Shelton Hotel ARCHITECT: Arthur Loomis Harmon DATE: 1924 STYLE: Lombard Revival, Hotel Even while it was under construction the Shelton Hotel was recognized as the first successful embodiment of the massing requirements of the 1916 Zoning Law, notable for its soaring expression of height, powerful simple massing, striking silhouette, and exceptional handling of materials and details. The 31-story-plus-penthouse building is designed in the Lombard Revival style incorporating Medieval and Renaissance details. Above a beautifully detailed limestone base, its facades are clad with multi-hued greyish-brown brick and terra cotta. There are three setbacks, stepping up to a central tower, and a picturesque hipped-roofed penthouse.

William Lescaze House and Office ARCHITECT: William Lescaze DATE: 1933-34 STYLE: Modern The Lescaze House of 1933-34, designed by William Lescaze for his own use as a combined residence and architectural office, is an embodiment of the theory and practice of one of the most influential exponents of modern architecture in the United States. The sudden appearance on East 48th Street of this startlingly “modern” facade of 1934 set between deteriorating brownstones of the post-Civil War period, had a dramatic impact upon the streetscape and the neighborhood.

Photographs were an excellent way for the Forward to telegraph its interests to its readers, signifying support of thought leaders, political candidates, policies favoring working people and a modern and equitable society. The images gathered here testify to the ideals and the newsgathering concerns of the paper and its readers, their support of reform-minded Democrats and of a Labor Zionist body politic in Israel that aligned with their socialist ideals.

In the mid-summer of 1863, tensions in New York had reached a boiling point. To replenish the Union Army after devastating casualties, Congress had passed the enrollment act, enacting the first draft. In New York, many of the newly arrived immigrants had been pushed by Tammany Hall and other political machines to become citizens, which made them eligible for this new draft. These newly minted citizens became incensed by the prospect of being drafted, and the anger quickly grew. The drawing of the draft numbers was a spark that drove the city into what would become the worst race riot of its history. Days later, anywhere from a hundred and twenty to more than a thousand were killed, thousands more injured, and with many prominent African-American and Abolitionist buildings destroyed.

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

Lexington Avenue at East 47th Street, east of the Grand Central rail yards, August 25, 1914. The building at left, with smokestacks, was the station's steam powerhouse until 1929, when it was demolished in favor of electric power. After the Waldorf-Astoria was completed in 1931, across 49th Street, certain of the hotel's most prominent guests made use of a private train platform originally built for service cars calling at the powerhouse.

It's not easy being the Soviet envoy to the United Nations in 1953.

Panhellenic Tower ARCHITECT: John Mead Howells DATE: 1927-30 STYLE: Gothic-inspired, Art Deco Erected in 1927-29 as a residence and clubhouse for women belonging to national Greek-letter college sororities, the Panhellenic Tower provided affordable housing for young college-educated women who were entering the workforce in record numbers in the 1920s. The tower is renowned for its dramatic volumetric massing and bold vertical striping created by deeply recessed window-and-spandrel bays set between narrow piers which rise unbroken from a two-story base to a parapet crown. Though sparsely decorated, the building incorporates handsome Gothic-inspired Art Deco ornament by the leading architectural sculptor Rene Chambellan.

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.

Hotel Shelton, 1924. The Shelton Hotel was the brainchild of James T. Lee (grandfather of Jackie Kennedy). He wanted to build a massive bachelor hotel. And massive it was. When completed in 1923, the structure, designed by Arthur Loomis Harmon, had 1200 rooms. Designed in a Romanesque Revival style, the building was considered the first major successful example to adhere to the massing requirements of the 1916 Zoning Law. The three setbacks culminate in a central tower. The building became a model for other skyscrapers and its architect would go to design the Empire State Building a few years later. Originally opened as a men's only residence, the building began admitting women and families soon after it opened. Georgia O’Keeffe and photographer Alfred Stieglitz lived on the 30th floor from 1935 until 1937. And in 1926 Houdini had himself locked in a box and submerged in the basement swimming pool, eventually emerging unharmed. Today the building is the New York Marriott East Side.

277 Park Avenue, 1962. This Emery Roth & Sons office tower is a quintessential example of the modernist steel and glass towers that sprung up along Park Avenue in the late 50s through the 60s. This building is still owned by the Stahl Organization, the original developer of the project. The tower has 1.74 million square feet of office space spread over 50 stories. The famed architecture firm Emery Roth & Sons were known for "marketable designs that maximized the net rentable area," particularly after World War 2. This block-spanning lot had previously been occupied by a McKim Mead & White apartment building, though it was never meant to stand the test of time. In order to prepare for Midtown's development as a business district, the New York and Harlem Rail Road Company, who owned the lot at the time, had a foundation poured that could support a 75-story tower.

Conceived at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in 1944, the United Nations was the brainchild of the Allies as a structure for the world to govern together. But how did it come to Midtown?

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.

United Nations Building, 1956. Not technically in New York City, but in international territory owned by the United Nations, the headquarters of the UN consists of four main buildings. The two buildings seen in this photograph taken a few years after the structures were completed, are the Secretariat Building (the tall one) and the General Assembly Building (the low rise sloping building). The Secretariat Building is 39 stories above ground and three stories below and was completed in 1952. It was designed by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer and the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier, as part of a larger board of architects. The long exterior facings of the building are made of aluminum, glass, and marble. This International Style building was the first skyscraper in the city to feature a glass curtain wall. The low rise building is the General Assembly Building and it is 380 feet long and 160 feet wide with concave sides and a shallow dome on top. The minimal ornamentation, curving facade, and wide open interiors exemplify the International Style. The building, which was created by a Board of Design Consultants from all over the world, headed by the American Wallace K. Harrison, houses the large hall where the delegates to the UN meet.

The Vanderbilt YMCA, ca. 1937. Opened in 1932 and designed by Warren and Wetmore, this Young Men's Christian Association building was originally called the "Railroad YMCA" because of its housing program for railroad workers. In 1972, it was renamed the Vanderbilt YMCA, to recognize Cornelius Vanderbilt, the railroad tycoon.

New York Central Building/Helmsley Building ARCHITECT: Warren & Wetmore DATE: 1927-29 STYLE: Beaux-Arts, Skyscraper The New York Central Building is the skyscraping counterpart of Grand Central Terminal. It was designed by the same architects in the same materials and Beaux-Arts style, simultaneously developing some of the depot’s most innovative circulation systems. Swallowing Park Avenue traffic and thereby relieving congestion around the terminal, the building functions as an open gate to the “Gateway to a Continent.” With a distinction all but unique in a grid patterned Manhattan, it has a double focus, as powerful by day as it is dramatic by night.

Turtle Bay Gardens, 1937. Purchased by socialite Charlotte Hunnewell Martin in 1918, the eleven 1860s-built townhouses on the south side of 49th Street and nine on the north side of 48th Street underwent two years of renovation. The extensive work included the creation of a communal garden space at the center of the block. The individual backyards are separated only with low brick walls, while a broad esplanade at the center is shared by all. When the work was complete on the homes, Martin did the unexpected; she sold the homes at cost (to her friends). Residents of the homes have included Katharine Hepburn, Tyrone Power, Stephen Sondheim, and E. B. White.

Commodore Hotel ca. 1920 This is one of a series of photographs documenting Chef Leoni and his extensive staff and facilities at the recently completed Hotel Commodore. Staff exercise sessions such as that depicted here were not uncommon. Byron also photographed the Siegel-Cooper sales clerks exercising atop the roof of the famous department store.

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.

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.

277 Park Avenue, 1926. This apartment building designed by McKim Mead & White was completed in 1925. The structure took up the entire block with its 12 sections and 432 apartments and included a "drive-in...giant interior court" according to the New York Times. The building was funded by the New York & Harlem Rail Road through the construction of the new Grand Central Depot, who's railyards below prompted a redevelopment of Park Avenue. One notable previous tenant was John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign. In 1931, the Real Estate Record and Guide noted that of this part of Park Avenue, "no further long-term leases are being granted," to make way for the area's growth as a business district. The building was leased in 1923 for a maximum of 63 years, though in 1948 it was repossessed by the New York and Harlem Rail Road Company. After a much-disputed demolition in the 50s, construction began on a new 50-story office tower to take its place in 1962. Surprisingly, the foundation which the (much shorter by comparison) original apartment sat on had been cast strong enough to support a 70-story building. The rail company had anticipated a tower all along.

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 United Nations Headquarters was one of the first significant construction projects undertaken in Manhattan after the Second World War. In order to bring the UN to Manhattan, John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated the site, which he bought for 8.5 million dollars from developer William Zeckendorf, who had already assembled the former abattoir properties between First Avenue and the river piecemeal. Designed by a committee of international architects, including Le Corbusier, Oscar Niemeyer and Sven Markelius, the United Nations Headquarters was also the first group of glass and concrete International Style buildings in Manhattan. The Secretariat, 544 feet tall and only 72 feet thick, was primarily designed by Le Corbusier but carried out by Wallace K. Harrison, the chairman of the committee; its long sides are almost entirely green glass, while its widths are concrete. The Conference Building is under construction on a platform extending out over the FDR Drive, below right. This 400-foot long, 5-story tall building was completed in February, 1952.

Designed by the same firm as the Empire State Building, 245 Park Avenue replaced the 1911-built Grand Central Palace. Completed in 1967, the 48-story skyscraper has variously been called the American Tobacco Company Building, the American Brands Building, and the Bear Stearns Building (before they moved to 383 Madison Avenue). In the late 1970s, the publishing firm Doubleday was headquartered here. Today tenants include Heineken, Major League Baseball, and the asset and wealth management groups ofJ.P Morgan Chase.

Commodore Hotel, 1919. The second Terminal City hotel named for railroad baron, Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, this 2,000-room hotel was completed in 1919 to the designs of Warren and Wetmore, one of GCT's architectural firms. The hotel boasted the "Most Beautiful Lobby in The World," which was also the world's largest. A successful venture for more than 50 years, the hotel suffered in the 1970s as the railroad company which owned the building, (then) Penn Central filed for bankruptcy. The suffering hotel was sold in 1977 to the Donald Trump Organization in partnership with the Grand Hyatt Corporation (with some shady dealings which gave the buyers an unprecedented 40-year tax abatement). Under the new ownership, the hotel was gutted and its masonry facade was covered by a reflective glassy skin. So though the Grand Hyatt New York may look like a 1980s glassy structure, the 1919 building remains hidden beneath. Today only the single smoke stack of the original building peaks out from the glass building.

North side of West 44th Street towards Lexington Avenue, August, 13, 1914. This street scene of 1914 provides a view of Grand Central Terminal that is no longer available. Looking from the east, today the 1927 Graybar Building stands at 420 Lexington Avenue blocks the view of GCT from East 44th Street. The business at right is a baggage delivery firm which advertised their services for 25 cents.

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.

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

48th Street west across Third Avenue. The Shelton Hotel is the tall building at center, February 1, 1938.

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.

209-211 East 48th Street, February 1, 1938. This 1934 townhouse (seen at the right) is considered the first modernist residence in New York City. Called the William Lescaze House for the architect who designed and lived in the home, the house employed the newest available technology, materials, and methods of construction.With his partner George Howe, Lescaze pioneered modernism in America, building the first International style skyscraper in the U.S. in Philadelphia in 1930. The concrete and glass home was designed to be beautiful, economical, and efficient, as per Lescaze's opinion on the merits of modernism. The structure was not an entirely new building, but the massive gut renovation, exterior redo and addition to a pre-Civil War brownstone. This house was the first recorded structure in the city to use glass blocks, an architectural feature now common in vernacular architecture.

New York Central Building, 1929. Considered by many the crowning achievement of Terminal City, the New York Central Building wears the honor well, with its pyramidal roof topped by a copper-clad lantern. Completed in 1929 to the designs of Warren & Wetmore (one of their final New York commissions) the headquarters for the New York Central Railroad Company stood 172.5 meters tall. The grand building was rendered in the Beaux Arts style, though by the time of its completion, architecture in the city had moved on, and many critics felt the building was retrograde (though it nicely complemented the Terminal itself). Because the building straddles Park Avenue and creates a physical (and visual) termination point of the street, the 35-story structure was designed with both pedestrian and vehicular arcades to facilitate movement through the building. The railroad sold the building in the 1950s during a period of financial woes. It was purchased in 1977 by real estate mogul Harry Helmsley and was unapologetically renamed the Helmsley Building. During the ensuing "renovation" all of the decorative details on the building, including the sculptures, were coated with a layer of gold paint. The building was sold again in 1998 (with the requirement that the name remains) and a 2002 renovation project removed the paint from the decorative brass and stone surfaces.

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.

New York Central Building (now Helmsley Building) Interior ARCHITECT: Warren & Wetmore DATE: 1927-29 STYLE: Beaux-Arts The interior survives as an integral part of the planned enclave known as Terminal City. It functions as a through-corridor between 45th and 46th Streets, and it presents an excellent example of axial Beaux-Arts planning. Construction of the lobby in between two vehicular tunnels and over double-layer railroad tracks required extraordinary engineering solutions. It reflects the railroad’s imperial prowess in its lavish appointments. The well-maintained surfaces, fixtures, elevator alcoves and cabs comprise one of the finest Beaux-Arts lobbies in New York.

Grand Central Post Office, ca. 1910. Constructed by the associated architecture firms of Reed & Stem and Warren & Wetmore, the Grand Central Post Office was completed in 1909, three years before Grand Central Terminal (by the same architects) was finished. It is the oldest surviving structure of the area that became Terminal City. When opened the entire structure was devoted to postal functions. At seven stories, the post office is considerably shorter than most of the Terminal City structures (excepting GCT, itself). In 1992, though, a 31-story tower was built within and on top of the 1909 building.

Graybar Building ARCHITECT: Sloan & Robertson DATE: 1925-27 STYLE: Art Deco, Byzantine While the powerful stepped massing conforms to the 1916 zoning resolution that required structures to setback as they rise, the exotic decorative program blends Art Deco and Byzantine-style aesthetics, particularly the monumental stone reliefs that frame the three portals. These impressive robed figures clutch symbols of air, water, earth and fire, as well as objects that relate to the Graybar Electric Company, a major tenant.

Park Avenue Malls, 1934. These patches of green were originally fenced in shrubs that were planted to obscure the view of railroad vents. From 1894 until 1920, the Park Avenue Association formed a coalition that would totally cover the unsightly vents and eventually receive funding from private donors to plant over 7,000 trees in the malls. Flowers were added to the narrow plots by 1946. In 1969, the Parks Department hired landscape architect Clara Coffey to redesign the malls. She removed the fencing and tall hedges which disrupted the view of the well-maintained little gardens, which no longer hid subway vents. Today, the Carnegie Hill Neighbors and Fund for Park Avenue maintain the Mall and host an annual tree lighting ceremony at its intersection with 91st Street.

Commodore Hotel Ballroom ca. 1919 The size of the mammoth Hotel Commodore (Warren & Wetmore, architects), completed in 1919, had 1,956 guest rooms on 28 floors. The hotel at 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue claimed to have the largest banquet and ballroom in North America. It seated 3,500 and hosted many of the country's most important functions. In 1980 the glass-clad Grand Hyatt hotel opened, built over the structural shell of the Commodore.

Intersection of East 46th Street and Lexington Avenue, March 2, 1917. The building seen at left is the Grand Central Palace. Designed by the team of associated architects that created Grand Central Terminal (Warren and Wetmore and Reed and Stem) the Palace was an 13-story exhibition hall completed in 1911. It replaced the the 1893 Grand Central Palace which at Lexington Avenue between 43rd and 44th Streets had to be demolished for the new train station. The 1911 Beaux-Arts building hosted large-scale events and exhibitions, including auto, boat, flower, and trade shows on its lower three floors. In 1911 the First Industrial Aeroplane Show, the first time most New Yorkers had ever seen a plane, was presented at the Palace. It was also the home of the Westminster Dog Show for many years. The upper floors were leased as offices. The final exhibitions were installed in 1953 and a decade later the building was demolished, two years before the Landmarks Law was passed. The replacing building was the 44-story 245 Park Avenue.

View north along the east side of Lexington Avenue toward 49th Street, October 20, 1915.

Alma Gluck-Zimbalist Residence, 1927. With the carved stone violin and singing angel that sits above the entrance, this double lot home is marked as the residence of musicians. Constructed in 1926 the Tudor style house was home to Efrem Zimbalist, a famous violinist, and his equally famous opera singer wife, Alma. The house served as the NYPD 17th Precinct station house for a time in the 1950s before being divided into rental apartments.

"More than 150 localities around the country expressed an interest in hosting the UN, and many of them lobbied hard to attract the organization. They mounted extensive promotional campaigns, from big cities, like Chicago and San Francisco… to rural areas, such as the Black Hills region of South Dakota and the Smoky Mountain range in the Appalachians. New York City, then led by the popular Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, wasn’t one of them. Not because the mayor didn’t want the UN to come to New York. He did. But La Guardia — ever proud of his city — said at the time, 'I think it is unbecoming for a city to peddle itself… I am not going to put my city in the position of bidding for the UN the same as a small-sized city would bid for a national political convention or for the Elks convention or something like that.'" Read more of this exclusive interview by The Gotham Center for New York City with Pamela Hanlon, author of A Worldly Affair: New York, The United Nations, and the Story Behind their Unlikely Bond.

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.

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.

Hotel Barclay, 1928. Opened in 1926 as a residential hotel, the Barclay was designed by the architectural firm of Cross & Cross. Right in the center of the hustle of Terminal City (the lobby had a ticket booth for rail travel) the hotel was luxurious and popular among the glamorous social circles of the city. Between 1939 and 1962 the Cornell Club was headquartered in this building. The hotel was purchased by the InterContinental Hotel Group in 1978 and has seen a number of renovations in the last 40 years. The most recent renovation of the now named InterContinental New York Barclay Hotel was completed in 2016. Between 1926 and 2010 when the hotel closed briefly for renovation, it hosted the flagship location of Caswell Massey, the oldest apothecary and perfumery in the country (established 1752).

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.

During the Suez Crisis, which concerned control of the Suez Canal, Golda Meir led the Israeli delegation. Mrs. Roosevelt affirmed her support for Israel in her newspaper column, “My Day,” and called Meir “a woman one cannot help but deeply respect and love.” Golda Meir went on to be elected Prime Minister of Israel in 1969.

The UK born, Cambridge educated, Israeli diplomat Abba Aubrey Solomon Eban was one of those diplomatic rock stars whose show stopping oratory seemed to articulate an entire era. For at least one week in 1953, along with the local milk driver's strike, he was in the Forward's headlines nearly daily.

231 East 47th Street, later the site of Andy Warhol's first "Factory," September 23, 1947. In 1963, as his Pop Art works began to gain traction, Andy Warhol rented a large studio space on 47th Street for an annual rent of $100. Sometimes described as the "Silver Factory" for its tin foil and paint decor, Warhol's fourth floor loft became a fashionable performance space, production studio, and party venue for the artist and his acolytes, known as the Warhol superstars. The Factory moved to a new downtown space in 1968, with the "Silver Factory" building slated for demolition.

Graybar Building, ca. 1925 Established as a small electric and telecommunications firm in 1869, this company became Western Electric in 1872 and grew into a large multinational business. By the turn of the century, Western Electric was the main producer of telephone equipment in the United States. In 1925 the company was split, with a new firm handling distribution of supplies and equipment. It was named Graybar after the company's original founders, Elisha Gray and Enos Barton. In 1929 the company was bought out by its employees for its capitalized value, which was $3 million in cash and $6 million in cumulative preferred stock. Two years before this buyout the company moved into their new home at 420 Lexington Avenue. One of the final buildings constructed in “Terminal City,” the Art Deco structure with Byzantine-styling was completed to the designs of Sloan & Robertson. The tan brick building has a monumental Lexington Avenue facade with three limestone figurative bas reliefs that frame the three entrances. The southernmost portal (the entrance to the Graybar Passage to the Terminal) includes some playful ornamentation; here animal heads surround the marquee struts (the supports attaching the marquee to the building) and sculptural rats seem to be climbing the struts. The rats were a reference to New York's maritime history. The Graybar Company was headquartered in this building until 1982, when they moved to Missouri. In 2016 33 years after leaving the building that retained their name, the Graybar Company returned to the building, leasing 3,000 square feet of office space.

Morris Sanders Studio and Apartment, April 26, 1940. Though not the first Modernist house in New York City (that honor belongs to the Lescaze House), the Morris Sanders Studio and Apartment is considered the second residence in the city to adapt the aesthetic principles pioneered by Le Corbusier and the European modernists. Designed by architect Sanders between 1934 and 1935, for his own use, the home certainly was eye-catching on a block of 19th century rowhouses. Unlike the Lescaze House, which altered an existing structure, this five and half story home was a completely new building. Lacking in ornamentation, with the upper floors looming over the set back ground level, and clad in glossy blue tile and glass blocks, the home was (perhaps surprisingly) well received. The Architectural League of New York City awarded it their highest prize in 1935 for domestic architecture and national and international architecture publications lauded it. The Architectural Forum wrote of how it rose “abruptly from a stodgy row of brown-faced houses, interrupting with brutal finality the orderly sequence of uniform facades." (They meant it as a compliment!)

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.

Subway construction at East 46th Street and Lexington Avenue, September 14, 1917.