the city transformed more rapidly than ever before. It was during this time that New York became a world capital on par with London and Paris. Before the 1870s the lives of the rich and the places they frequented had been more private and understated. By the 1890s they were public and over the top: Simple brownstones gave way to French chateaux, cluttered dry good stores became palatial department stores; and grand hotels and restaurants became premiere places to entertain, outside the home. Even if shoes are more comfortable now than they were in the Gilded Age, you may find it tiring to walk this tour from beginning to end. So feel free to split it up!

Union Square is known today as a site of public gathering and for expressions of discontent. This is built upon Union Square’s rich, multi-layered history as a public space in Manhattan. The name of the park comes from its location within the downtown area, placed between, or at the “union,” of the then-Bloomingdale Road and Bowery Road, which is now Fourth Avenue and Broadway. Only thirty years after it was designated a public space by the State Legislature in 1831, despite its fencing and narrow sidewalks, Union Square evolved into a space where mass demonstrations, rallies, and protests took place.

A communist demonstration in front of the Hartford building on May 1, 1937.

Civic Repertory Theatre, 1936. The Civic Repertory Theatre opened in 1866 as a home for French language dramas and opera. Also known as Theatre Francais, it was designed by Alexander Saeltzer and presented French productions until 1869. It operated as a booking house from 1880 through the start of the twentieth century, most famously presenting Haverly's Minstrels. In 1871, the theatre was renamed to the Lyceum, after its new owner. The theater was again renamed in 1878 as Haverly's 14th Street when J.H. Haverly took it over. Despite its name change, by the mid-1880s, it had simply become known as the Fourteenth Street Theatre. The space was used as a movie theatre in the early part of the twentieth century until 1926 when actress Eva Le Gallienne turned it into the Civic Repertory Theatre. Although she put on 34 successful productions, the Great Depression ended that venture in 1934. The building was demolished in 1938.

In 1864 William Steinway opened a showroom for his pianos on 14th Street near Fifth Avenue. Owing to their overwhelming popularity, he decided to build a new concert hall as a venue to display and promote his pianos. The original Steinway Hall was constructed at the rear of this white marble building. Opened in 1866 the hall sat 2,500 guests and was one of the largest auditoriums in the city. Over the next 25 years, it was the home of the New York Philharmonic. The success of Steinway Hall in promoting Steinway's instruments was considerable, so much so that his competitors, the Aeolian Company and Chickering & Sons, felt the need to open concert halls as well. Following a few decades as a hub of musical and literary performances, in 1890 Steinway Hall ceased live shows. By then the neighborhood had lost its identity as both an upscale commercial district and a hub of entertainment. These areas had long been on the move uptown. For many years the auditorium was used largely for storage. Owing to a desire to have their showroom and a concert venue near Carnegie Hall, Steinway & Sons commissioned a new building on 57th Street in the late 1910s and moved to 111 West 57th Street in 1925. This photograph was taken just after the move. The sign on the front of the building notes that the building had commercial space for rent. Less than a year later the building was razed, and in its place, the S. Klein Department Store rose.

The Gilded Age describes the era following the Civil War and preceding the Progressive Era. From around 1870-1900 the United States industrialized rapidly. Factories sprung up throughout the towns and cities in the Northeast and Midwest. New railroad networks and telegraph lines connected these industries and cities with the financial centers of the nation, specifically New York City. The Gilded Age is a complicated period. It saw the rise of monopolies and the creation of vast wealth. However, this wealth was limited to only a few families. Most Americans, including the millions of immigrants arriving annually, remained incredibly poor. The inequality of the Gilded Age prompted Progressive Reformers to enact laws which helped those poorer Americans. New York City represented well this "tale of two cities." In 1892, 27% of the country's millionaires lived in New York, when the city only made up 2% of the country's population! Yet the vast majority of poor immigrants arriving to the country entered through New York Harbor. While many Progressive reforms got their start in the Big Apple, the city was also the center of Gilded Age opulence. NYS Social Studies Scope and Sequence Standards: 8.2 & 11.5 For Teachers: The Gilded Age Lesson Plan

The "New" Albert Hotel refers to the last two parts of the hotel Albert complex. These were built as a 12-story extension on University Place, built 1903-04 and designed by the firm of Buchman & Fox. The final section of the Hotel Albert to be built was the 6-story neo-colonial style building located on the northeast corner of University Place and East 10th Street. It was built 1922-24, and designed by William L. Bottomly and the firm of Sugarman & Hess. Some of those writers who have stayed at the Albert (or St. Stephens) include Robert Louis Stevenson, Harte Crane, Richard Wright, Anais Nin, Diane di Prima and Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka. Political radicals stayed at the Albert as early as 1906 including Ivan Ivanovich Norodny (chief executive commissioner of the Russian Military Revolutionary Party). John Gages, the editor of the Daily Worker, held a rally there in 1958. Many artists stayed there or gathered in the ground floor restaurant. Joseph Brody, who ran the restaurant from 1946 to 1968, hung the art of some of the many patron/artists on the walls and sponsored poetry contests; he also offered tours of the Village on a bus decoratively painted by Salvador Dali. Some of the famous musicians who spent time at the Albert during the 1960s and 70s included Jim Morrison, Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell, and James Taylor. The Mamas & the Papas wrote the hit “California Dreamin'” and Lovin’ Spoonful wrote “Do You Believe in Magic” at the Albert.

Marble House, March 20, 1936. No. 8 (the corner building) was built for John Taylor Johnston, the founding president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Johnston made his fortune in the railroad business. According to his obituary, he was the originator of the entire Central New Jersey Railroad system. Johnston created what was the first art gallery in NYC–to showcase his own collection– in a stable building next to his home before the Met was established. The house, which was called the first marble house in the city, was constructed in 1856 and, as a bright white building, stood out from its slightly later red brick neighbors. After his death the home was occupied by his daughter Frances for some time. She passed away in 1928 while living further uptown on Fifth Avenue. That same year the Johnstons, who had leased the land the home occupied from the Rhinelanders family, gave up the lease when the land owners planned to build an apartment building. The building never came to be as originally planned, due to the Depression. In 1936 when it was photographed, the home had been subdivided into apartments and named the Marble House. It was later occupied in part by NYU. The home and its neighbors seen here (and others unseen) were demolished in the early 1950s for the large apartment house at 2 Fifth Avenue.

One of a pair of almost entirely identical townhouses, 24 West 12th Street was built in 1851 by Charles Partridge. In 1853, it was sold to General Winfield Scott, who used it as his residence in the city. Winfield Scott was one of the most important generals of the 19th century. Having successfully lead the United States Army during the invasion of Mexico, Scott was important in the organization and modernization of the American military. Despite the respect of his peers and broad popular support, Scott was unsuccessful as the Whig presidential candidate of 1852 (the party having been broadly divided due to the Compromise of 1850.) Despite being a Virginian, Scott stayed loyal to the Union during the civil war and developed the Anaconda plan to crush the rebellion. However, Lincoln caved to popular pressure for an immediate (and disastrous) attack. Scott resigned in 1861, dying five years later.

James Renwick’s Gothic Revival Grace Church sits prominently at the bend of Broadway. Built in 1846, the building has all the accolades – it is a United States National Historic Landmark, New York City Landmark, and is also on the National Register of Historic Places. The building was one of the young (23 years old!) architect’s first projects. Renwick’s most well-known building, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, is among his many other notable works which include St. Bartholomew’s Church on Park Avenue in New York and the Smithsonian Institution Building in Washington, DC. Now back to the Grace Church – while the building itself has not undergone any major renovations, Grace Church School (which sits just to the east of the church) received a major subterranean addition ten years ago, affecting the land that the church sits on. At the southwest corner of the lawn in the image you see here, there is a hidden underground gymnasium two stories below, with additional staff offices and facilities for students!

22 West 15th Street, ca. 1935. The Leopold Ascher Brush Company was headquartered in the large six-story building at center. They produced boar bristle brushes for shaving. They were established in 1888 by Ascher, a German-Jewish immigrant to New York. In 1920 he applied for a trademark for his products. Oddly that trademarked symbol was very similar to the Nazi swastika. He is better known for the 1939 trademark for his popular Strong Set of shaving brushes. Ascher was a cousin to Paula Kissinger, mother to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Young Kissinger worked at the factory as a brush maker and later clerk and delivery boy as a teenager, while attending high school in the evening uptown.

20 West 12th Street, 1940. In the years just prior to and after the First World War there was a movement among a group of architects, homeowners, and developers to re-imagine the old (and sometimes deteriorating) rowhouses of Manhattan's older neighborhoods into innovative and stylish dwellings. No. 20 was one of those older rowhouses (it likely looked very similar to its neighbors). In the 1930s the home was renovated by architect Charles Magill Smith, who also lived there. The stoop was removed and the entrance created at the garden level.

The Everett Building, 200 Park Avenue South, ca. 1975. Erected in 1908, the Everett Building was designed by the Goldwin Starrett & Van Vleck firm. The facade of this 16-story high rise reflects the philosophy, taste, and style of acclaimed architect, Daniel Burnham — best known for the Flatiron Building — who previously employed Starrett in Chicago.

Milligan Place, March 20, 1936. Named for Samuel Milligan, whose home originally stood on the site, Milligan Place’s four houses were built in 1852 by Aaron Patchin, Milligan’s son-in-law, who owned nearby Patchin Place. Like Patchin Place, Milligan Place attracted bohemian tenants, such as George Cram Cook, co-founder of the Provincetown Players, and his wife, playwright Susan Glaspell. After 1917, the houses were modernized and subdivided into apartments. Abbott allowed the bright sunlight to impose a graphic pattern on the awkward space of Milligan Place, with the deep shadow of the El filling the foreground and the craggy branches of a barren tree filling the middle ground. The man standing at the apex of the triangular walkway cooperated with the photographer; a variant image shows that he walked into space twice. Threatened with demolition by a new owner, Patchin Place and Milligan Place were granted landmark status in 1969.

View north from 7th Street and Fourth Avenue (today Park Avenue South), August 2, 1902. During the cut and cover process of construction of the IRT East Side line, the busy streets of the city needed to maintain their necessary uses. Here a fully loaded trolley rolls over the tracks of the Metropolitan Street Railway Company. The tracks have been raised above the large excavation pit and shored up with thick timbers.

Entrance to the Whitney Museum When the conversion of the three houses was complete, the new Whitney Museum of American Art moved in and installed this signage an accompanying cast-aluminum eagle (still visible above the current signage for the New York Studio School). The creation of this museum was largely predicated by the Metropolitan Museum of Art's refusal of Gertrude Whitney's donation of around 500 artworks. This original museum was a modest exhibition space and director Juliana Force (a long-time friend and associate of Ms. Whitney) lived in an apartment above the galleries.

In the 1850s James Boorman Johnston, a wealthy real estate investor, had an idea. He wished to create a building that was designed specifically and solely for artists. He commissioned a young Richard Morris Hunt to bring his vision to life. The resulting Tenth Street Studios were nothing much to look at from the outside, a somewhat simple three-story brick facade with large windows. But it was these windows that aided in the buildings innovative interior. The inside of the structure was laid out with a domed central gallery from which rooms radiated. Light flooded the studios from the large windows. The functional design was an instant success, with some of the spaced occupied before the building was even complete in mid-1858. Early tenants included painters Frederick Church and John LaFarge and Hunt himself, who started the first architecture school in the States from his studio here. Later famed artists William Merritt Chase and Winslow Homer lived and worked here. The building remained true to its original form and function for more than half a century before an important, but ultimately non-disruptive change occurred. In 1920 the resident artists discovered that the owner wished to sell the building. They banded together and purchased it to hold off a commercial conversion or demolition. Saved for three more decades, the building was sold again in 1952 and razed four years later. A banal mid-century apartment building now stands in its place.

Are you ready for a closeup? Try your hand at re-creating these historic photos at Union Square! This challenge is only available to our iOS app users. If you don't yet have the Urban Archive App, download it here. Each location in this challenge has an address and a historic image tied to it. Check-in at each location by tapping the lock icon to the left of the clue. If you’re in the right place, it will turn green. Your challenge today is to take as many then-and-now photos as you can. Tap the image, and then the recreate button to line up the historical image with your present-day view. Once you’re happy with your photo, hit save to add it to your camera roll. Please share these photos with team@urbanarchive.nyc once you’ve completed the challenge. Happy snapping!

Brevoort Mansion ca. 1925 Completed in 1834, the Brevoort Mansion was an imposing Greek Revival home surrounded by gardens and commissioned by Henry Brevoort from two leading architects of the style, Ithiel Town and Alexander Jackson Davis. The mansion broke ground with several architectural innovations—a sectioned Greek key pediment and a “paneled” front façade accomplished by slightly recessing the two outer bays. It was designed as much for entertaining as for living; there was a billiard room, a library and two large parlors separated by the entrance hall. In fact, the Brevoorts set the tone for New York parties when, in 1840, they planned the first grand entertainment New York society had seen. Invitations went out in February 1840 for a bal costume, so popular in European society. It would set the pace for social events of high society for the rest of the century. Henry Brevoort died in 1848 and two years later his widow Laura sold the house to Henry De Rham for $57,000 (over $1 million today). It remained in the hands of the De Rham family until 1919, when it was sold to George F. Baker, Jr. and his wife, who toyed with the idea of restoring the old mansion for their personal use. However, by 1920 the Bakers leased the house to the Red Cross for $1 a month and by 1925 the house was slated to be destroyed to make way for the apartment house at 24 Fifth Avenue, originally built as the Fifth Avenue hotel, that still stands at the intersection today.

18 West 10th Street, June 15, 1938. Constructed in 1856 in an Italianate-style, the mansion was built for James Winslow, a wealthy New York banker. The home, four-stories above an English basement, was next door to Winlow's father-in-law and business partner, James F. D. Lanier at No. 16. The building's most striking feature was the three floor to ceiling windows at the parlor level, which matched the entranceway. The original residents only lived in the home for three years. Over the next two decades the mansion would change hands a number of times before being purchased by wealthy and retired sugar merchant Moses Lazarus in 1883. Lazarus, who was in poor health, moved in with his grown daughter, Emma. Emma Lazarus already a known poet, was surrounded by artists on the block, including painter John La Farge who lived two doors down. In 1883, after a trip to Europe, Lazarus wrote "The New Colossus," as part of the fund-raising art exhibition for the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. Moses died in the home in 1885 and Emma left for a second trip to Europe soon thereafter. She returned to New York and the house in 1887, herself ill. She passed away in November of that year, of what is now believed to have been Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The mansion was sold to Henry B. Livingston, a wealthy scion of an old New York family, before once again passing hands through various of New York's financial elite. For the middle part of the 20th century, the largely unaltered home was occupied by attorney Charles Abrams and his wife, artist Ruth Abrams. Today the basement level has been converted into a separate residence, though the upper floors remain a single-family home.

With good reason, Missouri and Connecticut like to claim the great writer Samuel L. Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, as one of their own. But New Yorkers like to claim Twain as well, and there’s plenty of cause to do so. He did have a love/hate relationship with the city, and lived here often. When he did, he liked to live in Greenwich Village. It’s a crying shame then that his most significant residence here, and a building that was indeed one of New York City’s most beautiful and storied, was razed in the years just prior to the formation of the Landmark Preservation Commission and the subsequent designation of the Greenwich Village Historic District.

Church of the Ascension ca. 1933 Particularly beautiful for its interior and for the great mural by John La Farge above the altar, this church is a good example of Gothic Revival style in ecclesiastical architecture. It appears that the rector, knowing architect Richard Upjohn's High Church proclivities, bought the lot across the end of the property for his rectory in order to prevent Upjohn from building a deep chancel, as was his wont.

Let's go west! Explore 14th Street, one of Manhattan's most vital and vibrant arteries. This time, we'll be starting at 5th Avenue and heading towards the Hudson River. Among the highlights: an armory, a bowling alley, and a gorgeous old theater that is no more.

Luchow's Restaurant, October 26, 1938. Originally opened prior to 1882 as a small beer hall, August Luchow, a German immigrant and waiter at the beer hall, purchased the business, with a loan from the piano-maker William Steinway, whose office was across the street. The large German restaurant that Luchow created was a neighborhood landmark for 100 years. The popular dinning hall was in close proximity to the Academy of Music and Steinway Hall, which boosted its reputation as a pre or post-performance hot spot. The author Ludwig Bemelmans called Luchow's a goulash and Wiener schnitzel emporium. When Teddy Roosevelt dined there he had venison. By 1910 Luchow had purchased a number of neighboring lots and greatly expanded its footprint. Despite the depressions and wars of the first half of the 20th century (and the anti-German sentiment that accompanied those wars) the restaurant survived and largely thrived. Luchow's was the recipient of the first cafe liquor license in New York City following the repeal of Prohibition. The business would change hands a number of times post 1950, but despite a number of renovations, both the quality of the food and the quality of the surrounding neighborhood had declined measurably. The 14th street restaurant closed in 1982, 100 years after it had opened. The owners attempted to move a version of the place uptown closer to the theatre district, though this iteration only lasted a few years.

116-124 East 14th Street Building Date : 1993 Original Use : Commercial Original Owner : Department of General Services Original Architect : Schuman, Lichtenstein, Claman & Efron Description & Building Alterations Now the site of a two-story commercial building, this lot once held the 2,267-seat City Theatre. Built in 1909-10 for William Fox, the theater housed both vaudeville and motion pictures and was one of the first large theaters to show movies in New York City, as stated in the Ridgewood Theater Building designation report. The French Renaissance-style theater was designed by Thomas W. Lamb, a prolific American theater specialist responsible for over three hundred theater buildings in the United States and around the world. The 14th Street facade is visible in a 1938 photo taken by Berenice Abbott for her Changing New York series. The City Theatre was demolished in 1952 and the current building was constructed in 1993. This building is set to be demolished and replaced with a 21-story Tech hub.

“45 East 18th Street, adjoining the N.W. corner of Fourth Avenue, showing an old enterprise; a feature of this locality (woolen’s) for years. To the right is the 12-story Belvedere Building located at the aforementioned corner. June 1938.” The “old enterprise” is, of course, the Old Town Bar and Restaurant, opened in 1892 and in continuous operation since (its proximity to Prohibition-era Tammany Hall probably didn’t hurt). Inside, you’ll find the original marble and mahogany bar, and one of New York’s oldest operating dumbwaiters.

First Presbyterian Church, ca. 1915. Founded in 1716, the First Presbyterian Church in the City of New York first worshipped on Wall Street, before shifting to Cedar Street and, in 1846, to its present location on Fifth Avenue. The Gothic Revival church, designed by Joseph C. Wells, was built between 1844-6. Today, the First Presbyterian complex includes several additions and outbuildings, including a transept by McKim, Mead & White (1893-4) and a “church house” by Edgar Tafel.

The Hotel Albert The next part of what is now the Albert complex to be built was directly west of the St. Stephen. Also commissioned by Rosenbaum, it was the first section of today’s complex to use the Albert name (Rosenbaum’s given name), located on the southeast corner of University Place and East 11th Street. Built in 1881-82 as a high-end apartment house or “French Flats,” and called the Albert Apartment House, it was one of the earliest examples in New York of the then-novel concept of apartment house design for middle- or upper-class residents. It was designed by the great architect Henry Hardenbergh, designer of perhaps the most famous and beloved of all of New York’s early apartment houses, Central Park West’s the Dakota (1880-84), as well as other great New York City landmarks such as the Schermerhorn Building located just a few blocks away on Lafayette Street, and the Plaza Hotel. In 1887, the Albert Apartments was converted into a hotel, rechristened the Hotel Albert. Just a few years later in 1895 the Hotel Albert absorbed the neighboring St. Stephen, thus beginning the Albert’s outward sprawl.

Guardian Life Building, 1918. Forced out of their previous headquarters on Cedar and Nassau Streets because of serious structural complications, the Germania Life Insurance planned a move uptown in 1909. They purchased land near Union Square and commissioned the firm of D’Oench & Yost. The resulting 20-story building, completed in 1911, was largely Renaissance Revival in style, though it featured elements of other styles, such as its eye-catching four-story mansard roof (their previous building had been a Second Empire structure with a stately mansard). The mansard, tiled in reddish-orange terra cotta, had scores of windows in various shapes and styles. And on top an electric sign broadcasted the firm's name. Renamed the Guardian Life Insurance Company of America during the anti-German sentiments of the First Wold War, the firm had a new sign manufactured. Guardian remained in the building until 1999, when they moved back downtown. Today the building is the W New York, Union Square, a hotel.

Washington Mews, with No. 1 Fifth Avenue rising in the background. May 3, 1934. The 18th-century ship’s captain Richard Randall had a vision for what would become of his Manhattan country estate after his passing: in his will, he stipulated that his land, a large tract north of present-day Washington Square Park, be converted an institution for elderly seamen. After Randall’s death in 1801, rather than convert the increasingly valuable Manhattan real estate into geriatric housing, his heirs elected to fund the development of Sailors’ Snug Harbor on Staten Island by leasing Washington Square parcels for residential development. Washington Mews became a row of carriage houses for larger residences on Washington Square North and East Eighth Street. After carriage use declined in the early 20th century, Sailors’ Snug Harbor converted some Mews buildings to artist studios. The sculptor Paul Manship, whose “Prometheus” is installed at Rockefeller Center, lived for a time at No. 42 (at right). Today, the Washington Mews carriage houses are faculty residences for New York University.

826 Broadway ca. 1910 Built in the Renaissance Revival style, this 11 story building was constructed in 1902 and designed by William Birkmire. It is located on the northeast corner of Broadway and East 12th Street, and today is well known as home to The Strand bookstore, a GVSHP Village Awards winner and beloved New York institution. The architect, William Harvey Birkmire (1860-1924) began his career in the steel industry in Philadelphia and was an authority on modern steel construction. By 1895 Birkmire established his architectural firm in New York, applying his steel construction techniques to the design of large store and loft buildings. The brick and stone commercial store and loft building at 826 Broadway was occupied by garment industry businesses in its earlier years and various commercial interests since including a medical device company during the 1930s.

Completed in 1846, Grace Church in New York is one of the earliest examples of Gothic revival architecture in New York City.

Harris (1855-1931), an Irish immigrant who became a naturalized U.S. citizen during his editorship of Pearson’s Magazine, was a noted author, journalist, editor, publisher, and provocateur. His autobiographical My Life and Loves was banned in the United States and Britain for 40 years due to its sexual content. In addition to publishing this and Pearson’s, Harris wrote two books about Shakespeare and biographies of his friends, the playwright George Bernard Shaw and the poet and playwright Oscar Wilde. Wilde, who was found guilty of engaging in acts of “gross indecency” in 1895, became an icon in the emergence of the modern LGBTQ rights movement. Harris’ close friendship with Wilde is portrayed in Moises Kaufman’s Gross Indecencies: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, as well as several other literary portrayals of Wilde’s life.

St. Denis Hotel ca. 1903 Completed in 1853, by architect James Renwick, the St. Denis Hotel stood at the corner of East 11th Street and Broadway. The property, which was owned by the Renwick family, had been given to them by their relative, Henry Brevoort, a successful farmer and prominent landowner during the late eighteenth century. The hotel was named after its first proprietor, Denis Julian, and its style was derived from Elizabethan and Renaissance models. It was said to be “one of the handsomest buildings on Broadway, occupying seventy-six feet on that thoroughfare and one hundred and twenty on Eleventh Street” by Miller’s New York as it Is, Or Stranger’s Guide-book to the Cities of New York, Brooklyn and Adjacent Places. James Renwick was a partner in the prominent architectural firm of Renwick, Aspinwall & Russell, who was responsible for numerous notable Gothic Revival-style buildings during the mid- to late-nineteenth century. His first commission was Grace Church, a notable French Gothic Revival-style work and a designated city landmark, built in 1847, which has been called “one of the city’s greatest treasures.” Besides the Trinity building, which was demolished in 1853, the St. Denis was the first building in New York to utilize terra cotta as exterior architectural ornament. During its heyday, the St. Denis was located in what was considered an upscale shopping district or “the most fashionable part of Broadway.” It was patronized by many notable individuals, wealthy businessmen, theatrical superstars and Presidents. Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln often stayed there on their trips to New York. In September 1867, Mary Todd Lincoln stayed at the St. Denis, while visiting New York for the purpose of selling her personal belongings. After an 1873 fire, the St. Denis was rebuilt in 1875. In May of 1877, the St. Denis was the site of Alexander Graham Bell’s first public demonstration of the telephone in New York. He had already patented the telephone and made public demonstrations of it in Boston, a week prior, but was looking for financial backers. He demonstrated this in the hotel’s second-floor “gentlemen’s parlor,” while two hundred invited guests observed. Other distinguished individuals who stayed at the St. Denis were General Ulysses S. Grant, P.T. Barnum, Mark Twain, Roscoe Conkling, Buffalo Bill and Sarah Bernhardt. In 1917, after 64 years of operation, it was announced that the St. Denis would be closing its doors to make way for a loft building. The reason for its demise was the surrounding neighborhood’s change in character and the manager’s inability to keep up with modern hotel-keeping ideas. In February 1920, the Renwick family finally sold the property, which had been in their family for 250 years, at auction. “The changing of the St. Denis Hotel to an office building obliterates one of the oldest hotels in the city…The St. Denis Hotel was the fashionable headquarters half a century ago” said the New York Times. The hotel was converted into a modern store and office building and, during renovations, was stripped of its previous decorative front.

Twin townhouses on West 12th Street, which served as the Church House for the First Presbyterian Church on Fifth Avenue. July 16, 1936. These townhouses, designed by Alexander Jackson Davis, were likely completed during the 1840s. Decades later, No. 14 (right) was home to the sculptor John Rogers (1888-95) and the writer Theodore Dreiser (1897-98). The townhouses were razed during the 1950s, ahead of the construction of the new Church House, designed by Edgar Tafel, a student of Frank Lloyd Wright. One architectural element of the old Church House survives: a stained glass window, now part of the Brooklyn Museum collection.

Hammacher, Schlemmer & Company ca. 1906 Hammacher & Schlemmer (say that ten times fast!) was the city’s first hardware store, opened in 1848, and is the country’s longest running catalog, first published in 1881. The store originally opened in 1848 at 221 Bowery at a time when high-quality hardware was hard to find. Then just 12 years old, William Schlemmer would sell tools in front of his uncle’s store. By 1867, he, along with newly acquired partner Alfred Hammacher (a fellow German immigrant), bought the business and renamed it Hammacher & Schlemmer. The two men turned this local shop into a national company, inventing numerous firsts: pop-up-toaster (1930), electric razor (1934), stem iron (1948), microwave oven (1968), cordless telephone (1975), among many others. In 1904, having outgrown its quaint Bowery location, Hammacher & Schlemmer moved to 133 Fourth Avenue (also known as 127-135 Fourth Avenue and 102-104 East 13th Street). Built in 1897 by Marsh, Israels & Harder, this building occupies an odd plot of land- picture a square corner lot with a little square cut out of the very corner. The AIA Guide refers to the building as the Hancock Building, but we haven’t been able to dig up any more information on the origins of that moniker (any tips?). The Fourth Avenue facade is more elaborate than its 13th Street counterpart, as it was the entrance to the store. The facade contains Romanesque elements like rounded arches on the top story and a subtle contrast of limestone texture. It also has Beaux-Arts elements, like the elegant cartouche above the doorway, Ionic pilasters flanking the middle stories, and the V-shaped decoration above the windows. This eclectic mash-up of styles makes this building extremely unique, not dissimilar from its hardware tenant that gained the motto, “if you can’t find it, try Hammacher & Schlemmer,” for its wide array of hard-to-find products. By 1926, the company had once again grown too large for its home and moved to 147 East 57th Street. 133 Fourth Avenue, however, remained in the family until 1936 under the ownership of William Schlemmer’s daughter Ida S. Bruch, who owned several other properties in the area.

5-11 MacDougal Alley, ca. 1903. This small street has been home to numerous artists including Jackson Pollock and Gertrude Vanderbilt. At no. 11 once was the former studio of the prolific muralist, Barry Faulkner. Faulkner's 12-panel series in Washington Irving High School depict key moments and figures in New York City's early history. They were conserved under the MAS Adopt-A-Mural program in 1998, with funds from several foundations including Putnam, Herman Goldman and Gramercy Park, in addition to funds from the NYC Board of Education and MAS Members.

This building served as the home of the groundbreaking Pearson’s Magazine and bookstore. Pearson’s began as a progressive British magazine in 1896 with a socialist bent and focus on literature, publishing works by Upton Sinclair, George Bernard Shaw, and H.G. Wells, among others. However, the American version, founded in 1899, began to diverge in its content and focus more on American writers and issues, especially under the editorship of Frank Harris in the 1910s and 20s, when it was located here.

Margaret Louisa Home ca. 1907 By the late 19 century, not only were unmarried working-class women toiling in factories, mills, shops, and various trades, but middle-class women were employed in new white-collar jobs as clerks, secretaries, stenographers, journalists, and telephone operators. An 1879 report of the Association for Inquiry into the Condition of Professional and Business Women estimated that there were about 50,000 women pursuing “professional, literary, and artistic pursuits” in and within 50 miles of New York, while there was only accommodation for 500. The need for housing was so great that the LCU and similar organizations were turning away three applicants for every one they could house. The Young Women’s Christian Association of New York City constructed the first new building designed specifically to house single working women.] Completed in 1891 at 14-16 East 16th Street, the six-story Margaret Louisa Home was described as “a temporary home for the Protestant self-supporting woman who is a stranger within the gates of Gotham.” The requirements for acceptance to the house show the continued emphasis on moral character: “Those desiring admission \[must] provide a name, occupation, church denomination, and the name and address of a reliable person…” Thirty years on, the house rules were as strict as those in the earlier “moral homes.” Rent was payable in advance, no cooking or washing was allowed on the premises, electricity was “extinguished at 11 o’clock,” and “the house is closed at 11 pm; those liable to be detained later must report at the Superintendent’s office in advance.” The Margaret Louisa was a new type of building, much larger than any earlier home (it could accommodate up to 110 women). Still, it was consciously designed, under the leadership of the all-female association board, to “have that indescribable, indispensable something—sympathetic home influence.” Contemporary descriptions of the public spaces note the walls were “painted in warm, soft colors which add greatly to the charm of the finish,” while “the parlors are tastefully furnished, with engravings, a piano…reading lamps…all of which give a peculiar home-like air to these surroundings.” In contrast, the bedrooms at the Margaret Louisa were quite small and furnished plainly. Photos from about 1907 show a dormitory bedroom crowded with three iron bedsteads, small wash basins, a bureau, and a shelf. While the single-bedroom photo has similar furnishings, it appears staged as an attractive, feminine, middle-class space, a sort of “aspirational” bedroom with a vase of flowers, pictures on the bureau, and personal items pinned up behind a shelf, which also has assorted knick knacks More occupants meant a lower cost per boarder, which might explain the small size of the bedrooms and their spartan furniture. However, it is interesting to contrast the austere nature of the small, almost institutional bedrooms, with the attractively decorated public rooms—rooms where genteel practices like reading or playing the piano were encouraged. Even though the residents, for the most part, were middle-class, professional women—teachers, artists, and journalists—in form, furnishings, and rules, the Margaret Louisa continued the traditions of the “Moral Home.”

An important early work of renowned Gothic Revival architect James Renwick, Jr., Grace Church (built 1843 - 1846), at Broadway at East 10th Street, is one of the most significant examples of this style in America.

Juliana R. Force Residence, ca. 1932.

Tammany Hall was the home to the political machine known as the Tammany Society from 1929 until they could no longer afford the building in 1943. Despite its storied political history, the Neo-Georgian building was only designated a New York City landmark in 2013. A renovation proposed by BKSK Architects a year later in 2014 included a multi-story glass dome perched on the top of the existing landmarked building. This design was deemed too stark by the LPC, but a year later BKSK came back to the commission with a slightly pared-down version and it was unanimously approved. There will still be a large glass dome that rises two stories above the roofline of the existing building, but the profile is much lower from the street. If you look up the designs (which you should!), you’ll notice that the glass dome rather resembles a turtle shell, which is precisely what the architects were after. Inspired by the namesake of the original chief of the Tammany organization and leader of the Lenape people in the late 17th century, Chief Tamanend.

881 Broadway, ca. 1976. The massive building that runs from Broadway to Fifth Avenue along the whole of 19th Street (and also actually has a small mid block facade on 18th Street) was built over 15 years. Designed by Griffith Thomas, the original section of this building fronted Broadway and a small section of 19th Street. Constructed in 1868 in an ornate Second Empire style, Thomas extended the building along 19th in 1872 and had a second entrance on that facade added. At this time the original top of the building was removed for the construction of the double-story mansard roof. The building was once again extended in 1876 so that it reached all the way to 5th Avenue. (The 1883 addition which is a mid block facade on 18th Street was completed in a very different style and by a different architect.) The building was constructed and subsequently altered for the Arnold Constable dry goods company. The origins of this business date to 1825 and a storefront on Front Street. The firm grew and prospered and moved a number of times before purchasing the lot on 19th Street. Already one of the largest dry goods stores in the city in 1868, the additions to the building allowed for new departments (carpet, upholstery, wholesale) and created a massive department store. It was said to be "one of the largest business establishments in the world." The store remained in this location until 1914, when it moved uptown to 40th Street. In 1925 Arnold Constable merged with specialty retailer Stewart & Company and began expanding to the suburbs. The store finally closed its Fifth Avenue and 40th Street location in 1975. It would go on to become the location of the Mid Manhattan Branch of the New York Public Library.

Academy of Music (later Palladium), 1962. On their first US tour in 1965, the Rolling Stones played at the Academy of Music, a movie palace and music venue. In 1976, The Band played the first show under the newly named Palladium. It saw a wide range of music acts, including the Grateful Dead, Bruce Springsteen, The Ramones, Iggy Pop, U2, Def Leppard, P. Diddy, and Lil’ Kim. From 1985 to 1997 it was a nightclub with the same name, it’s now a dormitory for NYU students.

Grace Church, ca. 1875. One of the few buildings in New York that closes a vista, this church has a spire that may be seen from far down lower Broadway. Architecturally, it is one of the monuments of the Gothic Revival, complete with rectory and parish house. Although private pews were recently abolished, it was once the most popular church with New York society, and its pews, reigned over by the famous Sexton Brown, sold at a premium.

827-831 Broadway (two middle buildings with peaks at the roofline), c. 1910. The pair of cast iron-fronted buildings at 827 and 831 Broadway were built in 1866 and designed in the Italianate style by cast iron master Griffith Thomas. Constructed for Pierre Lorillard III, the grandson of New York's earliest maker of snuff, the four-story buildings were designed for retail, office, and manufacturing spaces. The symmetrical rows of arched windows, crafted by Thomas in 1866, remain nearly unchanged today. Not long after completion the building became the headquarters of Wheeler & Wilson Manufacturing, which invented some of the first successful sewing machines and forever changed clothing manufacturing. In the mid to late 20th century the ground floor was occupied by a well-known high end antique shop, one of many on this section of Broadway at that time. The most famous tenant of no. 831, though, was the artist Willem deKooning, who began renting an industrial space in 1958. His studio was described in 1962 by photographer Dan Budnik: “Walking into his studio was like entering a New York artist’s dream space. Daylight from skylights and large front windows reflected off white walls and a polished natural wood floor, creating a proper balance in the ambient light." Despite earlier threats of demolition, the twin buildings were landmarked in October of 2017, with the LPC noting their significant cultural history in addition to their architectural merit.

Manhattan: 4th Avenue - 11th Street (East). Designed in the Art Moderne style by William Dewey Foster, who designed a number of post offices around the New York area, this New Deal era building is perhaps most well-known in pop culture as the post office that employed Newman in the TV series Seinfeld.

April 13, 2020, marks the 150th anniversary of the founding of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Museum occupied two temporary buildings before opening its permanent location in Central Park in 1880. When it first opened to the public, The Met was located in the Dodworth Building at 681 Fifth Avenue. The Douglas Mansion became The Met’s second home from 1873 to 1879, situated at 128 West 14th Street. Since opening its permanent home on Fifth Avenue, the building has expanded greatly, and various additions now surround the original structure. These images chronicle the early decades of The Met’s 150-year history.

George Washington Statue, ca. 1975. This equestrian memorial to America's first president is the oldest sculpture in the collection cared for by the NYC Parks Department. In 1851 a group of citizens approached two artists regarding a desired Washington sculptor. Horatio Greenough was well-known for a previous marble sculpture he created of the president, but passed away before a design could be planned. The resulting bronze monument was created by Henry Kirke Brown, who had already sculpted DeWitt Clinton for Green-Wood Cemetery. Kirke choose to recreate a scene from Evacuation Day, November 25, 1783, when Washington reclaimed the city from the British. He spent more than 18 months modeling the horse and its rider. Placed on a simple pedestal designed by Richard Upjohn, the statue was dedicated June 5, 1856 before a crowd of thousands. Originally located in a fenced traffic island in the middle of the intersection at the southeast corner of Union Square (see the next image below), the statue was moved to a more central location in the south plaza of the park during a redesign and reconstruction in the late 1920s.

Hotel Marlton ca. 1911 The eight story building we see today looks almost exactly as it did when it was constructed in 1900 as the Hotel Marlton. At the time, the majority of this swath of West 8th Street was comprised of 5-story, fashionable residential buildings. The hotel rose taller and stood out for its curving bays, wrought-iron balconies, handsome entrance, and attractive cornice. For much of its lifetime after its construction, however, it functioned as an SRO (single room occupancy) for struggling Village artists. Most famously it housed Edna St. Vincent Millay and Beat Generation writers such as Jack Kerouac (he wrote Tristessa here), Gregory Corso, and Neal Cassady. The list of significant figures who passed through the Marlton’s doors does not stop there. Would-be Ecuadorian President Galo Plaza was born in the hotel in 1906 to his diplomat parents. Valerie Solanas was living there when she shot Andy Warhol in 1968. Actors including John Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Julie Andrews, and Mickey Rourke also spent time at 3 West 8th Street. Even in its dorm days, Marlton House was not your run-of-the-mill place. In addition to students, there were still permanent residents living there, one of whom reportedly would get visits from Mickey Rourke and one of whom a former student claims was a pimp. This may not have been your average freshman year experience, but it was certainly one that gave dorm dwellers a powerful introduction to life in the Village and the Hotel Marlton.

Marble House doorway, February 1, 1938.

Larry Kramer, a pioneering gay-rights activist, and author lived at 2 Fifth Avenue beginning in the 1980s. On August 11, 1981, he hosted a group of friends at his apartment to discuss the recent announcement of the outbreak of Kaposi sarcoma, cancer attributed to AIDS. The group mobilized quickly, raising $6,600 for medical research and founding the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), the first AIDS advocacy and support organization, on January 4th, 1982. By 1987, however, Kramer had become frustrated with the group’s passivity amidst ongoing threats to gay equality and increasing numbers of AIDS victims. On March 10, he gave an impassioned speech at the LGBT Community Center at 208 West 13th Street, which led to the creation of the grassroots activist group AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) two days later. The organization is credited with calling attention to the political and medical bureaucracy and prejudice contributing to the deaths of those who had AIDS. The founding of both GMHC and ACT UP represented a fundamental shift in the response to and view of the AIDS crisis at the time, from one of government apathy and inaction to a determined effort by those most affected by and potentially at risk for the virus demanding a response by government, the media, and established institutions to recognize their humanity and address the life or death needs they faced.

Unique Theatre ca. 1908 Today, we think of Times Square when we think of the theatre district, but over 100 years ago, 14th Street centered around Union Square was full of theatre houses. The photo above shows what 136 East 14th Street looked like in 1908 when it was occupied by the Theatre Unique. It’s hard to believe that for 10 cents, a person could spend the day seeing several Vaudeville acts and 10 reels of the latest movies, according to Warren G. Harris at the Cinema Treasures website. Can you guess what sits in this spot now? Although the Cinema Treasures page shows the P.C. Richards store as the current building that occupies 136 East 14th Street, it is actually this NYU dormitory constructed in 1998. Far from unique, the building covers a large portion of this stretch of 14th Street and represents the non-descript designs we’ve come to expect from NYU. Taking a look back at what stood here 100 years ago, the Theatre Unique lived up to its name in design. Though not a huge structure, the large arched entrance gave the building an imposing air. When it opened as a penny arcade in 1907, this stretch of 14th Street was no stranger to entertainment venues; since about 1870, New York’s elite came to this district to see the latest live performances. Leading up to World War I, however, legitimate theatre moved northward to 23rd Street, then 34th Street, and finally 42nd Street where it still remains. The arrival of the movies gave new life to several theatres along 14th Street, and the Theatre Unique was one of the first in the city to offer movie screenings. The opulent movie house held about 800 seats, according to Cinema Treasures. New ways of attracting patrons presented itself in the form of bright lights and illuminated signs. The 1908 book, “The Illuminating Engineer” includes a chapter entitled “Light and the Moving Picture Show” by H. Thurston Owens which goes into detail about the use of electricity to draw crowds. In 1926, the Theatre Unique was demolished for the New Academy of Music, which had previously been located across 14th Street (where the landmarked Con Edison building now stands). That structure was designed by celebrated theatre architect Thomas Lamb and seated a much larger audience of 3,600.

"Meditations in an Emergency" by Frank O’Hara, 1957 was published five years after the American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality as a sociopathic personality disturbance, and four years after President Dwight Eisenhower signed an executive order banning homosexuals from working for the federal government or any of its private contractors.

The Hudson Building, Union Square, May 18, 1942. This 1908 Beaux-Arts building by Buchman & Fox included both retail and office space. Though it was advertised to business clients, by the 1930s tenants included leftist groups like International Workers Order (IWO), who operated its own birth control clinic out of the building.

Brevoort Hotel Entrance, January 1954. In the 1840s the Brevoort family a large plot of land from 5th Avenue to the Bowery and Greenwich Village, extending north of 14th Street. They built a mansion on Fifth Avenue (no. 24) in 1834 and in 1845 they constructed a large hotel call the Brevoort Hotel. The hotel was purchased in 1902 by restaurateur Raymond Orteig (who also bought the nearby Hotel Lafayette) and remodeled both into more French style establishments. The Brevoort Cafe, which opened in the ground floor and basement, was popular with the local literary set, including Mark Twain, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Eugene O’Neill. The hotel itself was frequented by European elite and royalty, politicians, and cultural bohemians. The building was demolished in 1954 (seen here as the nameplate is being ripped off) to make way for a modern 19-story apartment (now co-op) building. The new building's owners called the building The Brevoort, after the Dutch family whose name had been attached to this land since the early 18th century.

12 and 14 West 8th Street. No. 12 became part of the new Whitney Museum in 1931, while no. 14 (at right) still looks very much as it did here, though with a large window at the ground level.

7 East 15th Street, ca. 1970. Founded in 1906 by devotees of the Socialist Party of America, the Rand School of Social Science was created as an educational institution for worker, focused on a knowledge of class structure. The school consisted of evening courses and lectures in history, economics, and philosophy. The school's programming was originally housed in a series of converted homes on 19th Street. In 1912 the school moved into the 1887-built, Romanesque Revival, former Y.W.C.A building at 7 East 15th Street.

27-story skyscraper at 1 Fifth Avenue, July 25, 1928. The towering lower Fifth Avenue apartment building was designed by Harvey Wiley Corbett and erected in 1927. Clever uses of colored brickwork were a hallmark of the Art Deco buildings of the late 20s. At 1 Fifth Avenue, Corbett employed an unusual trompe l’oeil effect: adjacent vertical stripes of dark and light colored brick which created the illusion of shadows created by projecting brickwork.

With the onset of the Gilded Age, New Yorkers began looking for the best places to outfit themselves and their home. Department stores served that need and few did so better than Siegel-Cooper. This story is a preview of our Spring Retail exhibition.

90 Fifth Avenue, ca. 1914. Designed by 1902 by Robert Maynicke, the loft building was one of a number commercial building constructed on Fifth Avenue by the Cooper Union-educated architect. The eleven-story, cast-iron building with classical details included 140,000 square feet of space. In the 1980s the large industrial building was gutted and converted into the headquarters for the Research Institute of America. Forbes became a longterm tenant in the 1990s (leaving in 2013), and today the 3rd through the 11th floor is home to the brokerage company, Compass.

18-24 West 11th Street, 1971. This 1971 image captures a very specific time frame in the history of the particular block. Just one year earlier a Greek Revival townhouse (18 West 11th Street) constructed in 1845 stood next to the home with the set back on the fourth floor. By the end of the 1970s, a severe angle-fronted brick home would take its place. But just before noon on March 6, 1970, a bomb being constructed in the basement of the house exploded prematurely. The bomb makers were members of a radical left group, the Weather Underground. Three Weathermen were killed and the building was reduced to a pile of smoldering rubble. The lot remained empty until 1978 when architect Hugh Hardy (who had for a short time owned the empty property) convinced the new owners—and the Landmarks Preservation Commission—to allow him to rebuilt the home with a sharply angled, modern facade.

A city is not just buildings but the people who live there and visit - so we added your history to the map. Enjoy reading through the stories that we selected as part of our second NYC Memories initiative!