Proctor's 23rd Street Theater ca. 1895 When the church that originally occupied this site was torn down. F.F. Proctor purchased the land and erected his theater. It was here that he began his career as the foremost producer of vaudeville and popular melodramas. Proctor's was the first vaudeville house in New York City to offer "continuous vaudeville," with shows running from 11 in the morning to 11 at night. Advertisements for Proctor's read "After Breakfast, Go to Proctor's, After Proctor's Go To Bed." Located in the Flatiron district, Proctor's made a special appeal to women shoppers, who could catch a show any time during the day. With the coming of movies, the theater began to offer a mix of movies and vaudeville, and then movies alone.

(1875, Mortimer C. Merritt; expanded 1895) As early as the 1860’s, the West 20s above Union Square had a reputation as a shopping district for a new class of retail consumer, primarily women with disposable income and leisure time to spend on shopping for ready-made clothing and goods. The Hugh O’Neill Dry Goods Store is perhaps the most visible department store on this stretch of Sixth Avenue. With its domed corner towers and central pediment, it is among the finest examples of cast-iron architecture in the city. The original fourstory, French-inspired Renaissance Revival design was expanded in 1895 with a fifth floor. The domes and pediment were temporarily removed and then reinstalled on top of the addition. Adding stories or whole new bays on cast-iron fronted buildings was a fairly frequent occurrence, and pointed up the advantages of cast iron as a modular construction technology in which standardized, mass-produced facade components and ornament could be replicated and installed with relative ease.

Orange Riots at 25th Street and Eighth Avenue, 1871. Following violence the year before uptown on July 12th, (known as Marching Day in Northern Ireland), in 1871 the police barred the Loyal Order of Orange (an Irish Protestant group) from parading again. After complaints were lodged by newspaper, the order itself, and a number of elite businessmen, the police and Tammany Hall relented and allowed the parade. The event began under heavy police and National Guard presence (about 5000 men) at Lamartine Hall, the Orangemen’s headquarters at Eighth Avenue and 29th Street. The parade was met by angry Irish Catholic crowds and the violence escalated to the point that rocks, shoes, and bottles were being thrown; the police and militia were using their clubs and bayonets; and shots were fired into the dense crowds. In all the riot caused the deaths of over 60 civilians – mostly Irish laborers – and three Guardsmen.

(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.

Eighth avenue, east side, from West 25th (right, not seen) to 26th Streets, showing at No. 312 the Chelsea Theatre. This structure, prior to 1913 was formerly Miner's Theatre which opened here in 1881. It burned in 1903 and was rebuilt in 1904. A photograph of 1910 closely compared, will indicate the present building minus the marquee. June 25, 1928.

314 Eight Avenue, ca. 1910. This structure, originally built in 1881, was rebuilt in 1904 after a fire the proceeding year. In 1913 it closed, to be later reopened as the Chelsea Movie Theatre.

Third Cemetery of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, June 11, 1933. This cemetery is one of the burial places of the oldest Jewish congregation in North America, Congregation Shearith Israel. While the exact location of the first cemetery for the congregation has been lost (it might have been near the African Burial Ground), two other graveyards for this community pre-date this one and remain extant. They are located at Chatham Square and just east of Sixth Avenue on West 11th Street, established 1682 and 1805, respectively. Due to the encroaching city development and changes in the law regarding burials in Manhattan, both of these cemeteries were unfit for the community's needs by the 1820s. Referred to as the 'Third' Cemetery or the 21st Street Cemetery this plot was established in 1829 to move the disinterred graves from the 11th Street location. The active period of this cemetery was brief, as the city banned burials below 86th Street in 1851. The congregation looked to the outer boroughs (a popular cemetery locale by that time). Joining with two other Jewish congregations they founded the Beth Olam Cemetery in Ridgewood, which is still active today.

Lefcourt Clothing Center, 1929. This 1929 building, commissioned by Garment District developer Abraham E. Lefcourt, was originally designed to house garment shops. The building was erected by the architect firm of Buchman & Kahn at a time when clothing manufacturers were beginning to relocate from Manhattan and into the boroughs. Upon its completion, the building became a magnet that started the relocation of what remained of New York's declining men's clothing industry.

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.

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

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.

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

St. Vincent de Paul ca. 1932 French-speaking Catholics from both France and its New World colonies were among the earliest Catholic settlers in New York and were some of the first parishioners of St. Peter's, New York's original parish. The French population tended to assimilate quickly into the larger society; however, bolstered by continued immigration, in 1841, they organized their own parish, St. Vincent de Paul, on Canal Street, in lower Manhattan, which later relocated to West 23rd Street.

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."

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.

Bayard Rustin Residence at Penn South (Building 7), 312 West 25th Street. Bayard Rustin, one of the most important yet little-known figures of the civil rights movement, lived in an apartment in this Chelsea building complex from 1963 to 1987 (his death). While here, he served as the lead organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and took part in numerous social justice campaigns around the world.

The Jeanne D’Arc Home, ca. 1912. The Jeanne D’Arc Home, originally founded in 1896 as a refuge for French girls separated from their families, has remained to this day a safe place for women in New York City. Run by the Congregation of Divine Providence, the home accepts women from all religions and cultures – often women from other countries who have come to New York temporarily to study or to work. On any given day, the home can house up 140 women!

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.

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.

401 West 24th Street, April 18, 1941. Constructed in 1904, this six-story brick apartment building was designed by John E. Scharsmith. Best known for his high style buildings including the Beaux-Arts Chatsworth Apartments and the neo-Gothic Swiss House, both on the Upper West Side, he also designed less ornate structures like this one. Writer and gay rights and AIDS activist Vito Russo lived in an apartment in this building from the late 1960s until his death in 1990. He moved into apartment #1 at 401 West 24th Street in Chelsea just before witnessing the June 1969 Stonewall uprising and lived here until his death. The aftermath of the March 1970 police raid at the Snake Pit in Greenwich Village inspired him to become actively involved in the gay rights movement.

"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.

Trench work beneath the tracks of the Ninth Avenue El at West 23rd Street; undated photo. Completed in 1873, the 23rd Station was originally the penultimate stop for uptown service on the Ninth Avenue El. The station included two side platforms for local trains, and was bypassed by express service via single central track, added in 1916. The station closed and was permanently dismantled in 1940. In the background, the signature facade piers and front gardens of the original London Terrace complex are visible. The unified full-block development of Greek Revival townhouses stood until 1929, when they were replaced with the high rise apartment complex of the same name.

(1886-87, Schwarzmann & Buchman)) The late 19th-century commercial takeover of Sixth Avenue wasn’t limited to just high-end department stores. The area surrounding 23rd Street was once a nexus of theatrical productions, of both vaudeville and legitimate persuasions alike. In 1879, Koster & Bial took over Bryant’s Opera House (established 1870, infamously one of the last minstrel theaters in the city). The partners soon expanded to a 1,200-seat theater on 23rd Street and eventually took up the entire Sixth Avenue frontage as well with a beer garden and a corner annex, which served as a saloon and beer store. The latter’s pediment and corner plaque still proudly advertise “The Corner” and “Koster & Bial.” In 1893, the partners were forced to close their Chelsea operations on charges of “encouraging prostitution.” A few days later they had opened a new venue on 34th Street (later famous for hosting the city’s first motion picture exhibition in 1896).

Asociación de Arte Latinoamericano (ADAL), 682 Sixth Avenue. For nearly 40 years, gay artistic director Max Ferrá led INTAR, a Latino theater company first known as Asociación de Arte Latinoamericano (ADAL) when it was located in this building from 1966 to 1971. Under Ferrá, who was also a co-founder, the company became a major force in developing Hispanic-American theater talent, including original works by several notable LGBT playwrights.

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.

(1927, Abraham Fisher) This six-story commercial building is notable for its striking façade and unusual name, a reference to the “Traffic Cafeteria” that occupied the lower two stories in the late 1920s. “Traffic” referred to the trucking industry in its nascent years. Cafeteria-style restaurants catering to budget-conscious urbanites became popular in the 1920s. Designed by little-known architect Fisher, the building is a wonder of patterned brickwork and rich, Celtic-inspired terra cotta ornament. Rather than bearing weight, this façade is a “curtain wall” held up floor-by-floor by the building’s concealed steel frame. Fisher’s treatment of the Traffic Building’s façade as a tapestry and use of diagonally-laid brick acknowledge this up-to-date reality. At the same time, traditional elements make it seem anachronistic. It is one of those buildings which, when noticed, rivet and reward.

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."

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.

In 1750, British naval officer Thomas Clarke bought a Dutch farm to create his retirement estate, named “Chelsea” after the Royal Hospital Chelsea in London. His property extended from approximately Eighth Avenue to the Hudson—its shore ran roughly along today’s Tenth Avenue—between 20th and 28th Streets. The estate was subdivided in 1813 between two grandsons; Clement Clarke Moore received the southern half below 24th Street while his cousin, Thomas B. Clarke, inherited the northern section. The two halves developed distinctly different characters due to the split. Today, Chelsea contains a variety of historic architecture, including some of the city’s most intact nineteenth-century residential blocks, significant commercial buildings, and industrial complexes near the Hudson River.

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.

Jews’ Hospital in the City of New York (later Mount Sinai), sketch ca. 1866. The hospital that would become Mount Sinai opened on June 5, 1855, in a townhouse on West 28th Street. As its original name suggests, Jews’ Hospital served the needs of Jewish patients — and employed Jewish doctors — at a time when other hospitals in the city refused service. Non-Jewish patients were admitted in cases of emergency, as were Union soldiers wounded in the Civil War. In 1866, hospital directors adopted the new name Mount Sinai, signaling that patients of all backgrounds were welcome. In the early 1870s, the hospital moved to a new and larger facility at Lexington Avenue and 66th Street.

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.

From the 1870's-90's, approximately 20,000 French immigrants lived in South Village and SoHo area. By the end of the 19th century, most of that colony had relocated to the Chelsea area.

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.

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