Beaux-Arts Apartments ARCHITECT: Kenneth M. Murchison; Raymond M. Hood; Raymond Hood, Godley & Fouilhoux DATE: 1929-30 STYLE: Beaux-Arts Designed by Raymond Hood, among the most prominent American architects of the twentieth century, and built-in 1929-30, The Beaux-Arts Apartments is one of the earliest examples in New York City to reflect the trend toward a horizontal emphasis in the aesthetic of modern European architecture of the 1920s. Conceived as a corollary to the neighboring Beaux-Arts Institute of Design (a designated New York City Landmark), the Beaux-Arts Apartments at 310 East 44th Street and its twin building on the opposite side of the street were intended to provide residential and studio accommodations for architects and artists, as well as others interested in living in what was anticipated as a midtown artistic community.

Daily News Building ca. 1935 Acclaimed for its verticality, this building was considered by many as the embodiment of the soaring quality of the skyscraper. However, the vertical ribbons of equal width fail to express the location of the steel columns; and, as seen from within, the fenestration- a series of solids and voids- represent no improvement over that of the eighteenth century

Waterside Generating Plant, November 9, 1938. Constructed between 1896 and 1900 in a Beaux Arts style by architect C. Wellesley Smith, the Waterside Generating Plant (later Con Edison) was the first generating facility in New York City to produce alternating current. This section of the East River waterfront was once lined with industrial businesses. Starting in the mid century the area was slowly deindustrialized and redeveloped due to the construction and functioning of the nearby United Nations and high-rise residential development. Con Ed sold a number of adjacent plots in the late 1990s, and in 2005 took this facility offline (moving the additional functions to the east 14th Street facility). The building was demolished soon thereafter.

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.

Ford Foundation Building ARCHITECT: Eero Saarinen Associates; Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo Associates DATE: 1963-67 STYLE: Modern The Ford Foundation and its architects, through this new building, offered New York an alternative model for a modern office building, creating an elegant, transparent glass cube enclosing a twelve-story high, lush, indoor landscaped atrium visible from outside. The architects, in an approach unusual for modern movement buildings in the 1960s, carefully considered the context in planning the building’s design, relating the interior atrium and its garden to the small parks of Tudor City directly to the east.

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

The Daily News, New York's first tabloid paper, was founded in 1919 and was immediately immensely successful; its circulation was 1.4 million, the largest in the nation, just a decade later. Its owner, Captain Joseph Medill Pederson, bought an inexpensive, mid-block property on East 42nd Street between Third and Second Avenues (the elevated train lines on these avenues made the area unappealing to most developers); he envisioned a small headquarters with editorial offices and, more importantly, a printing press, that would capitalize on easy distribution to Times Square and the rest of the city. His architect, Raymond Hood, saw that a tall rental tower would bring his client added income and create an identity for the paper. Pederson reluctantly agreed and the 476-foot tall tower pictured soon came into being. The building is actually L-shaped. A long, 10-story front along 41st Street (right) houses the printing press and loading areas; the 39-story tower (left) rises within the 90-foot wide length between 41st and 42nd Street. A deal with the city regarding the school along Third Avenue meant the building had three-and-a-half entirely unobstructed sides, uncommon for a mid-block tower. Yet it is the exterior articulation of the building that was most remarkable. Vertical piers of white brick alternate with uniform bands of recessed windows with rougher red and black brick spandrels in between. Even the crown of the building, where a false front hides the water towers, continues this pattern. Derived entirely from the needs of the uniform office spaces within, "the exterior more or less created itself," explained Hood. The stripped verticality is one of the purest expressions of "form follows function" of its period. The transmission tower for WPIX TV rises another 275 feet on top of the building (WPIX was owned and operated by the Daily News, "New York's Picture Newspaper," from the late 1940s until 1991 when the paper was sold to Rupert Murdoch). In 1958, an addition was added to the 42nd Street and 2nd Avenue corner (Harrison & Abramovitz) that repeats the exterior articulation of the tower with wider windows.

Ford Foundation Building, ca. 1979. Designed by the architecture firm of Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates (both former principles at Eero Saarinen and Associates), this International style building was completed in 1968. The building was constructed for and continues to house the Ford Foundation. Some of the modern features of the building include load-bearing concrete and weathered steel as the materials, which are highly visible, as well as simple, unadorned facade. The most striking feature of the design is the interior garden within a greenhouse-like atrium. Visible through the glass facade, the large open space and lush vegetation were designed to create transparency and an interactive experience for the building's occupants and visitors.

Daily News Building ca. 1935 Founded in 1919, the New York Daily News was America’s first tabloid and soon became its best-selling newspaper. The Daily News Building, designed by Raymond Hood in 1930, combined the paper’s nine-story plant with a 36-story rental office tower. Hood gave the News a signature building, whose white-and-black striped brick facade was audaciously stark. From the vantage point of the Chanin Building, a new office tower at East 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue, Abbott captured the bold presence of the building, set against the lowly tenements of Kips Bay, with Tudor City and a Consolidated Edison power plant in the background. In 1931, Abbott took a similar photograph of the building; she may have returned to the site in 1935 to replace a lost or damaged negative. On her second visit, she was unable to gain access to the Chanin Building roof and was forced to photograph from a lower floor. As a result, the perspective is skewed, and the building appears to lean to the left. Today Abbott’s view is obstructed by the Mobil Building (1955). In 1994, the Daily News moved its editorial offices to the West Side and its plant to New Jersey.

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.

Chrysler Building, ca. 1979. The eagle “gargoyles” that protrude from the 61st floor are made from a corrosion-resistant Nirosta, an alloy of chrome-nickel steel. The style of the 61st floor eagles was inspired by the hood ornaments of a 1929 Chrysler. The 31st floor is also adorned with stylized corner eagles. They are replicas of the 1929 Chrysler radiator caps.

Kips Bay Brewing Company Building, ca. 1978. The brewery, built in 1895 and shuttered in 1947, retains its twin mansard-covered cupolas over the corners of 37th and 38th Streets. In this late 70s photo by Edmund Vincent Gillon, the southern half of the block-long structure is occupied by The Florentine Craftsmen, a garden supply and furniture depot. The smokestacks belong to the Consolidated Edison Waterside Generating plant, a massive Beaux-Arts structure demolished in 2006.

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.

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.

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.

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.

East 41st through 42nd Streets. Tudor city, playground and pool for children.

Chrysler Building, ca. 1993. A New York City icon, the Art Deco Chrysler Building was designed by William Van Alen and constructed between 1928 and 1930. The land on which the building was erected was originally owned by Brooklyn real estate magnate William Reynolds. He contracted Van Alen to design a massive skyscraper to be called the Reynolds Building. For unknown reasons (though, likely, a disapproval of the architect's plans), he sold the land and the building plans to the Chrysler Corporation in 1928. Groundbreaking on the building occurred in September 1928, and the race was on to building the tallest building in the world. (The competing building was 40 Wall Street, designed by Van Alen's estranged former partner Craig Severance.) Though 40 Wall Street broke ground after the Chrysler Building and was completed earlier, Van Alen and Chrysler won the height competition, when they secretly erected a 186-foot spike or "vertex," pushing the building to 1,046 feet tall. The building only remained the world's tallest for less than year, eclipsed by the Empire State Building in 1931. The Chrysler Building is still the world's tallest steel-supported brick building. The exterior, now iconic, is clad extensively in metal ornamentation. Much of the details are references to the automobiles that the company manufactured. Most notably the building's gargoyles (in this case eagles) take the form of Chrysler radiator caps, car fenders, and hood ornaments. The Chrysler Building remains popular among New Yorkers, tourists, and architecture professionals. In 2005, the Skyscraper Museum asked one hundred architects, builders, critics, engineers, historians, and scholars to pick their 10 favorite skyscrapers from a list of 25. The Chrysler Building came in first place as 90% of them placed the building in their top 10 favorite buildings.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Beaux Arts Institute of Design ARCHITECT: Frederic C. Hirons; Dennison & Hirons DATE: 1928 STYLE: Beaux-Arts Founded in 1893 by American architects who had studied at the prestigious Parisian Ecole des Beaux-Arts, the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects had a profound impact on architectural practice in this country by its dedication to fostering the principles established by the Ecole. The Beaux-Arts Institute of Design, chartered in 1916 to accommodate the expanding educational programs of the Society, served as the national headquarters for architectural instruction based on the curriculum of the Ecole and influenced several generations of American architects.

In the 1920s, the growing obsolescence, squalid conditions, and rising vacancies in old-law tenements near booming business district provoked developers to dream of lucrative, high-density private construction. Businessman Fred French believed slum clearance was the key to making central city life appealing to the middle-class. Successful redevelopment – what he called “scientific rebuilding” – would require wholesale demolition to change the entire atmosphere of a neighborhood so it could compete with suburban life. Underwritten by an investment plan that sold small-denomination stocks that promised solid returns to investors, French quietly assembled hundreds of tenement properties in Midtown’s east side for his Tudor City project. Clearing for the large hilly site began construction in 1926, and French quickly constructed twelve towers ranging from 10 to 32 stories. The high land coverage and population density were mitigated by the ample open space in adjacent private parks and the quality of the heavily ornamented neo-Tudor buildings. French marketed Tudor City as an amenity-rich alternative for white-collar workers who wanted to “walk to work” rather than endure hours of rail or subway commuting. Designed for the “average salary earner” and his family, the small but luxuriously finished units were complemented by common facilities and overseen by careful community controls.

📚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.

The 42nd Street entrance to the Daily News Building, ca. 1985.

The most fanciful and famous top of all of Manhattan's ornamental beauties is certainly the Chrysler Building, a quintessential expression of Jazz-Age New York. Its flashy modernism was communicated through the stainless steel crown with its crescendo of seven scalloped domes and spiky triangular windows. The needle spire stretched its height to 1,046 ft., which won it the title of the tallest building in the world from 1930 to 1931, until the completion of the Empire State Building. This Story is adapted from an exhibition at the Skyscraper Museum, which can be viewed here.

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.

337 East 41st Street, April 7, 1946. The block of East 41st Street between First and Second Avenues was developed over few years in the early 1870s by two real estate developers. All of the homes were Italianate in style. This house at no. 337 was one of 19 residences developed by S. S. Stevens and designed by the up-and-coming firm of Hubert & Pirsson. Three stories tall and faced in brownstone, the structures were planned as middle class, single family homes. No. 337 would alternate between a single family and multi-family residence for much of its history. By the 1920s most of rowhouses on this block and the surrounding streets had been purchased and replaced with new apartment buildings and housing projects. Today no. 337 is once again a single family home and the lone survivor of its original streetscape.

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.

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

The 1,046-foot Chrysler Building was the tallest building in the world from 1930 to 1931 and was part of an intense race for this title. In 1928, developer William H. Reynolds hired William Van Alen to design the world's tallest building for a site leased at the northeast corner of Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street, across from Grand Central Station. Later that year, Reynolds sold both leases and plans to Walter P. Chrysler, who wanted to build a new headquarters for the Chrysler Corporation. Van Alen altered the plans to reflect his new patron: a domed lantern became a metal-clad spire; the frieze on the 30th floor became a line of hubcaps; new gargoyles were enormous, Chrysler Eagle radiator caps; fenders and hood ornaments became part of the decoration. Groundbreaking took place on September 19th, 1928. In 1929, however, Van Alen's former partner, H. Craig Severance, began work on an even taller building at 40 Wall Street for the Bank of The Manhattan Company. Not to be outdone, Van Alen secretly had a 185-foot spire built within the fireshaft of the Chrysler Building. As soon as Severance had completed his 927-foot structure in August 1930, Van Alen had the 27-ton spire raised to the top of the Chrysler Building in a mere 90 minutes, surpassing his downtown rival handily. The Chrysler Building has an H-plan with setbacks at the 16th, 23rd, and 30th floors. The main shaft rises 68 floors, although offices only go up to the 65th (the 66th through 68th housed the exclusive Cloud Club and an observation lounge). Four banks of eight elevators each brought up over one thousand workers and visitors daily at an unprecedented speed. The novel use of aluminum and chrome-nickel steel for exterior details was mirrored in an interior of luxury; elaborate, wood marquetry, rich, varied marbles, and dramatic custom lighting created an interior as theatrical as its exterior. Van Alen and Chrysler fell out over allegations of contractors' bribery; the Chrysler Corporation never fully utilized its space and Van Alen's career virtually ended. Moreover, critics were unimpressed with the building, calling its metal-clad form too "romantic," "overly ambitious," or even worse, "merely advertising." However, it is just these aspects that make the building perhaps the most notable of New York's skyline. When completed, it became the tallest man-made structure in the world, surpassing even the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Its reign was short-lived. On May 1st, 1931 the 1,250-foot Empire State Building opened at 350 Fifth Avenue (Shreve, Lamb & Harmon) and became the World's Tallest Building for over four decades.

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.