Southeast corner of Eleventh Avenue and 24th Street, April 3, 1937. According to the photographer's notes, this dining car restaurant at the south east corner replaced a tenement building previously at 200 Eleventh Avenue. Upon closer inspection, the dining car is a Munson Diner. The Zelin family which owned Munson Dinner had four locations on Eleventh Avenue by 1959. Munson Diner's best known and longest running location was at Eleventh Avenue and 49th Street. That location featured a 1945 Streamline Moderne dining car and attached kitchen facility. It survived in Hell's Kitchen until 2004. Moved upstate to Liberty, New York in the Catskills, it reopened in 2007, but unfortunately after a series of unsuccessful operators and a name change, the diner has been closed since 2016. Today the pictured plot at 24th and Eleventh is home to a new apartment building that features the first car elevator in New York City, which allows residents to drive their vehicles into the elevator and lift them into "en-suite sky garages."

New York Central Railroad Yards, April 22, 1931.

West Side Elevated Highway, looking at West 23rd (left of building with clock) and West 22nd Street (straight ahead), ca. 1975 Constructed between 1929 and 1951, the West Side Elevated Highway, which ran along the west side waterfront from the Battery to 72nd Street, was out of date and largely obsolete by the time it was completed. Constructed, along with the elevated rail line, over 11th Avenue, the new infrastructure was a means to make this area safer. (Due to the dangers of trains and congestion at street level, 11th Avenue had long been called Death Avenue.) The highway, as built, was too too narrow for trucks, the sharp turns on the exit and entrance ramps were dangerous, and the chemicals used for de-icing in the winter quickly deteriorated the structure. The soundness of the structure continued to worsen through the 1960s and 1970s. In 1973 a section near 14th Street collapsed and a car and truck fell through. The highway south of 46th street was closed after not being found structurally sound. The southernmost section remained standing, though in very bad shape, through the late 1980s, when it was replaced with a grade-level six-to-eight lane boulevard. The section from 57th to 72nd Street was rehabilitated and connects to the Henry Hudson Parkway north of 72nd Street.

Horses in front of 532-522 West 24th Street, ca. 1915. The signage on the building notes its services as horse shoeing, hay and oats. This facility was likely frequented by the "Eleven Avenue Cowboys," who rode ahead of surface freight train traffic for safety.

Starrett-Lehigh Building ARCHITECT: Cory & Cory; Yasuo Matsui DATE: 1930-31 STYLE: Industrial, Modernism The Starrett-Lehigh Building is an enormous warehouse building that occupies the entire block bounded by West 26th and 27th Streets and 11th and 12th Avenues. A cooperative venture of the Starrett Investing Corporation and the Lehigh Valley Railroad, and built by Starrett Brothers & Eken, the structure served originally as a freight terminal for the railroad with rental manufacturing and warehouse space above. A structurally complex feat of engineering with an innovative interior arrangement, the Starrett-Lehigh Building is also notable for its exterior design of horizontal ribbon windows alternating with brick and concrete spandrels. Considered in the forefront of modern architecture in New York City at the beginning of the 1930s, the building combined the practical functionalism of American industrial architecture with the influence of the horizontal aesthetic of European Modernism of the 1920s. Today it continues to provide rental office, manufacturing, and warehouse space.

27th Street, Eleventh to 13th Avenues (Before reconstruction), date unknown.

Baltimore and Ohio Freight Station and Storage Warehouses, March 3, 1929. The Baltimore and Ohio Freight Yard, which occupied the land south of its massive building, dates in the 1890s. The 10-story warehouse building was constructed in 1912-1914.

Starrett-Lehigh Building. Considered one of New York City's oldest 'modern' buildings, Starrett-Leigh was constructed in 1930-1931 as a joint venture between the Starrett real-estate company and the Lehigh Valley Railroad. It was a massive (26 million cubic feet of space) freight terminal, warehouse, and office building constructed over the Lehigh Valley Railroad's active freight yards. Some of the buildings more unique features include nearly floor to ceiling windows, 30-foot deep elevators (for the movement of whole trucks), and rounded corners and deep setbacks. It was one of only a few buildings by a non-major architect featured in the genre-defining 1932 "Modern Architecture: International Exhibition" show of the Museum of Modern Art. Architectural critic Lewis Mumford said in 1931: "the contrast between the long, continuous red-brick bands and the green-framed windows, with sapphire reflections or depths, is as sound a use of color as one can see about the city."

Man and boy at fire hydrant, around 28th Street and 11th Avenue, with Empire State Building (1931) visible in background

(1849-50, Philo V. Beebe, builder of nos. 437-459) The 12 houses from no. 437-459 were developed by Beverley Robinson (an associate of the Clarke/Moore family) and George F. Talman. Architecturally, these residences mark a transition between the upright, rectilinear Greek Revival and the more curvilinear Italianate styles. Though several of the houses have received updates in later architectural styles—seen especially in the cornices—the row remains unified by its deep front yards, paired stoops, and twin entrances. Immediately to the west stands the smaller, likely somewhat earlier residence at no. 461, which lacks the Landmark status of nos. 437-459. It is a purer example of Greek Revival architecture, with the style’s characteristic flush window lintels and a simple molded cornice from which tiny attic windows peek. The little house would originally have stood on the Hudson Riverbank.

Starrett-Lehigh Building ca. 1990 The Starrett-Lehigh Building on Manhattan's west-side waterfront stretches a full block between 26th and 27 th streets was the first Modern building of its scale in New York City. Designed by Architects Cory & Cory, in association with Yasuo Matsui and engineers Purdy & Henderson, the Starrett-Lehigh features long, horizontal layers punctuated by continuous glass windows and bands of red brick and concrete spandrels. Each floor was rented to a different tenant, including printers, doll makers, and clothing manufacturers with the promise of easy access to transportation. Along with its connection to the waterfront and a railway hub on the ground floor, the building allowed trucks to drive into the building on W. 27th Street and into elevators located in the central core, deliver their goods upstairs, then exit onto W. 26th Street.

Tenth Avenue at northeast corner of 24th Street, March 12, 1929. The photograph notes on this image: "Boys on horseback riding ahead of a freight train. Under an old New York statute, never repealed, every surface train must be preceded by one or more horseback riders, to give warning. These riders are known as "Eleventh Avenue cowboys."

Starrett-Lehigh Building, July 14, 1936. The Starrett-Lehigh Building was a much heralded modernist experiment in industrial architecture. Completed in 1931, this massive factory-warehouse offered a novel solution to freight distribution: with tracks leading directly from the piers into the building, freight cars could be moved in 30-foot elevators to truck pits on upper floors. The building was also a dramatic example of International Style architecture, with horizontal bands of windows and cantilevered concrete floors sweeping around the perimeter of a huge city block. Abbott photographed the Starrett-Lehigh Building twice. In a street-level view of the northeast corner, she left uncorrected the converging perspective created by her wide-angle lens, thus exaggerating the building’s bulk and likening it to the prow of a ship. Two years later, she photographed the entire building from a pier on the far side of the new West Side Express Highway. With the decline of the waterfront, this innovative building never fulfilled its promise. A protected landmark, it is 30 percent vacant.

High pressure water system trench on West 23rd Street, near Eleventh Avenue; undated photo. At left, a trolley approaches the West 23rd Street Ferry (out of view in the distance), from which point riders could connect to the Erie and Pennsylvania railroad companies via service to Jersey City. At right, across Eleventh Avenue, the large multi-story structure is the 23rd Street depot of the Metropolitan Street Railway Company, which in 1899 operated over 230 miles of mechanical and horse-powered streetcar lines — including service to the 23rd Street ferry. At far right is the Hollings Hotel, later the Terminal Hotel, at No. 182 Eleventh Avenue. John Hollings, the proprietor, sold the hotel and moved to New Jersey after Prohibition, but his name lived on in a slice of New York culinary history documented by Joseph Mitchell, in "All You Can Hold for Five Bucks", a report in the April 15, 1939 issue of The New Yorker: By the 1930s, the basement of the Terminal Hotel had gained a reputation as one of the West Side's foremost venues for bawdy, gentlemen-only beefsteak dinners. Beefsteak dinners like those held at the Hollings Beefsteak Keller, as the basement "dungeon" was known, were celebrations of meat and beer, enjoyed to excess. At a proper beefsteak, men — from politicians to tradesmen and police officers — would gorge themselves thick sliced servings of steak with their hands until they could pack away no more. Mitchell turned to East Side butcher and beefsteak chef William Wertheimer to characterize the scene: "'The foundation of a good beefsteak is an overflowing amount of meat and beer. The tickets usually cost five bucks, and the rule is ‘All you can hold for five bucks.’ If you’re able to hold a little more when you start home, you haven’t been to a beefsteak, you’ve been to a banquet that they called a beefsteak.'"

Pennsylvania warehouse at the northwest corner of Eleventh Avenue and 28th Street, August 25, 1940.

Pipes and steel fixtures for the high-pressure system stacked near West Side piers; undated photo. This staging area was located near the northern end of the contemporary Chelsea Piers complex. Those piers, which were later constructed to accommodate the large ocean liners of the early 1900s, had yet to be constructed. In the distance at left is Pier 62, then operated by the Central Railroad of New Jersey.

Terminal Stores, date unknown. The fortress-like Terminal Stores, which originally occupied the entire city block from 11th to 12th Avenues between 27th and 28th Streets, was completed in 1891. This waterfront area was once teeming with large such warehouses that utilized the nearby cross-Hudson railroad-car ferries and freight lines.The facility was not meant for long term storage, but for the quick movement of goods. The complex of building was designed by George B. Mallory, an engineer and naval architect. The large opening, seen at right, was deigned for the movement of the twin rail lines that traveled through the buildings from the docks to surface-level freight at Eleventh Avenue. In 1910-1912, a few of the mid block structures were replaced with taller buildings. Following the movement of the street-level rail from Tenth and Eleventh Avenue in the late 1920s, the importance of these warehouses diminished as their direct connection to the freight lines had disappeared. Sine the late 20th century the one of the buildings has been occupied by a mini storage company. Today, other tenants include architectural firms, the driving service Uber, and event and art showrooms.

10th Avenue southwest corner and 29th Street, 1940. The lot that once included this Esso gas station remains empty today despite acquiring a new glassy neighbor in 2015. The West Side Line, a spur of the New York Central Railroad can be seen in the distance. Today this railroad infrastructure is the High Line.

A high-pressure pumping system was installed in 1909 to provide water for the NYFD from City Hall to 25th Street.

R.C. Williams & Co. Warehouse, 1937. Built as the headquarters for a wholesale grocery company, the 10-story concrete R.C Williams & Co. Warehouse was well positioned near the elevated west side freight line (today, the High Line). Designed by concrete guru Cass Gilbert and completed in 1927, the building was a part of the company's export division, which shipped products all over the world. The interior of the building was designed for "maximum efficiency and the seamless flow of goods," according to the LPC designation report for the West Chelsea Historic District, in which the building is located. R.C Williams moved their warehouse to the Bronx in 1953. The building was used as a manufacturing space though the second half of the 20th century and in 1993 became a location for ABC prop and scenery storage.