251 West 13th Street, unknown date. 251 West 13th Street was originally the Jackson Square Branch of the New York Free Circulating Library. It was built in 1877 by the legendary Beaux-Arts architect, Richard Morris Hunt, who also designed the main entrance of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The library opened in one year later with a gift of over 6,000 books from the collector and philanthropist George W. Vanderbilt At the height of the library's popularity, it attracted over a hundred visitors every day and circulated about 126,000 volumes annually. The library closed in 1908 when presented with the challenge of disinfecting books that could transfer communicable diseases. In 1967, the performance artist Robert Delford Brown acquired the former library, which he dubbed "the Great Building Crack-Up." During Brown's tenure, the venue hosted various art events and performances and became the international headquarters of Brown's "Orthodox Pagan" First National Church of Exquisite Panic, Inc. Since 1995, television producer Tom Fontana has lived and had his offices here.

154 West 14th Street ca. 1917 One of the few Viennese Secession-style buildings in the New York, 154 West 14th Street has anchored this bustling corner for nearly one hundred years and appears today almost exactly as it did at the time of construction. 154 West 14th Street was constructed in 1912-13 for lawyer-banker and real estate developer Leslie R. Palmer as a speculative loft. It was built in anticipation of the extension of Seventh Avenue, completed in 1917, and the construction of the Seventh Avenue subway line underneath. This steel-frame structure employed the latest technology in loft construction with maximum allowance for light to the interior spaces, accommodations for automotive delivery and freight elevators. The architect responsible for the design was Herman Lee Meader (1874-1930) who after graduating from Harvard in 1898 worked for the architectural office of Ernest Flagg. In 1911 he established his own practice and had some notable commissions, all of which included terra cotta as a cladding material. These included the Cliff Dwelling Apartments (1914-17 – also for Palmer) at 339 West 96th Street and the Greenwich Village Theater (1916, demolished) at Seventh Avenue and Christopher Street which was an experimental theater for Marguerite Abbott Barker (daughter of the president of Eastman Kodak Co.) 154 West 14th Street conforms to a tripartite arrangement of base-shaft-capital differentiated by color and materials. The three-story base is entirely clad in the polychromatic glazed tile, which is also featured at the mid-section on the spandrels between the white brick piers and at the top section. The terra cotta was manufactured by the New York Architectural Terra Cotta Company which was the city’s only major producer of architectural terra cotta at the time. Palmer was a long-time director of the company and this building served as a virtual advertisement for the product.

Port of New York Authority Building,1949.

New York County National Bank ARCHITECT: DeLemos & Cordes; Rudolph L. Daus DATE: 1906-07 STYLE: Neo-Classical The Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company Building, built in 1907, is an exceptionally fine and well-conceived example of the neo-Classical bank type; that the overall design, though small in scale, employs the monumental classical type in a unified and structurally expressive manner. The well-proportioned composition superimposes two classical architectural systems, a trabeated and an arcuated order. The design is enhanced by fine stone carving, ‘Which incorporates Beaux-Arts ornamental motifs, classical symbols, and naturalistic elements. Among the noteworthy ornamental details are the entrance and window aedicules, the foliated spandrels, the classical balustrade and the imposing eagle in the pediment.

(1883-85; Hubert, Pirsson \&Co.)NYC IL; S/NR) The famed Hotel Chelsea was one of the city’s first cooperative apartment buildings, originally named the Chelsea Apartments. Architect and developer Philip Hubert was influenced in bringing the co-op to America by the philosophy of early socialist French thinker Charles Fourier, who imagined a utopian society based on communal associations. Hubert designed the Chelsea with apartments for both co-op members and renters at a variety of income levels, with shared spaces to facilitate community interaction. The massive and imposing 12-story, red-brick building is 25 bays wide, fronted by tiers of delicate iron balconies, and capped by dramatic pyramidal slate roofs, gables, dormers, and chimneys. It has elements of Aesthetic Movement, Queen Anne, and High Victorian Gothic styles, and is notable for its early use of fireproof construction methods such as load-bearing masonry walls and wrought iron beams. When Hubert’s experiment bankrupted in 1905, the building was converted into a luxury hotel visited by prominent guests including Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, Sarah Bernhardt, and painter John Sloan. After World War II, as the hotel declined and room prices fell, it attracted Jackson Pollock, Virgil Thomson, Larry Rivers, James Schuyler, Dylan Thomas, Tennessee Williams, and Jack Kerouac. Arthur Miller moved into Room 614 after his divorce from Marilyn Monroe. Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick wrote the screenplay for 2001: A Space Odyssey at the Chelsea. From 1957 to 2007, the hotel was an informal artists’ colony benevolently and tolerantly “curated” by manager Stanley Bard. Artwork he accepted in lieu of back rent from struggling artists filled the lobby and main staircase. Bard fashioned and maintained the unique creative dynamic for which the hotel is perhaps most famous, presiding during the 1960’s when Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen wrote some of their greatest songs. Andy Warhol filmed Chelsea Girls here. Bard’s departure was mourned by many residents of the hotel and the Chelsea community. The building continues to house a significant number of permanent tenants.

National Maritime Union of America buildings (Joseph Curran Plaza), ca. 1975. This eye-catching buildings has, at various times been described as looking like a pizza box as well as a cruise ship. Designed by New Orleans architect Albert Lerner, this nautically themed building was one of three structures built for the National Maritime Union in the late 1960s.

138 West 14th Street ca. 1928 144 West 14th Street (aka 138-146 W. 14th St.) is “a grandly-proportioned Renaissance Revival-style loft building” and was built between 1895-6. As described in its designation report, the structure is: “Faced with limestone, tan brick and terra cotta, it was designed by the architects Brunner & Tryon in 1895-96. Seven stories tall, the street facade is articulated through a series of monumental arches, embellished with handsome classical details.” The building served as a workshop for many different stores and products over the years, including Macy’s and Les Paul. Eventually in the late 90’s, the building was acquired by Pratt and now serves as their Manhattan campus. “Since its completion, many commercial tenants have occupied various floors, including R. H. Macy’s, which produced flags and silk underwear here, the silversmith Graff, Washbourne & Dunn, as well as Epiphone, a leading manufacturer of stringed instruments. In 1941, the noted American jazz guitarist Les Paul assembled a “solid-body” electric guitar in the company’s workshop; it became the prototype for many electric guitars played today. 144 West 14th Street was acquired by Pratt Institute in 1999. Restored by Ehrenkrantz, Eckstut & Kuhn Architects, it now serves as the school’s Manhattan campus.”

Pedestrians crossing West 15th Street on the west side of Eighth Avenue; April 18, 1926. Every building on the blockfront behind them, between West 15th and 16th Streets, would be razed in the following years, making way for the city's largest building. The mammoth Port Authority Building (now Google's New York headquarters) was completed in 1932.

"Sixth Avenue, north from and across West 18th Street, showing mainly the west side of this Avenue, 1939. The corner building with the A. Shulte store was formerly part of Altman's Department Store. This bears No. 615-9 Sixth Avenue and is at the N.W. corner of W. 18th Street. The store covered the entire block front from 18th to 19th Streets. The New York Times of March 7, 1939 reports the 1st transfer of this holding since 1817 when it was acquired as farmlands by John Tonnele." (text from the photographer P.L. Speer) The neo-Grec structure was opened in 1877 as the B. Altman store and within the next decade additions were added on 18th and 19th Streets to house the expanding department store. This store was a mainstay of the Ladies' Mile, a section of the Flatiron neighborhood that became a prime shopping district (with most of the larger stores on 6th Avenue) during the late 19th and early 20th century. Interesting features of the building when it opened included an ornate cast iron facade, pneumatic tubes for the movement of money and paperwork, and electric lights.

County Trust Company Building, March 16, 1933. Built as the home of the Country Trust Company, the 20-story structure with fanciful wedding cake-like setbacks was completed in 1930. The building was designed in a neo-Gothic style by William Whitehall.

414 West 20th Street, 1971.

Chelsea Hotel, ca. 1985. Opened in 1884, as a grand Co-Op Apartment building, the Hotel Chelsea became a long-term hotel for generations of bohemians, including artists, writers, and musicians. Famous musical residents included the Grateful Dead, Nico, Tom Waits, Patti Smith, Jim Morrison, Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd, Madonna, and Jimi Hendrix. Bob Dylan composed Blonde On Blonde in room 211, and later wrote about the experience. Leonard Cohen wrote "Chelsea Hotel #2," a song about hooking up with Janis Joplin in room 222. Most infamously, Sid Vicious and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen rented room 100 in 1978 and after several months of epic drug abuse, Spungen was found stabbed to death in their bathroom. Sid Vicious was charged with the crime but died of a heroin overdose before the trial.

Public School 16, 1920. Originally School No. 16 of the Ninth Ward, the original section of the building was constructed in 1845, with additions erected in 1859 and later. The institution became Public School 16 by the turn of the 20th century, but was in bad condition by the 1920s. Reports of the facilities suggest “plumbing wet and foul" and “rooms small, dirty and dingy.” The school became a vocational campus in 1924 and during the Depression offered programs for unemployed adults. In 1938 Mayor LaGuardia opened the building as the Food Trades Vocational High School, where pupils learned skills needed to become butchers, bakers, cafeteria workers, tea room hostesses and store clerks. LaGuardia wished to create an educational experience that would prepare children of poor immigrants for jobs that would remain necessary during times of economic depression. Later in the 1960s the school would add Maritime trades to its vocational offerings, becoming the Food and Maritime Trades High School. That institution moved into a new building in 1980 and this structure was put up for lease. The building initially became the home of a number of social and community non-profits, including a few small LGBT-focused organizations. In 1983 the gay organizations and AIDS advocacy groups joined forces to purchase the building from the city, forming the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center for that purpose. Over the last nearly 30 years the LGBT Community Center has become an integral organization in the gay community. It is a meeting place for community groups, the founding location of organizations such as Survivors of Transsexuality Anonymous and Gender Identity Project, and home to medical clinics and cultural programming.

253 West 16th Street adjoining the N.E. corner of Eighth Avenue, showing the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. November 26, 1927.

National Maritime Union Headquarters Designed by famed Modernist architect Albert C. Ledner, the Joseph Curran Building (seen here at left) was completed in 1963 for the National Maritime Union. The building's notable architecture—it certainly was not a modernist glass box— caught the attention of critics and the public alike. The Union, which represented longshoreman and merchant sailors, capitalized on the interest, offered tours of the building in the late 1960s. Ledner also designed two other eye-catching buildings for the union nearby. In 1973, the white building became the Edward and Theresa O'Toole Medical Services Building when neighboring Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Center purchased it. Following St. Vincent's bankruptcy in 2005, this building became the center of a highly contested debate regarding contextual development. With plans to raze the building and erect a 21-story hospital tower, the community voiced their dissent and controversy ensued. In the end, the building was not demolished but restored and reused. In 2017 the ship-like structure reopened as the Lenox Health Greenwich Village, a state-of-the-art medical facility.

The Church of Our Lady Guadalupe was established in 1902 by the Augustinians of the Assumption. It was the first Spanish-speaking Catholic parish in New York City, serving working-class Spaniards. The church was popular with various Hispanic communities throughout the 20th century. The rapid growth of the Mexican population in the late 20th century overwhelmed the small church and forced it to move to a new location at St. Bernard Church in Chelsea. The church has been re-purposed since the 2003 move.

This full-block complex, birthplace of the Oreo, was built in several phases over a number of decades. The oldest section was erected in the 1880’s for brewer Thomas McMullen. The rest of the block was developed in the following decades by the newly formed New York Biscuit Company. The baking industry experienced massive consolidation in the 1890’s, culminating in the merger of the New York firm with the American Biscuit and Manufacturing Company and the Chicago-based United State Baking Company in 1898. The resulting conglomerate, named the National Biscuit Company, officially established headquarters in its New York City complex in 1906. By 1920, the firm occupied all or parts of five city blocks on Manhattan’s west side. This location was perfectly suited for manufacturing purposes. A railroad spur was routed through the complex in 1904. When the High Line arrived in the 1930’s, the entire Tenth Avenue facade was redesigned to accommodate the elevated tracks. The company changed its name to Nabisco in 1941, and in 1956 divested its Chelsea factories during the deindustrialization of Manhattan

High pressure water system trench crosses Jackson Square; undated photo. The city acquired the parcel at the intersection of Greenwich and Eighth Avenues and Horatio Street in 1826. While it's unclear exactly when or how this triangular park became known as Jackson Square, it is likely the name is in some way connected to President Andrew Jackson. Through the mid-19th century, Jackson Square served as a de facto meeting place for rallies and celebratory gatherings. In 1872, the Parks Commission officially recognized Jackson Square as parkland, and installed features including lamps, ironwork, and sidewalks. In the background, West 13th Street continues toward the Hudson River.

New York Public Library, Muhlenberg Branch, ca. 1912. Completed in 1906, the Muhlenburg Branch is a Carnegie library designed by the same architects of the Main Branch of the NYPL, Carrère and Hastings. The simplified Beaux Arts style building is named for William Augustus Muhlenberg. He was the first rector of the nearby Church of the Holy Communion, and donated many books to the Free Circulating Library (a precursor to the NYPL).

Northwest corner of Seventh Avenue and 21st Street, January 25, 1914. The newspaper stand on the corner has a poster which reads: "Why I shot Wm. E. Annis. Capt. Peter C. Hains Jr. USA lays bare for the first time the full facts of the surprising domestic tragedy which reached its climax when he shot Annis dead. In the next Sunday's American." This flashy headline refers to an event that had occurred eight years earlier. Believing that Annis, a magazine publisher, was having an affair with his wife while he was stationed in Manila, the Army captain shot the man six times at a regatta in Little Neck Bay. Hains was found guilty and served only two and a half years of his 8-16 year sentence. Presumably he was telling his story so many years later to cash in on the fame.

Cushman Row, 1971. The row of red brick townhouses that run from 406 to 418 West 20th Street were constructed in 1840 and developed by Don Alonzo Cushman, a wealthy friend of Chelsea's largest land developer Clement Clark Moore. The Greek Revival row constitute some of the oldest buildings in the neighborhood. Each of the homes has a 10-foot deep front yard, recessed doorway, attic windows encircled with decorative wreaths, and wrought-iron handrails. No. 416 (second from right) also has two wrought iron newel posts (the upright posts that support the handrail of a stair banister) topped with pineapples, which are a traditional symbol of hospitality and welcome.

Rhinelander Row ca. 1937 Rhinelander Row — a group of 11 houses with wooden balconies and front yards — was built in 1843 by William C. Rhinelander, a powerful Greenwich Village landowner. For 75 years, the Row stood at the base of Seventh Avenue, but with the 1914 extension of the avenue south to Canal Street, the Row lost its neighboring residences and was stranded on the edge of a major intersection. When demolition began in 1936, only one house was occupied. Abbott first photographed the Row before the May 10 front page New York Times story, “Historic Greenwich Village Homes to be Demolished.” Her two return visits recorded the stages of the Row’s demise. Shortly before election day, she showed the Row abandoned and decorated with campaign posters for a Democratic candidate for City Court judge (not shown). The following May, while a WPA crew dismembered the porches, Abbott photographed the site again. Workmen, seen on the roof and the second-story porch, were responsible for collecting clothing left in the houses and draping it on a front yard tree, which Abbott placed in the center of her composition.

23 West 13th Street, c. 1994 Substation 235, located at 23 West 13th Street on at the intersection of Greenwich Avenue and Horatio Street. The structure was built in 1932 during the construction of the IND Eighth Avenue Line, a project that lasted from 1932 until 1940. A substation is fed power from a central station that is converted from high voltage alternating current (AC) into low voltage direct current (DC) to power the subway. This substation and others constructed for the IND line were the first to be non-manually operated. Greenwich Substation was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005 as a unique piece of New York City's transit history. The masonry structure's footprint, a chamfered rectangle, reflects the infill lot's geometric condition at this bustling intersection. The facade is adorned with limestone, brick, and aluminum; its loading dock doors are framed by Art Deco motifs and sunburst patterns, not uncommon of substations and telephone buildings of the era. The human-scaled entrance is decorated more modestly and located at the level of the sidewalk.

Chelsea Hotel ca. 1947 The Chelsea Hotel, with a cliff of solid red-brick paired with lacy High Victorian cast-iron balconies, was designed by Philip Hubert and his architecture firm, Hubert Pirsson & Company Construction started in 1883. The building opened in 1885, not as The Chelsea Hotel, but as The Chelsea Apartments. Like other residences of the Hubert Home Club, The Chelsea was originally intended to be a cooperative-apartment sold to multiple owners. The cooperative-apartment model appealed to those concerned with both price and prestige as a more permanent home rather than temporary accommodations. Following the success of earlier Hubert Homes ventures, The Chelsea received generous financial backing from capitalists, allowing for its extravagant interior fittings. The rooms sold out immediately upon opening with suites at premium over the original cost. The Chelsea contained 97 suites, each ranging from 3 to 12 rooms, furnished with woodwork of the owner’s choice. In addition to its elevator, the lobby boasted a spiraling staircase with cast-iron railings and mahogany handrails. Residents also received a continuous income from the building’s storefront and tenants on the upper two stories. The attic story in the pavilions originally served as a studio apartment for artists, since its opening. At 180 feet tall, the Chelsea stood twice as tall as what the residential height limit of 1885 allowed, remaining the tallest building in New York

This image is from the 1969 Designation of the Greenwich Village Historic District on Village Preservation's GVHD50 Then and Now map click here to explore the map.

General Theological Seminary ca. 1941 The West Building of the General Theological Seminary was one of an identical pair, the East building having been razed many years ago. It is one of the earliest Gothic Revival buildings in the city and displays a rather naive application of Gothic ornament. Although it is an early forerunner of the countless ivy-clad campuses of the nineteen-twenties, it is, through it simplicity, closer to many of them than were the later, more elaborate Gothic buildings of the eighteen-sixties.

"6th Avenue between 18th and 19th Street. Westerly block front, looking S.W., B. Altman store, cast iron architecture, 1948"

St. Bernard's Roman Catholic Church ca. 1930 St. Bernard’s, at 328-332 West 14th Street and now known as Our Lady of Guadalupe at St. Bernard’s, was originally founded by Irish immigrants during the wave of immigration resulting from the 1840’s famine. This church served relatively middle class “Lace Curtain Irish” (opposed to the lower classes known as “Shanty Irish”), who worked as longshoreman, janitors, mechanics, and teamsters, and owned saloons, stables, blacksmith shops, and the other types of businesses needed to support the industries of the time.

"St. Joseph's Home for the Aged, 15th Street adjoining N.W. corner of Seventh Avenue. This institution, which opened in 1873 is maintained by the Society of St. Vincent De Paul. (Roman Catholic), 1931." The building that once housed the St. Joseph’s Home for the Aged, still exists below the simple Art Deco style brick apartment building that stands on 15th Street today. In 1940 a New York Times article described how the older building will be converted and modernized (not demolished) into a six-story elevator apartment building. The cost of the building for the development company was $75,000

“Looking down a narrow lane at children on the porch of 9 ½ Jane Street, 1915.” The three-story house is accessed by an alley to the west of no. 9 Jane Street, a four-story brick townhouse built in 1844 for tinsmith Walter H. Mead. The rear house was built in 1854.

Greenwich Village, the Meatpacking District, and the East Village were once home to several thriving breweries and distilleries. Over the years, many left the neighborhood due to the demand for residential construction, while others were pushed out of forced to close due to the Temperance Movement. Follow along as we look at some of the mid-19th century breweries and distilleries that once populated these neighborhoods!

Cavanagh's Restaurant ca. 1905 Irish pubs and taverns, some serving restaurant food , were central features of New York City Irish neighborhoods. By the end of the nineteenth century, Irish pubs could be found throughout the City. Irish New Yorker patronized such places because they attracted a clientele of countrymen. Relatively small amounts of capital were required to open a bar and proprietors were perennial employers of foreign-born Irish. Cavanagh's opened in 1876, and became one of the City's most popular Irish eateries. As with many like institutions, its Irishness went beyond its name. Chappell's guide to The Restaurants of New York (1925) noted: "A worthwhile stopping place is Cavanagh's at 258 West 23rd, a well-known restaurant which still keeps its fair share of patronage. It is in this part of town that the ethnologist will be able to discern traces of that rare survival, Irish New York...Cavanagh's is Irish to the core...The touch of Erin creeps in the menu."

Rhinelander Row, Seventh Avenue, March 20, 1936. This set of eleven cottages along Seventh Avenue became known as Rhinelander Row, after the developer William C. Rhinelander. The three-decker style brick rowhouses were built in 1849, with each story allocated its own wooden porch (replaced by sturdier iron in 1888). The row was demolished in 1937, with a gas station occupying the site after plans for a contemporary apartment building fell through. In 1964, the Maritime Union Building, later the Maritime Hotel, was built on the site.

249 West 17th Street, ca. 1910. Built in 1902, this six-story structure was the former warehouse for the Siegel-Cooper Dry Goods Store. The company got its start in Chicago in 1887 and expanded to New York City in 1896. At the time of its opening, the storefront was the largest store in the world. The building was designed in the Beaux-Arts style by DeLemos & Cordes, who later went on to design the R. H. Macy's store in Herald Square.

The same, a year and a half later. The church is about to be demolished and replaced by an apartment building, Chelsea Hall. May 30, 1929.

Atrium of the Simpson-Crawford Company decorated for Easter, 1904. Simpson-Crawford Co. began as a small dry good store opened in the 1860s at Sixth Avenue and 19th Street. Through a series of new partnerships, the store grew and prospered (and changed names a few times), catering to a very high end clientele. At the turn of the 20th century, the owner selected architectural firm, William H. Hume & Son, to expand the large store to a full block width on Sixth Avenue. The building, complete in 1902, was stately and conservative, rendered in an understated Beaux Arts style. The building included the first escalator (called “moving stairs”) on Sixth Avenue and used a new marketing device, the mannequin. The interior featured a soaring cast iron atrium with a colored-glass skylight. This space was perfect for over the top holiday displays, such as the Easter one depicted here.

National Biscuit Company shipping building on West 15th Street, 1936. The elevated railroad, known as the West Side Line, was abandoned in the mid 1960s and partially demolished. In 2009 the railway was repurposed as an urban park called the High Line, which stretches 1.45 miles though the Meatpacking District in Chelsea. The High Line has proved popular, with nearly five million annual visitors.

Textile High School, 1931. Built in 1930 as a vocational high school for the textile trades, the building (actually two buildings, one each fronting 18th and 19th Streets, and connected in the middle) has had a number of names. Originally Textile High School it was later renamed Straubenmuller Textile High School, after a innovator of the vocational education movement, then Charles Evans Hughes High School, after a NYS Governor, then High School for the Humanities. Today is called Bayard Rustin Educational Complex, which houses a number of small public schools. Some interesting features of this 1930 building, include murals created by W.P.A artists during the 1930s, and a full size swimming pool, which was recently renovated.

149 West 14th Street, ca. 1930. Kooky’s Cocktail Lounge, better known as Kooky’s (pronounced “cookies”), was a Mafia-owned lesbian bar that operated here from 1965 to 1973. Even though a female-operated bar at that time was unusual, Kooky (last name unknown) was not particularly welcoming to lesbian patrons. She enforced a door cover-charge policy ($3 – a large financial burden at that time) and had a lot of control over the imposing bouncers; rather than protect the patrons, which was supposedly their job, they would often bully them. Lesbian feminist author Karla Jay described Kooky’s memorable style: “Her hair was shellacked into a large golden beehive that suggested that she had last set, teased, and sprayed her hair in the 1950s and then left it permanently in place.”

Port of New York Authority Building, 1941.

"127-123 West 20th Street, north side, just west of Sixth Avenue. No. 123 adjoins the Partola Building, which is on Sixth Avenue at the N.W. corner of 20th Street, 1931." The Partola Building was originally the the O'Neill-Adams department store building. After an extensive renovation in 1920, the building became home to the Partola Manufacturing Company, a chemical company.

"Seventh Avenue, east side, from 20th to 19th Streets,1931." Notice the police officer on horseback, and the two different types of ornamental light poles.

Seventh Avenue, west side, from 20th Street to 21st Street, ca. 1920.

Created by William White, Theodore Dehon, John Henry Hobart, the General Theological Seminary, founded in 1817, is the oldest Episcopal seminary in the United States. Classes began originally at St. Paul's Chapel before briefly moving to New Haven. Clement Clarke Moore, its first professor of biblical languages, donated the land that by 1827 the Seminary occupied. While it was the center of the Oxford Movement, which called for a return to High Anglican Traditions, the seminary began a new age of expansion in the late 19th century. Receiving permission to grant degrees in 1869, the Seminary expanded it physical campus and class size greatly under the leadership of Augustus Hoffman, a benefactor as well as a dean of the seminary. In 1972, the General Theological Seminary was the first American Episcopal Seminary to issue a statement supporting the ordination of women (who were first admitted as full time students in 1971.) The Seminary operates to this day and offers a multitude of religious instruction besides its three year master of divinity program.

Old Homestead Steakhouse, ca. 1978. The Old Homestead Steakhouse is one of the longest operating steakhouses in the country. It first opened its doors back in 1868, just after the Civil War, when the meatpacking district was exclusively for butchers. The restaurant, which has now been in the same family for nearly seven decades, is currently owned by brothers Greg and Marc Sherry. Their grandfather Harry Sherry, who started out as the dishwasher, purchased the eatery in the 1940s from its former owner. One key to Old Homestead Steakhouse's longevity is the fact that the establishment, since its start, has been a rather upscale eatery. Unlike chophouses, the steakhouse has always been about serious quality. In fact, the Old Homestead Steakhouse is one of a few restaurants in the United States to serve Kobe Beef, pricing 12-oz portions at $350. Over the years, the restaurant has expanded its tablespace but its menu and atmosphere remain relatively untouched. In fact, it still prides itself in being the first restaurant to send patrons home with a doggy bag (leftovers to-go), because the portions sizes are too big!

Former New York Bank for Savings Interior ARCHITECT: R. H. Robertson DATE: 1896-97 STYLE: Academic Classic The interior of the New York Savings Bank was built in the Academic Classic style popularized by the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1893). The interior is intrinsically linked with the exterior, reflecting the exterior volume in the interior space. It is exceptional for its use marble, bronze, stained glass, and plaster. The engaged Corinthian columns and pilasters, coffered ceiling, the drum and dome possess fine ornamental detail.

"Southeast on Greenwich Avenue from Horatio Street on southwest side and 13th Street on northeast side to its southeastern terminus at Sixth Avenue, March 10, 1933." Designed by architect George F. Pelham in 1882, the building was constructed as studio apartments. The LPC Designation Report for Greenwich Village notes its "prow-like" shape at the narrow angled point between Greenwich Avenue and West 13th Street.

St. Peter's Episcopal Church This church is an exceptionally fine example of the Gothic Revival. Its central tower was once flanked by openwork side porches. These unique porches were recently removed due to decay, and no vestige of their beauty remains. Some of the interior details and the fine old organ further contribute to the beauty of this church in Chelsea.

Few hotels in New York can match the cultural history of the Chelsea Hotel. From its beginnings as a luxurious apartment building to its later life as temporary accommodations for a host of artists, the Chelsea Hotel has seen been a fixture of New York throughout the years. This story is adapted from the Skyscraper Museum's "Ten & Taller."

Doorway 204 West 13th Street, May 5, 1937. Somewhat strangely, this particular door on West 13th Street is the subject of photographs by two well-known American photographers. In 1931 Walker Evans captured the columned door frame of no. 204. Six years later, Berenice Abbott, under the auspices of the Federal Art Project, took a slightly wider framed shot. In the late 1920s through the early 1930s, the building at no. 204 was the home of Charles Seeger, American musicologist, composer, and father of folk singer Pete Seeger.

The Metropolitan Temple (Methodist Episcopal) at the northwest corner of Seventh Avenue and 13th Street, December 22, 1932. The Collegiate Gothic church, designed by Louis E. Jallade, opened in September 1932. The Montréal-born architect moved to New York City in childhood, and later become the commander of the city's Twelfth Regiment of the New York Guard, which he first joined in 1914. Openly gay Reverend C. Edward “Ed” Egan, Jr. led the Metropolitan-Duane United Methodist Church from 1971 to 1977, when he was forced into early retirement because of his homosexuality. From 1973 to c. 1996, the church was the meeting location of the support group now known as PFLAG, the first such group in the world for parents of lesbian and gay children. Between 1974 and 1976, the church was also the first meeting location of the Salsa Soul Sisters, a black and Latina lesbian group. From c. 1977 to 1988, the church hosted services by the Metropolitan Community Church of New York, which was founded to minister to the LGBT community whose members were not welcome in most churches.

Federal style brick house and a row of wood-frame buildings on Ninth Avenue above 21st Street, ca. 1977. The Federal house was completed in 1832 and is today the second-oldest building in the Chelsea Historic District. James N. Wells lived and kept an office there between 1833 and 1839, while a grocery operated in the ground-floor storefront as early as 1835. The neighboring wooden houses were built for wells in the 1850s and 60s. At one point, all four buildings shared a continuous awning. In Edmund Vincent Gillon’s late 1970s photo, the storefront is occupied by L\&S Dairy.

Herring Building, May 4, 1927. Built in 1849 for Silas Clark Herring, the building served as the headquarters of the Herring Lock and Safe Company. The metal "Salamander" safes sold by this company included innovative plaster-of-Paris lining technology, which purported to be fireproof. The neo-Grec, though more generally vernacular building, is five stories tall and is given its odd shape by the meeting of Ninth Avenue and Hudson Street at 14th Street. The northern section of the building, which gives it the shape that earned the moniker of "Little Flatiron" was actually an addition circa 1860. In the late 19th and early 20th century the building was home to variety of food related businesses, including grocers, saloons, restaurants, and at least one butcher. This address has been best known in the late 20th century, as the location of a series of well-known clubs, the most prominent being the basement BDSM Hellfire Club (1971-2002).

In 1967, neo-Dada artist Robert Delford Brown performed one of his greatest pieces of all time, which he titled "The Great Building Crack-Up." The performance was meant to evoke a collision of the new and the old. The site of the performance was the elegantly designed brownstone by Beaux-Arts master Richard Morris Hunt. It was a meeting of Avant-garde minds between Brown and the architect Paul Rudolph. This is the story of a building that has lived many lives.

My Archive Summer 2019 “In the photo is a co-worker. It is from a series of photos I took between 1977 and 1982, while I was a worker in the market. I had just moved back to NYC in late '77. Getting the job here was just supposed to be a "pit- stop" until I figured out what I wanted to do. I wound up staying 8 years.” —Richard Ovaduke

149 Eighth Avenue ca. 1938 During the Depression, New York City was home to 135 pawnshops and claimed more than half the nation’s pawnbroking business. Like peddling, pawnbroking catered to the poor and was subject to strict regulation. Abbott was drawn to the attention-grabbing storefronts of pawnbrokers, with their profusion of merchandise and hard-sell advertisements. She exposed several negatives of “Uncle” Rothman’s to capture just the right window-shopping gesture. Rothman’s remained on Eighth Avenue until the 1960s. Heavily remodeled, the building now houses the Food Bar, one of Chelsea’s many chic restaurants.

"Eighth Avenue at S.W. corner of 21st Street., 1929." The light colored brick building seen at left in the original photograph still stands, while the wood-frame structure on corner (which is seemingly being demolished) has been replaced by a red brick building, likely constructed soon thereafter, given its simple Art Deco style.

(1827 and 1836; 1883-1902, Charles Coolidge Haight) The Seminary stands on land donated by Clement Clarke Moore, and originally included just the 1827 East Building, since demolished, and the matching 1836 West Building, which remains. Moore hoped the open campus would double as a value-enhancing town square, like Washington Square and Gramercy Park; it was in fact long called “Chelsea Square.” A seminary graduate, Eugene Augustus Hoffman, was installed as the first dean in 1879. Backed by his personal wealth, he began an ambitious building program known as the “Grand Design.” His architect Haight took inspiration from the Collegiate Gothic campuses of England and their quadrangles as well as the image of a medieval cloister. He built along three sides of the Seminary block’s perimeter, shielding its grounds from Ninth and Tenth Avenues and 21st Street, and preserving much of Moore’s original public-square intent. Left open on the south, Haight’s plan admitted sunlight and allowed the front gardens of the rowhouses across 20th Street—planned via a ten-foot setback laid out by Clement Clark Moore—to contribute their greenery to the leafy oasis of the Seminary. Haight’s design and the rowhouses opposite create a modern, urban version of an encircling cloister. The Seminary’s central, south-facing chapel occupies the traditional place of a medieval cloister church. Its bell tower, like St. Peter’s Church, is modeled on Magdalen Tower at Oxford. Despite unfortunate encroachments on the Seminary’s open space by luxury apartment construction, the block remains uniquely gracious and the heart of Chelsea.

Street & Smith Publishing is was one of the oldest publishing houses in the country. They can be credited with encouraging literacy en masse by churning out thousands of volumes of enticing and easy-to-read dime novels, pulp fiction books, comic books, and magazines. The company was founded in 1855 by Francis Scott Street and Francis Shubael Smith when the two revitalized a dying fiction magazine. Three short years later, they purchased the New York Weekly Dispatch and began growing their publishing empire. The house put forward novels in the following categories: adventure and sea stories, detective and mystery, romance, sci-fi, sports, westerns, and young adult fiction. They also published comic books including the likes of Jesse James, Buffalo Bill, and Nick Carter. Their weekly magazines included Popular Magazine, Pic, Charm, and Mademoiselle. Street & Smith ceased production of pulp fiction in 1949, largely due to increasing competition with television. The publishers turned their attention to their collection of magazines. The publisher was sold to Conde Nast for over 3.5 million dollars in 1957.

Chelsea Hotel ca. 1936 The eleven-story Hotel Chelsea opened in 1884 as one of the first cooperative apartment buildings in New York City. A list of some of the famous people who have lived there reads like a Who's Who of art, theater and literary circles: Sarah Bernhardt, Lillian Russell, Mark Twain, O. Henry, Thomas Wolfe, John Sloan, Arthur Miller (after his break up with Marilyn Monroe), Tennessee Williams, and Jackson Pollock. The survivors of the Titanic stayed here for a few days, and here Dylan Thomas collapsed after an alcoholic binge from which he never recovered.

New York Savings Bank ARCHITECT: R. H. Robertson DATE: 1896-97 The New York Savings Bank, built in two sections in 1896-97, has a significant place in the architectural and cultural history of New York City. It was designed by the well-known architect R. H. Robertson and is one of his most successful designs because of its scale, choice of materials, and relation to the two major thoroughfares on which it is situated. Its Eighth Avenue portico, the 14th Street elevation of pedimented bay and westernmost three windows, the wall clock, cornice and cresting, the drum and the dome comprise fine ornamental detail. Its materials–granite, marble, bronze and copper–and the workmanship these represent are exceptional.

The National Maritime Union Dormitory and Training Center (1967) on 9th Avenue between 16th and 17th Streets is another of Albert Ledner’s commissions for the National Maritime Union. With over 100 porthole windows and a white, tiled, sloping façade, the dormitory adheres to Ledner’s playful modernist aesthetic in the nearby National Maritime Union Building . In 1987, the National Maritime Union sold the Dormitory and Training Center to Covenant House for use as a runaway shelter and education facility. Over the next two decades, the building experienced a string of bad luck that would tarnish the architectural integrity of the complex: in the late-80s New York Mayor Ed Koch sought to condemn the building and turn it into a prison and then, in the mid-90s a street-level renovation interrupted the sloped façade and added a faux-brownstone city block. Fortunately, adaptive reuse projects have restored its architectural integrity. The Dream Hotel, designed by Handel Architects, added a new Ledner-inspired façade to a portion of the building while retaining the porthole window motif. The Maritime Hotel, a portion of the Dormitory and Training Center rehabilitated in 2003 by Eric Goode and Sean MacPherson, painstakingly recreates elements of the original design and adds details such as nautical teak paneled rooms.

New York Savings Bank moved into the basement of this four-story bank building in 1857. Over the next few decades, the bank prospered and became more visible when it moved into the first-floor space. In 1896 the New York Savings Bank demolished this structure and commissioned a new building on the same site.

79 Eighth Avenue, ca. 1980. One of two landmark banks on this corner, the Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company Building was constructed in 1907 to the designs of De Lemos & Cordes. Created in the model of the "City Beautiful" movement, which postulated that beautiful civic and commercial buildings could promote moral and civic virtue among urban populations, the architects produced a stately, classical building that has enured more than a century.

New York Savings Bank, ca. 1921. The New York Savings Bank has occupied the northwest corner of 14th Street and Eighth Avenue since the middle of the 19th century. By the turn of the century the bank deemed themselves in need of a new building. Robert Henderson Robertson designed a white marble Roman temple topped by a striking copper dome. The building, which remained a bank through the 1960s, was designated an exterior and interior landmark in 1988. As such each of its ensuing tenants (including a carpet shop, grocery store, and currently CVS) have has to abide by the rules governing interior landmarks (such as not attaching anything to walls or floors).

Grand Opera House, 1937. Originally opened as Pike's Opera House in 1868, the building became the Grand Opera House the next year when it was purchased by James Fisk and Jay Gould. The repertoire was expanded beyond classic opera to include plays and light opera. Fisk's motivation for this was to create opportunity for his girlfriend, actress Josie Mansfield. He put her up in a nearby brownstone and gifted her cash and lavish jewels. The mansion also had a secret tunnel that led to the opera house and the upstairs offices of Fisk's Erie Railway. Fisk became the silent partner in an oil business run by a man named Ned Stokes. Stokes would became Mansfield's other lover and after much drama, including extortion, blackmail, libel lawsuits, and false charges of embezzlement, Stokes murdered Fisk, shooting him in 1872. Fisk lay in state at the opera house. The theatre became a venue for more popular, working class productions, as the changing audience on the west side enjoyed a cheaper and less cultured repertoire. The building became an RKO theatre in 1938 after a renovation by theatre architect Thomas Lamb. Finally closed in preparation for demolition in June of 1960, the building was gutted by a fire in July of the same year.

New York Port Authority building, 1937. 111 Eighth Avenue is an enormous building which takes up the entire block between Eighth and Ninth Avenues and 15th and 16th Streets. It is 2.9 million square feet and was the largest building in the city until 1963. Built in 1932 in the Art Deco style and designed by Lusby Simpson, the mammoth building was original constructed to be multi-use, with the first floor and basement used for the movement of goods by truck under the auspices of the Port Authority, and the upper floors used for manufacturing. With changing transportation and the dwindling of railroad freight in Manhattan, the original trucking functions of the building were largely abandoned by the mid 1940s. The building served as the headquarters of the Port Authority from the 1940s until the WTC opened in 1970. Since 2010 the building has been owned by Google (they paid a reported $1.9 billion), though other companies continue to rent space, including Nike and Bank of New York.

My Archive Spring 2019 "Starve a rat day, an event on 21st Street Chelsea. This was the block I lived on from 1966 or 1967 until 1979. I am in the background wearing the plaid pants." —Amy Peck

My Archive Spring 2019 "Amy Peck, seven years old, and her sister Sally Peck, five years old. I think my father liked the advertisements." — Amy Peck