A round-up of our favorite pics of your dads on Urban Archive.

City Lodging House, 23rd Street and First Avenue ca. 1895. Attempting to address homelessness, The Municipal Lodging and House Act, passed in 1886, encouraged the city to operate lodging houses for those left with other recourse, In 1893, another type of housing emerged which gave men a place to stay so long as they performed labor, such as chopping wood or other similar tasks. This house, located at 398-400 First Avenue, gave a night's stay to almost 2,000 men, women, and children from March 17 through 23rd, as reported in Charities, a "Weekly Review of Local and General Philanthropy."

New York Post-Graduate Medical School and Hospital. October 7, 1911. The hospital at Second Avenue and 20th Street opened in May, 1894, with a reception attended by friends and benefactors of the institution. The New York Times described the new facilities: “Physicians who have visited the great hospitals of Europe pronounce the new building as second to none In Its equipments for advanced medical work,” also noting that “the baby incubator, in which there was a baby, was a source of great interest.” The hospital closed in 1963, when it was rendered obsolete by the newly-completed Bellevue Hospital. The building was demolished and its site was converted to a playground for the Simon Baruch Junior High School.

My Archive Spring 2019 "Swings in a playground in Stuyvesant Town." —Stephen Silverman

Epiphany Branch, NYPL, 1916. Opened in 1907 and designed by the firm that worked on a large number of Carnegie libraries in New York City, Carrère and Hastings, the Epiphany Library actually dates back to the 1880s. The library was founded by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York as a part of the Cathedral Library Association in 1887. (The unique name of the branch is understandable given the religious origins of the institution.) The new Carnegie building opened in 1907 and underwent a large renovation by the WPA in 1939. In the late 1960s the community successfully blocked plans for its demolition. Originally a four bay building, as seen in this early photograph, the building had a fifth bay, set back from the street, added during substantial work in the 1980s. The addition included a new front door, which was handicap accessible, and the original door was converted into a window.

Henry Maurer Company, 1938. Henry Maurer was a German immigrant who learned the brick trade from an uncle and in 1856 purchased the Excelsior Fire-Brick and Clay Retort Works in New Jersey. The 75-arcre plot on which his Perth Amboy, New Jersey factory was stood was named Maurer some years later. The business was known as Henry Maurer & Sons, and they manufactured hollow bricks, fire bricks, items for gas combustion processes, and French roofing tiles. These products were used in the construction of many 19th and 20th century New York buildings. The Henry Maurer Building at 420-422 East 23rd Street was the company's offices and depot (conveniently located near the East River). According to one source they remained in business until 1937 (though this photograph is from a year later and the building looks to still be active). The New Jersey factory was not sold until 1942, though it is unclear if production continued until that date. Adjacent to the nearby Gas House District, the entire area was redeveloped in the 1940s for the residential development of Stuy-Town and Peter Cooper Village.

Waterside Plaza, ca. 1979. The Waterside Plaza includes four residential towers, designed by the Davis, Brody & Associates firm, and completed in 1974. The development sits east of FDR drive atop the “Bristol Basin,” a section of East River landfill that built from the rubble of buildings in Bristol, England destroyed in World War II bombing.

The Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital, as it was called at the time, was built in 1931 by Charles B. Meyers in the Italian Renaissance style. The building is still standing alongside the East River on First Avenue between 29th and 30th Streets, occupying an entire city block. When constructed, it joined the growing Bellevue hospital complex, and was intended to match the existing buildings, which were designed by architects McKim, Mead & White – same color brick, embellished with granite base course, limestone and terra cotta trimmings. By then, McKim, Mead & White was barely active; Meyers had just designed the Tammany Hall building and was a favorite of then-Mayor Jimmy Walker.

Supergraphic on the facade of architect James R. Doman’s East 25th Street firm, ca. 1972. Doman’s offices are described in an October, 1972 Life Magazine feature on supergraphic painting: “The blueprint on the facade, painted by two of the firm’s architects in four days, is a replica of the plan the firm used in renovating the building."

Cornell University Medical College, ca. 1900. During the late 19th century, Cornell University sought to establish a medical college in New York City, but by the late 1890s had seen multiple attempts fail, including a proposed scheme to affiliate with New York University. In April 1898, Cornell University Medical College was established, with faculty who had left NYU following a dispute. Standard Oil Trustee Oliver Hazard Payne funded the construction of a new facility for the fledgling college, across First Avenue from Bellevue Hospital. Stanford White’s Neoclassical hospital occupied the full block between 27th and 28th Streets, with two Corinthian-columned entrances on First Avenue. Today, the capitals of four of those columns are preserved in the courtyard garden of the Bellevue Men’s Shelter. The teaching hospital was operated by Cornell until 1932. Between 1933-1955, it was operated by NYU. The building was ultimately leveled during the 1960s, as part of the Bellevue South Urban Renewal project.

The Roman Revival public baths at the far eastern end of 23rd Street were designed by the Brunner & Aiken firm and built between 1904-1906, during a period of increased efforts to address public hygiene. Asser Levy, a 17th century merchant, was one of the first Jews to arrive in New Amsterdam, possibly arriving as a refugee of Dutch Brazil. Levy’s presence in the colony of New Netherland was first recorded in 1655, when he protested his both his exclusion from the colony’s military on the basis of his faith, and the tax penalty assessed for having not served. Levy’s appeals led to the 1657 extension of citizenship rights to Jews in the New Netherland. In 1661, Levy became the first Jew to own a house in North America. Levy became a successful merchant in Albany and New Amsterdam, appearing frequently in litigation and transaction records. In New Amsterdam, he owned a butchery on Wall Street and also operated a tavern.

A new chapter in the long Black freedom struggle took shape in New York and elsewhere following World War II. African-American New Yorkers and their allies mobilized against a range of discriminatory policies and practices, including exclusion by employers and banks, whites-only housing, segregated and unequal public schools, and controversial uses of force by police. By the 1964 federal Civil Rights Act, New York had passed anti-discrimination laws in employment and housing, and activists had staged an enormous school boycott protesting segregated schools. Yet racial discrimination remained, and that year, rioting broke out in Harlem after a white policeman fatally shot African-American teenager James Powell. Activists have continued to mobilize in response to police conduct in communities of color, as well as against city schools and housing that remain divided along racial lines.

Wood-frame farm house and carriage house, East 29th Street, ca. 1965. The history of this odd, sideways-oriented farmhouse is subject to speculation among researchers and preservationists among who there are two major theories: first, the house dates to the 18th century and may have been moved from its original location; or this house built on this site after the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811 laid out the street grid, as late as 1840. In a 2006 “Streetscapes” column, the New York Times’ Christopher Gray examines the first theory: the house was built during the 18th century, on the grounds of John Watts’ Rose Hill Estate. When the Commissioners’ Plan was adopted, the lots on 29th Street included a small, peculiar parcel at No. 203. Gray suggests a hypothesis: the small lot was set aside, “perhaps to receive an outbuilding relocated from the Rose Hill estate because it lay in the path of new roadways?” Tax and property records make the picture even murkier: 1830 records note a building, but don’t describe it; 1840 documents refer to a three-story structure; and the 1880 tax inventory definitively refers to the four-story structure standing today. It’s possible that these records all describe the same building — but just as likely that they don’t. And then come the experts. Gray’s column references the assessment of Alan Burnham, a former executive director of the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Burnham initially believed the gambrel roof indicated an old farmhouse of Dutch construction, but eventually dated the building at ca. 1845. However, a preservation consultant hired by the building’s 1980s owners dates the house’s frame elements to 1790. While its early history may be uncertain, recent events are relatively clear. By 1900, the house had been subdivided into apartments. For many years, it was a junk shop, likely with residences upstairs, and was later abandoned and boarded up. The house was purchased in 1979 for $80,000, gutted, and converted to single-floor apartments with a faithful exterior restoration.

In the late 19th and early 20th century the densely crowded neighborhoods of New York, whose apartments lacked bathing facilities, combined with a progressive civic action to create a peculiar and somewhat short-lived (for its original purpose) municipal facility: the public bath house. In the 19th century, public baths, of a sort, were established as floating pools in the rivers during the hot summer months. A few "People's Baths" were built with private funds through the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor prior to 1900. In 1895 the passage of a state-wide law required the construction of public bathing facilities in the state's largest cities. The first truly municipal bath opened on Rivington Street in 1901. Many of the resulting public baths were architecturally impressive, both inside and out. The complexes usually included laundry facilities, a swimming pool, and separate tubs for men and women. The immediate need for the baths diminished some with the passage of the 1901 Tenement House Act, which required new apartments to provide toilet facilities. (Many, though not all, landlords also included baths.) Yet the public baths saw periods of high volume especially in the summer months. The year 1920 saw 7.5 million baths taken in these 20 facilities. In the 1930s some of the baths were renovated by the WPA. By the mid century, the public baths were closing and being demolished or being converted to other usages. Some facilities located in parks were made into recreational facilities. The final bath to close, in 1975, was the Allen Street Bath at 133 Allen Street.

Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital, ca. 1978. New York’s most infamous hospital, the Renaissance Revival Bellevue Psychiatric Ward was built in 1931 to treat a broad swath of the city’s often-indigent mentally ill population. Prominent inpatients included Norman Mailer, Edie Sedgwick, and Mark David Chapman (John Lennon’s Assassin). The Bellevue Psychiatric Ward closed in 1984. Today, the facility is partially occupied by a men’s shelter.

Empire State Building, viewed from an interior courtyard of Peter Cooper Village, September 19, 1951. City leaders, most notably Robert Moses, also encouraged middle-class, large-scale, master-planned, low-density projects. Stuyvesant Town, developed by the private company Metropolitan Life Insurance, required a massive slum clearance program paid for largely by the city. Located between 14th and 20th streets and First Avenue to Avenue C, the 80-acre site replaced the Gas House district of gas storage tanks. Planned in 1942, the first buildings opened in 1947. The buildings of Stuyvesant Town covered only 26 percent of the site and delivered 302 pp/acre. Stacking up the 8,757 apartments in 15-story buildings failed to overcome the impact of low ground coverage. The all-white residents benefited from generous apartments, private green spaces, and neighborhood retail. Sponsors carefully managed occupancy to prevent crowding. Those families lucky enough to get apartments realized that they had gotten far more than just apartments—they were living in a new, lower density urban landscape that stood apart from the city and was secured by private police. Many would stay for decades.

20th Street east of Second Avenue was in the old "gashouse district" named for the gas houses built along the East River. Berenice Abbott's photograph shows one of the remaining Con Ed tanks between First Avenue and Avenue A. Also in the distance, the Second Avenue El, which ran on First Avenue below 23rd Street.

Asser Levy Public Baths, ca. 1915.

World War I Memorial, ca. 1930-1940. While memorials, particularly war memorials, are usually permanent to the locations where they are originally dedicated, this is not always the case. For reasons of street improvements, upgrades to public safety, or expanded parks, a memorial might be moved. The World War I Memorial seen in the background here was first located on a small pedestrian island southeast of Union Square. Dedicated in 1934 it was moved off the site in the 1990s upon request of the MTA. After approval by Community Board 5, veterans groups, and the New York City Arts Commission, the memorial was moved to a space in front of the Veterans Hospital at East 23rd Street and First Avenue. The triangle on which the memorial sat was expanded to three times its size, though a planned glass-roof subway kiosk for the Union Square Station was never constructed. The memorial itself is a simple modernist stone monument that was dedicated on Armistice Day (November 11th) 1934, ''in memory of the men of the East Side who lost their lives in the World War.'' Ten feet tall and six feet across each of its three convex sides, it was designed by Wilhelm Hunt Diederich, a sculptor best known for his animal-themed ironwork.

The names of Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick are well known in New York City and beyond for Carnegie Hall and for the Frick Collection. Though the institutions built by these two steel magnates are important to the city’s cultural identity, the organization built by their lesser known (but just as wealthy) associate, Henry Phipps, has had and continues to have, a more material effect on the lives of New Yorkers. His legacy, Phipps Houses, is the oldest non-profit developer of affordable housing, erecting its first buildings in 1906 and actively developing and managing properties today.

Phipps Houses, ca. 1905. In the early part of the twentieth century, the entire block span between First and Second Avenues on East 31st Street was the site of the Phipps Houses. Completed in 1906 and designed by Grosvenor Atterbury, the building was commissioned by steel magnate Henry Phipps. Also a philanthropist, the building was Phipps' first attempt to curb the rising tuberculosis epidemic in the city by improving living conditions for paying tenement tenants. Home to 142 apartments, each unit at the Phipps Houses included two to five rooms, individual bathrooms, and a finished courtyard. Although rent was $14 monthly, which was $4 more expensive than usual tenement rent at the time, the building was designed to maximize the wellbeing of those who would live there. An early brochure said: "This enterprise is not a charity. Tenants are not asked to accept anything free. All that they pay for in their rent they will receive." Atterbury's design for the Phipps Houses was the first of its kind in the city. The complex was grand and constructed with varied brickwork to maximize airflow. Unlike other tenement buildings, Phipps also designated the bottom floor of his development as space for tenants to receive social services and counsel.

Burning of the Second Avenue Armory, July 1863.

Kips Bay Towers, 1966. The two towers of the Kips Bay Plaza Apartments were completed between 1960 and 1963. Designed by I.M. Pei and S. J. Kessler, the Brutalist style complex was erected on what had been the first Phipps Houses, a series of tenements created as working class housing just after the turn of the century. The two towers are massive 21-stories of glass and raw concrete facades. They were conceived as a middle-income rental project, but just 20 years later were converted to condominium apartments over the objections of a substantial number of residents.