Vanderbilt Hotel Once the New York home of Enrico Caruso and other notables, this hotel, in its use of brick and terra cotta, evokes memories of the best of the new architecture of the early 'twenties which it inspired. The Adamesque detail of the windows and lanterns suggests an English precedent, while the glass sunburst marquee that once graced the entrance represented the epitome of elegance.

James Hampden Robb and Cornelia Van Rennselaer Robb House ARCHITECT: McKim, Mead & White; Stanford White DATE: 1889-92 STYLE: Renaissance Revival This elegant and imposing structure is considered one of the finest urban residences designed by Stanford White of the prominent architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White and was one of the earliest Renaissance Revival townhouses by White. Articulated by White with an exceptional command of proportion and design, the building is composed with simple cubic forms which contribute greatly to its monumental character. The handsome tawny-orange Roman iron-spot brick facing complements the color of the boldly modeled brownstone base and matching tan brick and terra-cotta ornament. The richly-textured facades are beautifully detailed with a wealth of Renaissance-inspired ornament for which White is so justly renowned. Other notable features include the double-story entrance porch with paired corner columns, the beautiful iron balustrades, balustraded roof parapets, and the two-story oriel on the East 35th Street facade.

Bowery Savings Bank ca. 1933 The architectural firm of York & Sawyer made a name for itself designing a series of Romanesque buildings easily recognized on the exterior by their superb rustication, and by their rich, colorful interiors. Here, in the main banking room, we see a variegated assortment of marble columns. Historically it will be remembered that the Romanesque architects looted the temples of classical antiquity of their rich marbles and polished columns to produce their new buildings.

Streetcar emerging from the Park Avenue tunnel, with the Church of the Messiah across 34th Street, ca. 1890. The Park Avenue Tunnel, then called the Murray Hill Tunnel, was built in 1834 as an open cut trench for New York and Harlem Railroad traffic, including both steam engine-powered trains and horse-drawn vehicles. In 1850, the tunnel was covered over. In 1871, tunnel traffic shifted to horse-drawn cars only, and three stations were added at the north and south ends, and at 38th Street, inside the tunnel. Electric streetcar service operated from 1898-1935, when the tunnel was closed for conversion to automobile traffic.

Murray Hill Hotel ca. 1935 Built in 1884, the 600-room Murray Hill Hotel offered its guests the ultimate in modern convenience, including a steam elevator and electric lights on the first two floors. During its glory years, Mark Twain, Grover Cleveland, Jay Gould, and J.P. Morgan were among its regular clientele. By the time Abbott photographed it in 1935, the “Old Lady” stood as an eloquent reminder of a bygone era. Rather than show the huge brownstone bulk of the building, Abbott chose two salient details: the hotel’s entrance, bedecked with enormous American flags; and its “spiraling” fire escapes. Sold in 1943, the Murray Hill Hotel survived until 1947, when it was demolished to make way for 100 Park Avenue, a 36-story office building.

Middleton S. and Emilie Neilson Burrill House ARCHITECT: Hoppin & Koen DATE: 1902-03 This house features a two-story limestone base with arched openings at the parlor level that is surmounted by a balustrade resting on massive console brackets. The Philadelphia brick and limestone-trimmed upper stories display ornate molded window enframements, with the second story having pedimented window frames enriched with console brackets, dentils, and guttae, and the third story having eared surrounds with prominent keystones and projecting sills.

The The James F.D. and Harriet Lanier House, East 35th Street, ca. 1975. This Beaux-Arts mansion was built for James F.D. Lanier, a well known banker from a prominent family, and his wife Harriet (neé Bishop). The house, designed by the Hoppin & Koen firm, was completed in 1903, replacing a pair of brownstone townhouses which had previously stood on the site.

Pershing Square Building ARCHITECT: York and Sawyer, John Sloan DATE: 1921-23 STYLE: Lombard Revival The Lombard Revival-style Pershing Square Building anchors a prominent corner directly across 42nd Street from Grand Central Terminal at Park Avenue. Designed by John Sloan, working with staff of York & Sawyer, the building is remarkable for the important role it played in the development of the city’s mass transit system, its transitional role in the history of the city’s building development, and its exceptional terra-cotta cladding. The Pershing Square Building is also noteworthy as an integral element of the redevelopment of the Grand Central Terminal area.

The Empire State Building, viewed across the partially-dismantled tracks of the Third Avenue El, 1955.

Morgan Library & Museum, 1938. Built expressly to house the famous J. Pierpont Morgan Collection of books and manuscripts, the Morgan Library was designed by McKim, Mead & White to provide a beautiful setting for the treasures within. As in the construction of Greek temples, the stones were perfectly fitted, obviating the use of a full bed of mortar- an expensive but enduring method of constructing masonry walls and today practically a lost art.

St. Gabriel's Park Branch, June 26, 1928. Designed by McKim, Mead & White and completed in 1908, this Carnegie library is no longer is extant. The St. Gabriel's Park Branch (which replaced a small, earlier, non-Carnegie library on 34th Street) was demolished for the construction of the Queens-Midtown Tunnel in the 1930s. Ironically the earlier library building at 215 East 34th Street was also demolished for the tunnel. The St. Gabriel's Park branch was torn down in the 1930s to make way for the Queens Midtown Tunnel. The library building had a similar look to other McKim, Mead & White designed Carnegie libraries, though it also included one of the few open air reading room. These open air gardens were often on the roof with glass coverings. This branch was particular in that the open air section constituted a whole fourth floor, surrounded by classic loggia (columned portico) and covered by full peaked roof.

Pierpont Morgan Library and Annex ARCHITECT: McKim, Mead & White; Charles F. McKim DATE: 1902-07 STYLE: Italian Renaissance Eclectic The Pierpont Morgan Library and Annex are outstanding examples of Italian Renaissance Eclectic design incorporating the talents of architect, sculptor and painter. They represent the finest available both in use of materials and craftsmanship. Their architectural details are both refined and delicate and that the classical purity of the Library exerted a marked influence on the general development of architecture in this country at the time it was built. The Pierpont Morgan Library is one of the finest neo-Italian Renaissance buildings in New York City. It was designed to house the extensive book, manuscript, and art collection of J. Pierpont Morgan. The interior and exterior harmoniously work together to create a splendid showcase for Morgan’s collection. The interior is particularly distinguished by the extensive ceiling murals, and the rich array of wood and marbled surfaces. The murals , which are based on Renaissance prototypes, depict themes that allude to Morgan and his collection.

James F. D. and Harriet Lanier Residence ARCHITECT: Hoppin & Koen DATE: 1901-03 STYLE: Beaux-Arts This imposing residence of Beaux-Arts design was built in 1901-03 for James and Harriet Lanier in the fashionable Murray Hill section of New York. Designed by the architectural firm of Hoppin & Koen, it remains one of their finest residential works in New York City. Among its significant features are the rusticated ground floor base, the two-story pilasters, the mansard roof, and the gracefully carved stonework.

Interborough Subway sign on Park Avenue, just south of 42nd Street, ca. 1980.

Wealthy painter and philanthropist Ellen Dunlap Hopkins founded the New York School of Applied Design for Women in 1892. Its mission was to "afford \[...] women inspiration which may enable them to earn a livelihood by the employment of their taste and manual dexterity in the application of ornamental design to manufacture and the arts." This meant illustration, book cover design, interior design, wallpaper, and textile design and architecture. The school also helped the students and graduate sell their pieces. The school moved into a brand new building in 1909. Designed by Harvey Wiley Corbett, the five-story neo-Classical building was funded largely by J. P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller. Despite its classical temple look and Greek details, a contemporary architecture journal derided it as "drastically modern." The New York Times' Christopher Gray was kinder if more expressive when he noted in a 2008 article that "the steeply sloping roof provides a pungent termination." Following a brief partnership with Columbia University between 1910 and 1912, the school continued as originally organized until 1944. A merger with the Phoenix Art Institute turned the school into a co-educational facility. A further merger in 1974 with Pratt. The now-named Pratt-New York Phoenix School of Design operated until the 1980s. Today the building, whose facade has not been seriously altered since its construction, is home to a high-end fashion showroom.

Murray Hill Hotel fire escapes, November 19, 1935. Berenice Abbott's photo captures the intricate ironwork of the Murray Hill Hotel fire escapes. The building in the background is located at 22 East 40th Street (now 275 Madison Avenue), a 43-story Art Deco skyscraper by Kenneth Franzheim.

Nighttime view of the Empire State Building, ca. 1975. The building at the extreme right is No. 139 East 35th Street.

Madison Avenue skyscrapers, surrounding a brownstone mansion at 39th Street, July 2, 1936. The brownstone building once belonged to Moses Taylor Pyne, the financier and philanthropist who was a benefactor of Princeton University. After Pyne’s death in 1921, his widow Margaretta S. Pyne continued to live there. In a 1927 Brooklyn Daily Eagle article detailing the sale of Madison Avenue dwellings, Mrs. Pyne “is reported to have confided to her friends, ‘I will never give up this house.’” Eventually, the house was sold and demolished. The current yellow-brick structure on the site was built in 1949.

"Egyptomania," a kind of feverish obsession with ancient Egypt, had spread throughout Europe and America after Napoleon's campaign in Egypt ended in 1802. By 1922, this craze was renewed after the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb. Take a tour of some of New York's own artifacts that reference both Egyptian and Assyrian art.

New York School of Applied Design for Women ARCHITECT: Harvey Wiley Corbett DATE: 1908-09 STYLE: Neo-Classical This building was built in neo-Classical institutional design, and it long housed the New York School of Applied Design for Women. It is a five-story building and stone neo-Classical institutional building. Harvey Wiley Corbett designed this building as a school of art, and it has been used exclusively for that purpose since its completion in 1909

34th Street, viewed from the exit of the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, ca. 1985. This is the view that greeted motorists entering Manhattan via the Queens-Midtown tunnel: the dilapidated remains of No. 214 East 34th Street, the former “Furniture Exhibition Building.” Today, a new building has replaced No. 214, but the 34th Street sign (upper right) remains.

2 Park Avenue ARCHITECT: Ely Jacques Kahn; Buchman and Kahn DATE: 1926-28 STYLE: Art Deco This building is one of the most important examples in New York of Art Deco or Modern style architecture, a popular architectural style for commercial structures at the time of its construction. Ely Jacques Kahn’s ornamental vocabulary was representative of the period’s concern with movement and technology and included brick and terra cotta in abstract geometric patterns, sometimes inspired by native designs or suggestions of the warp and weft of fabric, and emphasized the surface tension inherent in steel-framed commercial buildings.

Church of Our Saviour, ca. 1975. A mid-century take on Romanesque ecclesiastical architecture, Our Saviour was designed by the architect Paul C. Reilly and completed in 1959, for a Roman Catholic parish established in 1955.

Chanin Building, 122 East 42nd Street, ca. 1985. The Chanin Building, developed by Irwin S. Chanin, was the third tallest in the world when it was completed in 1929. Sloan & Robertson, who also designed the Art Deco Graybar Building on the next block, constructed the building with the assistance of Chanin’s own architect, Jacques Delamarre. Towering 56-stories high, the Art Deco skyscraper is among New York’s most prominent. Its facade features sculptural decoration in terra cotta, bronze, and limestone by Rene Paul Chambellan, and makes use of a mixture of of colored glass, stone, and metal throughout. The 50th and 51st floors, near Irwin Chanin’s offices, featured a full movie theater.

Lioness statue at the Morgan Library, ca. 1976.

The New York Association for the Blind, today known as the Lighthouse Guild, was founded to provide "Light through Work." The association, which still operates today, is dedicated to advocacy and vision rehabilitation for the blind. The foundation was established in 1903 by sisters Winifred and Edith Holt. It began at first as the "Lighthouse Free Ticket Bureau," which gave free concert tickets to blind children. The Holts were inspired by a similar project while visiting Italy. Looking to establish a program in their hometown, Winifred and Edith Holt started their own project. An article in the New York Times, dated January 13, 1907, wrote that: "When Misses Winifred and Edith Holt established a ticket bureau for the blind four years ago their sole thought was that they might relieve the somber lives of these sufferers," however, "it seemed that something more thoroughgoing should be attempted." Thus, the "Lighthouse Free Ticket Bureau" was transformed into the New York Association for the Blind, which offered education, vocational training, job placement, and recreation. The Association was modeled after a settlement house, which Winifred Holt was familiar with: she had been a regular volunteer at houses on the Bowery before dedicating her life to aiding the visually impaired. The Holt's charitable organization was formally incorporated as The New York Association for the Blind in 1906. In addition to founding the Association, Winifred also campaigned for the first census of blind residents in New York. The census counted over nine-thousand New York residents who were visually impaired. She also helped found the New York State Commission for the Blind and Visually Handicapped. In 1914, Holt was recognized for her ceaseless social welfare work and awarded a gold model by the National Institute of Social Sciences. Within the Association for the Blind, Winifred and Edith served as the secretary and recording secretary of the Association, respectively. The poet Richard Watson Gilder served as president with vice-president Helen Keller. The Association started, at first, in the Brownstone home of the Holts, at 44 East 78th Street. They employed teachers who were visually impaired and therefore had a greater understanding of what it meant to instruct those who were also blind. Edith and Winifred came to a quick understanding that many of those who were blind needed steady employment in addition to educational services. In response, they converted their family Brownstone into a space for women to work and opened a workshop for men at East 42nd Street. In these spaces, men and women produced sellable wares, such as brooms, brushes, furniture, and mats, all of which would be sold on their behalf. According to the Times, "the home of the Misses Holt is a hive of workers engaged in advancing the interests of the blind in many ways." Additionally, adults were trained in the realm of clerical, sales, and business work. The program grew so quickly that an expansion known as the Bourne Workshop was opened at East 35th Street in 1912. While providing employment, training, and education for adults, the New York Association for the Blind also took care of children. Various outdoor summer camps for children were opened around the state. Winifred also lobbied the New York Department of Education to allow visually impaired children to be admitted into public schools for the first time. With the onset of World War I, and, seeing the success of the program in New York City, Winifred Holt worked to expand the Association onto the world's stage. Le Phare de Bordeaux was opened in France in 1915, as were offices, or "Lighthouses," in Paris, Rome, Warsaw, China, Japan, the Middle East, India, and South America, thus making the Association an international foundation. The New York Association for the Blind took on the name Lighthouse Incorporated in 1989 and was later re-named Lighthouse International. In 2005, the Guild celebrated its 100th anniversary. The offices of the Lighthouse Guild are now located at 250 West 64th Street.

Entrance to 275 Madison Avenue, ca. 1990.

Packard Commercial School, ca. 1910. In 1858 Silas Packard started a commercial school out of two rooms at Cooper Union. His students learned the math, business, and secretarial skills needed to work as clerks in commercial firms. He would go to write a number of popular textbooks on the topic. Outgrowing a succession of buildings in the late 29th century, the school purchased a plot at 35th Street in 1910. Designed by architect H. F. Ballantyne, the Packard Commercial School was described by the architect himself as, "Georgian, or rather a modern adaptation of that early American style sometimes called Colonial.” The Commercial School closed by the mid century and the building was purchased by Yeshiva University for a women's educational facility (Stern College for Women), which it remains today.

Chanin Building ARCHITECT: Irwin S. Chanin; Sloan & Robertson DATE: 1927-29 STYLE: Art Deco The Chanin Building, built in 1927-29, rises 56 stories at the corner of Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street. Designed by the architectural firm of Sloan & Robertson with sculptural decoration by Rene Chambellan, it is a major example of Art Deco architecture in New York City. Erected under the supervision of the Chanin Construction Company, the building still serves as the organization’s headquarters.

Church of the Incarnation ARCHITECT: Emlen T. Little DATE: 1864 STYLE: Gothic Revival The Church of the Incarnation and Parish House form a striking complex in the Murray Hill area. The church, designed by Emlen T. Littell and built in 1864, is a significant example of Gothic Revival architecture, and among its notable features are the corner tower, the entrance porch, the carefully executed pointed-arch openings with stained glass, and the beautifully-laid brownstone facing.

The former Aberdeen Hotel. The Aberdeen Hotel features red brick with a rusticated limestone base and projecting bay windows, as well as richly decorated balconettes and cornices. The Aberdeen had originally been built as an apartment hotel, but began accepting transient guests in 1912 and was one of the first hotels to accept unaccompanied women in the 1920s.

The Madison Belmont Building, 181 Madison Avenue (also variously known as 183 Madison Avenue, 40 East 34th Street, 44-46 East 34th Street), ca. 1990. Built in 1924 “as an office and showroom space for silk companies in the developing Silk District of mid-town Manhattan,” per the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the Madison Belmont was among the first buildings in the city to incorporate Art Deco design elements. Architects Warren & Wetmore, along with the Cheney Silk Company, the first major tenant, hired Edgar Brandt to design the entrances and display windows — areas where Art Deco influences are most clearly pronounced. Here, Brandt’s iron and gilded bronze and gold transom design employs a “frozen fountain” effect, a common Art Deco motif.

The Madison Avenue entrance to the J.P. Morgan Jr. house, January 27, 1937. The freestanding Italianate brownstone mansion was built in 1852-3 for Isaac Newton Phelps, whose family’s copper mining fortune funded the construction of three such mansions on Madison Avenue, between 36th and 37th Streets. Isaac Phelps, himself, was a wealthy merchant and banker. Having purchased the southernmost house in 1882, J.P. Morgan Sr. acquired Phelps’ home at No. 231 and the remaining mansion in between in 1903. Morgan demolished the middle house, using its lot for a private garden, and gave the No. 231 to his son, J.P. Morgan, Jr. In 1928, Morgan Sr.’s house was razed for the construction of the Morgan Library. When J.P. Morgan Jr. died in 1943, the Lutheran Church acquired the building, setting off a long-running preservation saga. In 1965, the Church signaled its intent to build an office building on the site, which was subsequently declared a New York City Landmark, protecting the property. The Church appealed the ruling successfully, and in 1974, the Landmark status was reversed. However, the Lutherans no longer had the funds to pursue their planned construction. With the mansion’s status uncertain, the Landmarks Preservation Commission re-designated the building that year. This time, there was no appeal. The Landmark limbo ended in 1988, when the Morgan Library purchased the property, securing its future and tying its legacy to the collection of its most prominent owner. Today, it’s home to the museum offices, store, and cafe.

Polish Consulate General (Joseph Raphael De Lamar House), ca. 1975. At the turn of the 20th century, Murray Hill was a fashionable district for the city’s wealthiest residents, trailing only Fifth Avenue in terms of prestige. Across the neighborhood, the existing housing stock of mid-19th century brownstones were quickly being replaced by extravagant new mansions, including this Madison Avenue gem. Joseph Raphael De Lamar was a Dutch-born merchant and entrepreneur, who became wealthy investing in mining operations in the American West — new money, by New York standards. To establish his place in city society, De Lamar commissioned famed architect C.P.H. Gilbert to design an opulent Beaux-Arts mansion, the largest in Murray Hill. De Lamar’s ostentatious residence took three years to build and ultimately rose to a height of six stories, surmounted by a massive mansard roof. After De Lamar’s death in 1918, the mansion passed to the American Bible Society, and later, the National Democratic Club. Since 1973, it has housed the Polish Consulate General.

George S. Bowdoin Stable, ca. 1976. This charming Dutch Revival stable, designed by architect Ralph S. Townsend, was built in 1902 for William R.H. Martin, a real estate developer. Martin sold the building to George S. Bowdoin, a banker and partner of J.P. Morgan, in 1907. After Bowdoin’s death in 1913, his daughter Edith Bowdoin took over the property. During Edith tenure, the downstairs level was converted to a garage, while the second story remained her living quarters until 1944. Since then, the building has had several private owners, with a brief period as a non-profit arts center, the Carriage House Center for the Arts.

This streetscape of the north side of East 38th Street, east of Third Avenue looks very different today. While the two-story brick building at no. 215 still stands, the rest of these buildings are long gone. In their place, the northbound Queens Midtown Tunnel exit street cuts through from 37th Street to 41st Street.

Adelaide L.T. Douglas Residence (right), ca. 1911. The buildings at left were later razed for the construction of the Roman Catholic Church of Our Saviour. By 1908, Adelaide L.T. Douglas, a prominent socialite, was separated from her husband William Proctor Douglas — and widely believed to be carrying on an affair with J.P. Morgan. In 1909, with her husband living at a separate residence uptown, Mrs. Douglas commissioned the architect Horace Trumbauer to build a new Louis XVI-style mansion on Park Avenue (the previous building on this site had been damaged during subway construction in 1902). Trumbauer’s opulent design was befitting of a client of Adelaide Douglas’s status — though it’s rumored that J.P. Morgan underwrote construction. The six-story mansion, completed in 1911, includes a rusticated limestone base, intricate relief carvings, a fourth floor colonnade, mansard roof, and wrought iron detail at every level. After Douglas’s death in 1935, the mansion was converted to apartments. In 1959, it was acquired by the United States Olympic Association. Nineteen years later, it was sold to the government of Guatemala, which established its United Nations mission there.

Bowery Savings Bank ARCHITECT: York & Sawyer; William Louis Ayres DATE: 1921-23 STYLE: Italian Romano Byzantine The architects incorporated a monumental banking room into a revenue-generating eighteen-story office tower, which has its own impressive entrance vestibule and lobby. The Italian Romano-Byzantine precedents for the design are expressed in the basilica-like banking room. The fine materials, rich and varied finishes, and allegorical referents create an interior in which thrift is celebrated as a virtue and practiced as a ritual

Vanderbilt Hotel, February 27, 1931.

237 Madison Avenue, ca. 1980. This fifteen-story neo-Romanesque building (at center) was constructed in 1927 by architect Andrew J. Thomas. Originally intended for long-term residents, the structure reopened as the Hotel Duane in 1984, following renovations, and was later renamed the Morgans Hotel, under the ownership of the Morgans Hotel Group. On July 14, 2017, the Morgans Hotel closed its doors for the last time. The building is now owned by Shel Capital and the Kash Group, who are expected to convert the nearly 100-year old property into a condominium complex.

William Wilgus, New York Central Railroad's largely self-taught chief engineer, was the mastermind behind Grand Central Terminal's innovative engineering technology. With the plan for electrification and the sinking of the railroad tracks below grade, while building the new modern terminal, Wilgus also convinced railroad officials to commercialize the air above the new street-level decking. In leasing the area above the tracks to developers, the Railroad could increase its profits and create a bustling business district that surrounded, supported, and benefited from Grand Central Terminal. Terminal City, as it was called, began to develop even before GCT was complete in 1913. Between 1909 when the Grand Central Post Office opened and the early 1930s when the Depression largely halted construction, the neighborhood boomed with hotels, apartment hotels, private clubs, and office buildings. Many of these structures were designed by Warren & Wetmore, one of the two architectural firms that created Grand Central. Most of the best-known hotels of Terminal City, including the Biltmore, Roosevelt, and the Commodore, were constructed by the mid 1910s, while the office buildings, including the Graybar and New York Central Buildings, were largely completed in the 1920s. This walk does not propose to be a complete list of all Terminal City development. It does not include any post-World War II constructions and it concerns itself ONLY with some of the Terminal City structures that are still extant. Some of the buildings will be easily recognizable, while others, though technically the same structure, bear no resemblance to their former selves. So lace up some comfortable shoes and let's get exploring.

Union League Club, Park Avenue, 1931. The Union League Club was founded in 1863 by a group of prominent New Yorkers who shared a firm commitment to the Union cause in the Civil War. The members were part of a breakaway from the Union Club, which had maintained support for Confederate Members. Frederick Law Olmsted was among the Club’s founders, and later members were a veritable directory of the city’s Gilded Age society, including John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, and several former and future Presidents of the United States. The Club first occupied a building on Union Square, followed by clubhouses on Madison Square and Fifth Avenue. The present neo-Classical building on Park Avenue was designed by architect Benjamin Wistar Morris III, and erected on a lot assembled by J.P. Morgan and his son J.P. “Jack” Morgan, Jr. The new club opened in February, 1931, with the first four floors dedicated to social and dining spaces, and the upper levels including 64 bedrooms. The club, which continues to operate today, extended membership to women in 1988, and was designated a New York City landmark in 2011.

THE MANICE BUILDING 159 Madison Avenue Wallis & Goodwillie, 1911-12 Like Madison Square Park, Madison Avenue was named after James Madison, the fourth President of the United States. The Avenue begins at 23rd Street and extends to the Madison Avenue Bridge at 138th Street. When the Manhattan street grid was mandated in 1811, there was no avenue between Fourth (now Park) and Fifth Avenues. Madison Avenue was carved out in the 1840s due to the wide distance between Fourth and Fifth Avenues and in order to create more building lots with avenue frontage. This southern section of Madison Avenue is characterized by its fine assortment of large-scale hotels, lofts and office buildings. The Manice Building is a 12-story, Renaissance Revival style loft building, with arched openings at the ground level and a large, bracketed, overhanging cornice.

No single building better symbolized the Gilded Age than the home of William K. Vanderbilt, completed in 1883. While the rich had been flaunting their wealth in costumes and jewels, Vanderbilt displayed his dollars in limestone. And then other society men and women followed suit.

71st Regiment Armory, ca. 1955. The Armory, although basically Romanesque in design, flaunts a very high medieval Italian tower complete with machicolations and American flags built into the masonry at the top as a decorative element. The architect reputedly asked his little son what he thought ought to go at the top of the tower, to which he replied, "Flags, Daddy."

Manhattan Storage and Warehouse, 1922. Constructed in 1882 for the Manhattan Storage and Warehouse Company, the fortress-like structure on Lexington Avenue was designed by James Ware (best known as the creator of the dumbbell, or old law, tenements). The building was considered an experiment for the new company. The goal of the firm and its new building was to furnish merchants with a location to store goods for a season, as needed. The completed building was a success and the firm (and their architect Ware) would go on to build a number of other large warehouse structures in the city. In 1927 the warehouse was razed for the construction of the 56-story Art Deco Chanin Building.

100 Park Avenue, ca. 1950. This shiny glass tower was designed by Kahn & Jacobs in 1950 in the International style. As one of the first large office buildings constructed in New York after the Depression, the structure is astylar in ways that architects, up until that point, could not previously imagine. Unlike prewar buildings which were drawn to be responsive to the environment, new advances in technology set this building apart. With the advent of central air-conditioning and fluorescent lighting, the tower was designed to emphasize floor space rather than airspace and light. Its ground floor alone is 40,000 feet, making it the prototype of the "block-through" office building in New York City. In 2008, the property was redeveloped by Moed de Armas and Shannon and awarded "International Building of the Year" by the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA).

Photographer Edmund Vincent Gillon captured an enchanting nighttime view of the Empire State Building, but his long exposure also caught a fleeting image of passing traffic — note the advertisement text "Bagel Wheel, Inc." seemingly floating over 35th Street.

People's Baths Milbank Memorial, 1904. In 1902, Elizabeth Milbank Anderson, heiress to the Borden Condensed Milk Company fortune, pledged to donate funds to the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor (AICP) for the construction of a public bath. The resulting facility was completed in early 1904 at the cost of $140, 000. The facility was large enough to service more than 3000 bathers in one day. Today the building is occupied by the Republic of Indonesia's mission to the United Nations.

The Advertising Club of New York at Robb House, Park Avenue, ca. 1975. This Stanford White-designed Italian Renaissance Revival mansion was completed in 1892 for James Hampden Robb, a veteran of city and state politics and New York City Parks Commissioner at the time of construction. The house was acquired by the Advertising Club of New York in 1923, and converted to co-op residences in 1977.

38 East 40th Street. ca. 1905. Designed by Ernest Flagg, this home was the first in Manhattan to use the Hennebique process, a late 19th-century method for reinforced concrete.

152 East 38th Street ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1858 STYLE: Federal Elegance and charm are abundantly evident in the architectural quality of this three-story Federal-style brick house. Separated from the street by a spacious forecourt and an inner landscaped garden, this outstanding townhouse is partly shielded from view by a one-story brick wall dividing the forecourt from the garden. The wall and six slender columns with modified Ionic capitals support a covered walkway intended to provide shelter for those about to pass through the two entrance gates in the arched openings of the wall.

Listen to the Gotham Center and Sharon Zukin's podcast on the history on the B. Altman Department Store, once a premier department store of New York, while examining these related archival images!

Explosion in front of the Murray Hill Hotel, January 27, 1902. On Jan 27, 1902, a wooden shed at 41st and Park Avenue filled with 200 pounds of dynamite exploded. The nearby Murray Hill Hotel saw extensive damage. The explosion, followed quickly by billowing flames and flying glass killed five on the ground, while the tunnels being dug (the reason for the explosives) were largely undisturbed.

Contrasting 331 East 39th Street with Chrysler and Daily News Buildings ca. 1938 Standing near an abandoned tenement between First and Second Avenues, Abbott looked northeast toward two glamorous corporate headquarters on East 42nd Street. The campaign posters for Congress affixed to the tenement, for incumbent Republican John J. Connor and his opponent the Communist Israel Amter, speak to the neighborhood’s Irish and Jewish working-class constituents. Today, a garage and parking lot for Con Edison occupy 331 East 39th Street, and apartment buildings block the view of the famous skyscrapers.

📚In 1901 after selling his corporation for $500 million, steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie announced a $5.2 million donation to the City of New York for the construction of public library buildings. With this gift, 67 branch libraries were constructed in the five boroughs between 1903 and 1929. 📚

150 East 38th Street In 1934, Mr. Pettengill, an engineer and antiques dealer hired architect Robertson Ward to combine 150 and 152 East 38th Street into an office and home. House & Garden praised the design in 1936, called the "Pettengill Project," which placed offices and a conference room in the front house and living quarters in the set-back house at 152. Robertson Ward later designed resort buildings in Acapulco and Barbados, and the Mill Reef Club in Antigua. Eventually, the two properties were severed, although the LPC designated 152 East 38th Street in 1967.

Mrs. Stewart's Hotel for Working Women ca. 1901 In 1869, mercantile magnate Alexander T. Stewart—whose stores employed many young women as “shop girls”—proposed the Hotel for Working Women, the first of its kind. At the time, single women were never admitted to hotels; to be a guest, a woman had to be accompanied by a husband, or check-in as part of a family with a male head of household. Stewart stated his hotel would be for “industrious young women…to foster individuality and self-dependence…in which lodging, food, and warmth, with other essentials, may be furnished at the lowest possible rates.” Located on Park Avenue between 32nd and 33rd Streets, the Hotel for Working Women stood in startling contrast to the small size and austerity of the moral homes: It was a grand structure, seven stories tall, and built of iron with a mansard roof, interior courtyard with flowers and a large fountain, and an elegant marble-columned lobby. Inside, it boasted five elevators, marble floors with carpets, more than 1,700 gaslights throughout the building, speaking tubes to communicate with the staff, and hot and cold running water throughout. The upper floors had single and double rooms, while the lower floors featured a dining-room, parlors for entertaining guests, reading rooms fully stocked with books and periodicals, and other amenities. At the time of its completion in 1878, press coverage of the hotel’s opening was extensive and largely laudatory. It was compared favorably to contemporary hotels, and on the opening day, the hotel manager reported 1,000 applications for rooms. Sadly, this novel experiment was curtailed almost immediately: Stewart died before the Hotel’s completion, and within a year, it was sold and converted into the Park Avenue Hotel, a market rate hostelry that catered to a well-heeled and largely male clientele. This conversion was controversial. The executor of Stewart’s estate maintained that the hotel had never been fully occupied and thus was a financial failure. Women’s groups countered that the hotel had a long waiting list, and that the executor stood to profit personally from its conversion to a luxury hotel

Between 1954 and 1957, the Municipal Art Society surveyed historic buildings in all five boroughs to create a database of potential landmarks to preserve. Local residents and MAS staff compiled individual sheets devoted to about 200 buildings. Each sheet outlined the building’s date, location, and style and provided a description and a small photograph. This is the list of Manhattan buildings.

Lexington Avenue at 33rd Street, ca. 1975. The building at right is No. 141 East 33rd Street. The Chrysler Building is visible through the haze, further up Lexington Avenue.

Socony-Mobil Building ARCHITECT: Architect: Harrison & Abramowitz; John B. Peterkin DATE: 1954-56 STYLE: Skyscraper This structure is a vivid study in contrasts, juxtaposing deep blue structural glass with stainless steel, smooth and embossed surfaces, as well as curved and rectilinear forms. These juxtapositions give the Socony-Mobil Building its singular character; while the zoning-driven massing was typical of speculative office buildings erected during this period, the sparkling elevations gave the project a strong modern identity. Aside from modest alterations to the base and storefronts, this office tower remains one of the postwar era’s and neighborhood’s most striking skyscrapers.

Joseph B. and Josephine H. Bissell House ARCHITECT: Edward L. Tilton DATE: 1903-04 STYLE: Neo-Classical By the early 20th century this area was the city’s most prestigious residential neighborhood and was known as Vanderbilt’s Row because of that family’s involvement in maintaining the elite character of the neighborhood. The house was purchased by Josephine H. Bissell in 1903. She hired prominent architect Edward L. Tilton to alter the house by removing the traditional Italianate style brownstone facade and its high stoop and replacing it with a more fashionable neo-Classical style brick and limestone facade with an American basement plan.

Homecoming of the 71st Regiment from the Spanish-American War, August 29, 1898.

You're standing across from one of three brownstones that J.P. Morgan owned on this block. Next to it is the addition to the Morgan Library designed by Renzo Piano in 2006. Around the corner is Morgan's original library, built in 1912. The photographer Edward Steichen once said that looking into Morgan's "black eyes was like confronting the headlights of an express train bearing down on you." That unrelenting ambition drove his art acquisition as much as it had his business strategy. In 1901, he formed the country's first billion-dollar company- U.S. Steel- and following the Panics of 1893 and 1907 helped to save the country and then the city from financial ruin. It was not until Morgan was in his 50s-after amassing his great wealth- that he turned buying art, rare books, and manuscripts into a second job. In 1901, one of Morgan's partner wrote: "We never see him and it is difficult to get hold of him. He spends his time lunching with Kings or Kaisers or buying Raphaels." By 1890, more than 50% of Morgan's money went towards art, and by 1912, he had put $60 million (more than $1.5 billion today) into objects that ranged widely beyond Old Masters. There were Gutenberg Bibles, Roman frescoes, Assyrian reliefs, 17th century, German metalwork, tapestries, ivories, enamels, and furniture. Morgan hired Charles McKim, of the architectural firm McKim, Mead, and White, to build him a library in which to put it all. The design was inspired by Rome's 16th-century palaces and churches. Once inside the bronze doors, visitors entered a rotunda with a vaulted ceiling covered in scenes inspired by Raphael's ceiling the Vatican. One of the three rooms you can visit today is Morgan's private study. This room- with its 16th-century Italian wood ceiling, red damask walls, stained glass window panels, and oversized glass window panels, and oversized Italianate desk became a haven for Morgan in the last years of his life. And when he died, in 1913, it was here that the family held the viewing. Morgan's son, Jack, turned his father's library into a public institution.

B. Altman ARCHITECT: Trowbridge & Livingston DATE: 1905-13 STYLE: Italian Renaissance The B. Altman & Company Department Store Building was the first and one of the most handsome of the flagship department stores on Fifth Avenue. Its construction in 1905-13 acted as a catalyst in the transformation of Fifth Avenue north of 34th Street into a grand boulevard lined with large, high-class department stores. The architects, Trowbridge & Livingston, created an elegant ltalian Renaissance palazzo type design, reserved and stately in character, which was designed to blend with the then residential appearance of the area.

Madison Belmont Building, First Floor Interior ARCHITECT: Warren & Wetmore DATE: 1924-25 STYLE: Eclectic Revival The Madison Belmont Building was constructed for the Cheney Brothers Silk Company, the country’s largest silk mill at the time, when this area was briefly known as the Silk District. Its overall Renaissance Revival style is accented by prominent Art Deco elements, and was one of the first buildings in the United States to incorporate such motifs. Its elegant iron and bronze framing at the lower three floors and entrances was designed by Edgar Brandt, a pioneer of the Art Deco style in Paris. The building was designated both an Individual and Interior Landmark in 2011. This interior was designed in the Eclectic Revival style. The exterior of the building combines traditional, classically inspired designs with modernist elements, and the interior lobby was designed using traditional motifs inspired by ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt that include figures of gods and goddesses, mythological beasts and wall frames with lotus leaves suggesting Egyptian antecedents. The lobby has a large amount of metalwork, including applied ornamental figures, wall frames, light fixtures, doors and mail and fireboxes, and it has a very strong sense of luxury and elegance, contributed by the richness of the marble walls, the travertine floors, the decorative bronze figures and doors and the painted, vaulted ceiling.

Carriage houses on Sniffen Court, a private mews off East 36th Street, ca. 1980. This set of ten carriage houses dates to the 1860s. The building at left (with oriel window) is No. 156 East 36th Street, also 2 Sniffen Court. Preservation documents state that the mews was named for John Sniffen, the builder purportedly responsible for the mews layout and the construction of the houses. However, Christopher Gray, in a 1991 “Streetscapes” column for the New York Times, disputes this claim, finding no evidence to connect John Sniffen to the property or its developers. In the early 20th century, the service buildings were converted to private residences, and in 1966, Sniffen Court received Landmark designation, forever cementing the Sniffen name, whether it arose from fact or tradition.

Vanderbilt Hotel (at right), date unknown. Built by the great-grandson of railroad magnate, Cornelius Vanderbilt, in 1912, the Hotel Vanderbilt was designed by Warren and Wetmore, one of the firms involved in the creation of Grand Central Terminal. At 22-stories, the facade was largely restrained, though with fanciful terra cotta ornamentation at the top. The interiors were grand and packed with new modern technologies: a Gustavino ceiling graced the basement Della Robbia Room and pneumatic tubes carried messages between floors. Vanderbilt, who lived in a lavish two-story apartment on the top floors died saving a fellow passenger when the Lusitania sank in 1915. His family sold the hotel in 1925 and in 1967 it was converted into office and residential spaces. During and after this conversion the lower floors were stripped and reclad with a modern facade and much of the terra cotta was removed (some of it has ended up in the garden at the Brooklyn Museum). Today the building looks as it has since the 1970s. The Della Robbia Room was designated an interior landmark in 1985, though the building's exterior remains unprotected.

The benevolent home was not the only model proposed to house single, working women in New York City. In 1869, mercantile magnate Alexander T. Stewart—whose stores employed many young women as “shop girls”—proposed the Hotel for Working Women, the first of its kind.

Buildings on East 32nd Street. At far right (No. 207) is the former Tammany Central Association, ca. 1965. In 1901, the Tammany Central Association, at the time an influential faction of the political machine, broke ground on this ostentatious Beaux-Arts clubhouse. However, internecine conflicts soon saw the district’s patron, Richard Croker, out of power. The clubhouse was completed all the same, but reform efforts and the financial strain of upkeep saw the facility rented out a soon as 1911. Later tenants included the City of New York, itself. In 1965, the old Tammany clubhouse became the headquarters of New York Magazine, when Milton Glaser, New York’s founder, purchased the building. When the magazine moved to new offices in 1974, Glaser remained; he maintains his studio there to this day. The buildings at left have since been demolished.

T.A. Havemeyer Residence ca. 1898 First occupied by the Theodore A. Havemeyer Family in 1867-1868, this mansard-roofed mansion on the south-west corner of Madison Avenue and 38th Street was remodeled by society architect Richard Morris Hunt in 1891-1892. Seven Byron photographs were featured in a 1895 Once A Week article about Mrs. Havemeyer and her grand home. This photograph was taken the year after Theodore Havemeyer's 1897 death. Havemeyer and his brother made their fortune in sugar refining, and during the 1890s controlled as much as 98 percent of the U.S. sugar industry

Phelps Stokes-J. P. Morgan, Jr., House ARCHITECT: R. H. Robertson DATE: 1852-53 STYLE: Neo-Renaissance Robertson’s designs harmonized with the original while adding neo-Renaissance characteristics. When J. Pierpont Morgan purchased the house for his son J.P. Morgan, Jr., in late 1904, it was subsequently further renovated, and much of the exterior character it assumed then still survives today. When the Pierpont Morgan Library purchased the house in 1988, it was incorporated into the museum forming a vital part of its ongoing program.

Pershing Square Building, 1940. In 1914 the hotel which had previously occupied this large corner lot, the Grand Union Hotel, closed after it was acquired by the city. The city and its transit agency, the Interborough Rapid Transit Company, had big plans for the site. They proposed a large diagonal subway station which would connect the older section of the IRT (under Park, then Fourth Avenue) and the new section (which would proceed uptown via Lexington Avenue). The building was razed and despite wartime delays the station was complete in 1920, providing a strong foundation for the construction of a large building above. Designed by John Sloan, working with the architecture firm of York & Sawyer, the 1923 Pershing Square Building is a Lombard Romanesque- Renaissance Revival structure. The textured brickwork and multi-colored terra cotta of the facade predates its popularity in later Art Deco buildings. Interestingly, because the subway station foundations of the building were begun prior to the 1916 zoning laws, it was was designed without adherence to newly required regulations regarding setbacks (it was the last tall building without setbacks). Given its prime location above the busy subway station and adjacent to the railroad station, the building was a very successful venture within Terminal City. Early tenants included a number of large corporations, such as the Irving Trust Company, as well as smaller offices of real estate agents, lawyers, and investors. The building was renamed the American Can Building in 1945 for one of its then largest tenants. Today called the Pershing Square Building, once again, or simply 125 Park Avenue, the Terminal City office building remains largely unchanged and was designated a landmark in 2016.

Adams Memorial Church, 1942. Architect J.Cleaveland Cady designed this church with the double spires as the Adams-Parkhurst Memorial Presbyterian Church. It was a mission church of the Madison Square Presbyterian Church, just a few blocks away. Dedicated in 1875 over the next decades it was home not only the Adams-Parkhurst church but also a German Lutheran congregation and an Armenian Evangelical Church. Left empty and abandoned after a stint as a radio station, the church became the CBS 30th Street Studio from 1948 to 1981. The Columbia Records studio was the location of thousands of recordings, including Miles Davis' Kind of Blue (1959), Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story (Original Broadway Cast recording, 1957), and Pink Floyd's The Wall (1979). It was aptly nicknamed "the Church." Columbia Records moved out in 1981, and after changing hands a few times, the building was razed and replaced with a 10-story apartment building called "The Wilshire," completed in 1985.

George S. Bowdoin Stable ARCHITECT: Ralph S. Townsend DATE: 1902 STYLE: Dutch Revival This two-story stable building was constructed in 1902 for William R. H. Martin, a businessman and real estate developer active in the Murray Hill section of the city. Architect Ralph S. Townsend designed this small building in a distinctive Dutch Revival style, with an elaborate stepped gable and oversized stone quoins and voussoirs

Richard Thibaut Wallpapers, 1922. Established in 1886, Thibaut is America’s oldest continuously operating wallpaper firm. The two-story showroom building was completed circa 1921 to the designs of Trowbridge & Livingston, replacing two older homes. It is unknown how long the wallpaper firm occupied the low rise building, but in 1927 the facade of this building was retained when the structure had a massive addition constructed. The design of the resulting 22-story office building was created by the firm of Albert Buchman and Ely Jacques Kahn for the National Bank of Commerce.

The Civic Club ARCHITECT: Thomas A. Gray DATE: 1898-99 STYLE: French Beaux-Art The elegant building of the Civic Club, now known as Estonian House, was designed in the French Beaux-Arts style by Thomas A. Gray. Erected in 1898-99, the Civic Club building was commissioned by Frederick Norton Goddard (1861-1905), the founder of the club and a leading social reformer in the city.