Pennsylvania Depot Excavations ca. 1906 The construction of the monumental Pennsylvania Station required the demolition of 500 buildings and the digging of tunnels under the East and Hudson Rivers. Construction took more than fifteen years, but the result was a magnificent gateway to New York City, connecting Long Island and cities all along the Eastern Seaboard to the metropolis.

Lincoln Tunnel entrance roadway at Dyer Avenue and West 34th Street, February 10, 1938.

My Archive Spring 2019 "The concert crowd exiting after the New Years Eve show, I had 3rd-row seats on the floor. Phish... we partied like it was 1999." —Kevin Young

(1845-46, Minard Lafever; additions 1853-54, Lafever, and 1858, Charles Babcock of Richard Upjohn & Son) The Church of the Holy Apostles is another of Chelsea’s historic Episcopal congregations, founded as a mission of Trinity Church. It has long had a socially active congregation and been called “one of the most important meeting places in New York City for organizations of the early post-Stonewall gay rights movement.” Architecturally, it is a remarkably original work that defies precise stylistic categorization. Italianate and Romanesque influences can be seen, but it forges a new statement from them. During the urban renewal era of the mid-twentieth century, much of the area around it was officially labeled a slum and targeted for redevelopment. In the 1950’s, six entire blocks between Eighth and Ninth Avenues were condemned for the private, middle-income Penn South housing project. The developer agreed to save Holy Apostles, along with Manor Community Church and two other churches.

West 28th Street Bathhouse at 407 West 28th Street as seen from Ninth Avenue, 1927. The Public Bathhouse seen in the center of the frame was the second to last such public facility constructed in New York City. Built in 1914, the complex included showers, an indoor swimming pool, public laundry facilities, a gymnasium with an indoor track, a roof garden, and playground. The nearby Irish community used this facility. The pool facility was active until at least the 1960s, and was demolished sometime during the Lindsay administration (1966-1973). This block (between Ninth and Tenth Avenues and 28th and 29th Street) is currently occupied by an annex of the 1933-built Morgan Postal Facility, constructed in 1992.

Jim and Al Coffee Shop under the Ninth Avenue El at West 34th Street, 1932.

Manhattan Opera House, ca. 1907. Opera fanatic and theater mogul Oscar Hammerstein I opened his second Manhattan Opera House as an answer to his dissatisfaction with the Metropolitan Opera. (His first 1893-built Manhattan Opera House was also on 34th Street and was an unmitigated financial disaster.) His second Manhattan Opera House was meant to be an opera "for opera-philes like himself." This would be unlike the Met Opera, where patrons treated the shows as a social affair. This was Hammerstein's eighth theater and proved majorly successful. It offered productions of the classics: Aida, Carmen, La Traviata, Otello, Tosca, Rigoletto, among others. The Met Opera had found a worthy rival - the competition of the Hammerstein's opera house had inflated the costs of producing opera and re-saturated the public's interests in the medium. Eventually, the Met won out, and Hammerstein went bankrupt. He could not compete with the high price of bringing in the biggest opera stars that the Met could. Oscar Hammerstein's son, Arthur, negotiated a contract with the Met that awarded his father $1.2 million if he refrained from producing grand opera in the United States for the next 10 years. Otto Kahn, president of the Metropolitan Opera, gained possession of the theater in 1911. The space was leased from 1911 to 1917 to The Shuberts. From 1927 to 1940 the space was a Warner Brother's sound stage, and then a meeting hall.

Board of Health Building, Chelsea Center. Entrance, 1937.

Ninth Avenue east side, from West 34th to 33rd Streets. Building shown is the New York Asylum for the Blind, 1922. The New York Asylum for the Blind was established in 1831 and that same year a large building for the organization was constructed in the bucolic area that would later become the border between the Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen neighborhoods. In 1831 this area was far north of the city and the open space and park-like grounds were the perfect location for a school for the blind. The large neo-Gothic structure was designed by an unknown architect, but was constructed in a style very similar to James Renwick's buildings on Blackwell's Island. These facilities on today's Roosevelt Island included a smallpox hospital, insane asylum, debtors house, and a prison. The school had upwards of 150 students and whenever possible jobs in the institution were also filled by the blind, including teachers. The school roughed some harsh criticism in the second half of the 19th century. An article in 1854 said this of the school, "Neglect, slovenliness and bad management are visible in every part of the establishment." In the early 20th century the city had not only stretched to the Asylum but surrounded it on all sides with large urban development. After a number of failed attempts to move elsewhere, the renamed New York Institute for the Education of the Blind (a more politically correct moniker) finally relocated to Pelham Parkway in the Bronx in 1924. The following year the large, nearly 100 year old building was demolished. Today the plot that was once occupied by the Asylum is now the popular photography store B\&H.

The Church of the Holy Apostles in Chelsea was one of the most important meeting places in New York City for organizations of the early post-Stonewall gay rights movement, particularly from 1969 to 1974. The Episcopalian rector at Holy Apostles, Father Robert Weeks, was instrumental in allowing this to happen, in part because his church was financially strapped and needed the rental income that groups could provide. In the fall of 1967, Weeks had coordinated a gathering of regional Episcopal priests which put forth one of the first religious declarations that homosexuality was morally neutral. Weeks presided over a number of early gay marriages (“services of friendship”), and participated in the protest led by the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) after the police raid on the Snake Pit in March 1970, also praying for the injured Diego Vinales at St. Vincent’s Hospital. One of the earliest LGBT events at Holy Apostles (in the parish hall) was the First New York City All-College Gay Mixer on May 2, 1969, sponsored by Columbia University’s Student Homophile League (formed in 1966). The first LGBT group to meet here regularly, from August 1969 to 1971, was the West Side Discussion Group (WSDG), which held weekly meetings and dances. Initially part of the Mattachine Society of New York, WSDG became a separate organization in 1956, and dropped its affiliation with Mattachine in 1965 after more militant leaders took over Mattachine. GLF held its weekly Sunday meetings here from December 1969 to December 1970, also using Alternate U. for dances and events, and then moving to the Gay Community Center. Gay Youth was founded in 1970 and had its social meetings here until 1972. The first dance for GLF women was held here in June 1970. GAA had its Thursday meetings and its dances here between January 1970 and May 1971, when it moved to the Firehouse. Lesbian Liberation, a committee of GAA, was formed here. In July 1970, Father Weeks turned over Holy Apostles for Sunday afternoon services to the pioneering Church of the Beloved Disciple, “a church for gay people.” Beloved Disciple was founded by Father Robert M. Clement, a former priest in the Polish National Catholic Church and the first openly gay priest to participate in the Christopher Street Liberation Day March in June 1970, and his lover, John Noble. Clement officiated over a same-sex “union ceremony” at Holy Apostles in April 1971. Clement and Noble were married at 33 Wooster Street in July 1971 by Reverend Troy Perry, who had founded the gay Metropolitan Community Church in Los Angeles in 1968. New York’s City Clerk Howard Katz, incensed at these “illegal marriages” by Clement and Weeks, threatened arrest. GAA held one of its most famous and creative “zaps” at Katz’s office in the Municipal Building – an engagement party for two same-sex couples, complete with wedding cake. In 1972 the Metropolitan Community Church of New York began Sunday evening services at Holy Apostles, led by Howard Wells, who became the first openly gay student at Union Theological Seminary. Then, in 1973, Jacob Gubbay, a Jewish man from India, saw an ad for a gay Passover Seder to be held here, which he volunteered to lead. Less than a year later he was successful in negotiating space for a gay synagogue to host Friday night services at Holy Apostles. The congregation, later officially named Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, held services here until it found a permanent home in Westbeth in July 1975. By 1974, Father Weeks had begun an outreach ministry to the LGBT community, which had not especially participated in Holy Apostle’s own services and activities, and ended the church’s policy of leasing space to LGBT organizations. In 1977 at Holy Apostles, Ellen M. Barrett was ordained as a priest by Bishop Paul Moore. She was one of the first American women to be ordained and was also the very first openly gay Episcopal priest. She had previously served as a co-chairwoman of Daughters of Bilitis, New York, and as a moderator of Gay Students Liberation at NYU, and was a member of Radicalesbians of GLF.

Board of Health Building, Chelsea Center, 1937. The simple Art Deco building was built in the mid 1930s for the Board of Health. The building, which has functioned as administrative offices and a medical clinic for the BOH and later the Department of Health, is currently (Spring 2017) undergoing a large scale renovation and should open again in late 2017.

My Archive Spring 2019 "A photo of my mother, her siblings, and their mother taken in 1942 or so, no later than 1945. my mother, her siblings, and their mother." —Jill Melamed

329-339 West 30th Street, north side, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues. No. 333 was the Rural New Yorker Building which was formerly the old Chelsea Methodist Church. About 1910.

🥞 🍳 ☕... ✔️ Perhaps more than any other eatery, diners are the quintessential American restaurant. And for decades, starting in the 1920s, the railcar diners were a special breed of this iconic American venue. Whether actual refurbished rail dining cars (a very small %) or purpose-built, pre-fab diners made to look like railroad rolling stock, these venues provided a unique business model. In New York City, they often sat at narrow corner lots, hugged larger structures on leftover acreage, or occupied empty plots for the time between the razing of old buildings and the construction of new ones. With increased development, more advanced construction technologies, and the rising cost of land, most of these diners have been lost to time (and new construction). Here are some of the railcar diners that once fed New Yorkers.

Madison Square Garden, ca. 1970. The fourth iteration of Madison Square Garden was made possible by the demolition of the former Beaux-Arts Pennsylvania Station at Eighth Avenue and 34th Street, an event which catalyzed the city’s nascent preservation movement and led to the creation of the Landmarks Preservation Commission. The cylindrical multi-purpose stadium opened in 1968, atop the below-ground portion of the train station, after five years of construction.

Here at Urban Archive, we often focus our stories on the city streets and the public-facing architecture of the city. However, being stuck inside our apartments has given us a new appreciation of interior so we thought we'd take a look at some of New York's finest interiors over the years. This story looks at the portals by which millions of people have entered and exited New York. These transportation hubs were (and in some cases still are) the first sight many have had of New York.

Pennsylvania Station, 1912. The grand, Beaux-Arts terminal of the Pennsylvania Railroad became a casualty of development — and a galvanizing symbol for the city's preservation movement — upon its demolition in 1963. The station was the brainchild of Penn. Railroad President Alexander Johnston Cassatt, who envisioned a New York City terminal as a competitive advantage over other railroad lines, whose eastern termini sat west of the Hudson River, in New Jersey. For the grand New York City station, Cassatt commissioned architect Charles McKim, of McKim, Mead & White, the celebrated firm responsible for much of Manhattan's City Beautiful-era civic architecture. McKim's ambitious design drew on a wide range of Classical and Continental antecedents: Rome's St. Peter's Cathedral and the Baths of Caracalla, the Gare D'Orsay in Paris, and Berlin's Brandenburg gate, among others. Construction took all of six years, and was completed in 1910. Cassatt's bet on a station east of the Hudson proved astute; Pennsylvania Station would soon become both a hub for both regional commuters and long distance travelers. However, post-WWII shifts in mass transportation put a dent in rail travel. Declining ridership combined with significant maintenance costs led to the sale of the station's air rights, the first step toward eventual demolition. Despite protests from preservationists, including Action Group for Better Architecture in New York (AGBANY), demolition proceeded in 1963, two years after plans were first announced. Pennsylvania Station was best eulogized in a withering editorial by New York Times architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable, published October 30, 1963: "Until the first blow fell no one was convinced that Penn Station really would be demolished or that New York would permit this monumental act of vandalism against one of the largest and finest landmarks of its age of Roman elegance. Somehow someone would surely find a way to prevent it at the last minute—not-so-little Nell rescued by the hero—even while the promoters displayed the flashy renderings of the new sports arena and somewhat less than imperial commercial buildings to take its place. It's not easy to knock down nine acres of travertine and granite, 84 Doric columns, a vaulted concourse of extravagant, weighty grandeur, classical splendor modeled after royal Roman baths, rich detail in solid stone, architectural quality in precious materials that set the stamp of excellence on a city But it can be done. It can be done if the motivation is great enough, and it has been demonstrated that the profit motivation in this instance was great enough. Monumental problems almost as big as the building itself stood in the way of preservation; but it is the shame of New York, of its financial and cultural communities, its politicians, philanthropists and planners, and of the public as well, that no serious effort was made. A rich and powerful city, noted for its resources of brains, imagination and money, could not rise to the occasion. The final indictment is of the values of our society. Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves. Even when we had Penn Station, we couldn't afford to keep it clean. We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tin-horn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed."

With so many of us staying indoors these days, it is helpful to remember the glories of New York City’s public landscape, past and present. Here are a few examples to remind you of treasured sites we look forward to visiting again, appreciating in person, and sharing with others!

Pennsylvania Station interior New York’s original Penn Station, whose 1963 demolition rallied the nascent preservation movement in America, contained a series of Guastavino vaults supported by curving steel trusses and columns. George Collins, the Columbia University professor and architectural historian who later single-handedly saved the Guastavino Company archives from destruction, noted that this combination of thin tile vaults and metal trusses was probably unique—not just in New York, but in the world.

413 West 35th Street, 1932.

467 Ninth Avenue, 1938. The building in the foreground is one of New York City's ubiquitous corner markets. The building across the street at no. 469 is the North-Western Dispensary building. The dispensary was a municipal social welfare and medical facility for the poor. The three-story brick building was constructed for this facility in 1869. In 1938 when this photograph was taken, it is unclear if the dispensary still functioned. The signage on the building notes it is occupied by a cheese shop on the first floor and a flag and awning business on one of the upper floors.

300 Ninth Avenue (1845-46, Minard Lafever; additions 1853-54, Lafever, and 1858, Charles Babcock of Richard Upjohn & Son) NYC IL; S/NR Lacking the restrictive covenants imposed by Clement Clarke Moore to the south, the blocks of Chelsea north of 24th Street, called Chelsea Manor, were developed with a mixture of residences, shops, and industry in close proximity. By the mid-19th century, it was a notorious center of vice and threat to vulnerable youth. In 1855, Sunday school advocate R.G. Pardee with help from the South Reformed Dutch Church, set up a mission above a disreputable saloon at Ninth Avenue and 25th Street. In 1866, the mission became an arm of the church, which built Manor Chapel and Mission, now Manor Community Church. Incorporating classrooms and a library, it was completed 1873. Enlarged and given a new façade in 1907, the building’s picturesque Dutch Revival style acknowledges its roots. Two blocks north, the Church of the Holy Apostles is another of Chelsea’s historic Episcopal congregations, founded as a mission of Trinity Church. It has long had a socially active congregation and been called “one of the most important meeting places in New York City for organizations of the early post-Stonewall gay rights movement.” Architecturally, it is a remarkably original work that defies precise stylistic categorization. Italianate and Romanesque influences can be seen, but it forges a new statement from them. During the urban renewal era of the mid-twentieth century, much of the area around it was officially labeled a slum and targeted for redevelopment. In the 1950’s, six entire blocks between Eighth and Ninth Avenues were condemned for the private, middle-income Penn South housing project. The developer agreed to save Holy Apostles, along with Manor Community Church and two other churches.

339 West 29th Street, 1932. No. 339 (seen here covered in ivy) is a 19th-century rowhouse with a powerful abolitionist history and a sad and complicated recent history. Built in 1846-1867, the four-story house was constructed as part of a row for Cyrus Mason. James Gibbons, a banker, and financial writer purchased the home in 1852 and moved in with his wife Abigail Hopper Gibbons and family. The family was ardent abolitionists. The house served not only a station of the Underground Railroad, but the home hosted a school for African American children and a meeting place for black and white abolition leaders. The house was well known for these activities and so was targeted during the Draft Riots in 1863. After black homes and orphanages were burned, the rioters turned to the abolitionists. This house was set aflame on the second night (July 14), and the occupants were only saved from death (by fire or beating) via an escape route that included climbing to the roof, running over the neighboring homes, and climbing out through someone else's house. The home was designated a New York City landmark as part of the Lamartine Place Historic District in 2009. Around that same time, the current owner added a fifth floor (illegally). Over the next decade, the community members and preservationists fought to have the home returned to its original state. Through lawsuits and legal and landmark hearings, the community persisted, and in 2017 when the project came to the Landmarks Commission, the added floor was denied. The height of the building and the cornice would need to be restored. After more than a decade under scaffolding, the front of the building will soon be visible once again.

Pennsylvania Station ca. 1940 This great concourse of steel and glass is one of the few reminders we have of a once practical and expressive design for railroad architecture. The precedent for such an enclosure is found in the trains sheds which were located over the tracks in many of the older terminals. Here, in this great station, it was particularly well suited to its use as a pedestrian concourse, giving a wonderful sense of openness and light. It may soon be demolished to make way for a remodeled station.

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.

Greyhound Bus Terminal ca. 1936 In the 1930s, bus travel was a new industry, providing cheaper and more flexible passenger service than the railroads. Built in 1935 across the street from the monumental Pennsylvania Station, the streamlined Greyhound Bus Terminal was the perfect symbol for this new mode of travel. Abbott photographed the bus terminal from the Pennsylvania Building at 225 West 34th Street. That mundane office building still stands, but the terminal was replaced in 1972 by the undistinguished 1 Penn Plaza.

Church of the Holy Apostles, April 17, 1941. This congregation was established in 1844 as an outreach mission by the downtown Trinity Church to serve immigrants who worked on the Hudson River waterfront. The church building was constructed between 1845 and 1848 and designed by famed 19th century church architect, Minard Lefever. In 1853 the same architect expanded the building to include a larger space around the altar. It was further expanded in 1858 by the firm of the firm of Richard Upjohn & Son, another superstar of 19th century churches. The Episcopal parish has a long history of social activism and advocacy. During the Civil War, the church was possibly a station on the Underground Railroad. In the 1970s the congregation was involved in the founding of an LGBT synagogue, which used the church building for services until they found a permanent home. Since 1982 the church has hosted a soup kitchen.

Church of the Holy Apostles ca. 1941 Extremely deceptive with regard to its age, this church looks as though it might have been built even as late as 1910. Actually, it was erected in the eighteen-forties in a very free, dynamic style using an ingenious array of bull's-eyes, curved pediments, and corbels. An indication that Minard Lafever may have been its architect is found in Plate XCVIII of his book The Architectural Inspector, published in 1858, where we see a small rural church that is quite similar in character.

James A. Farley Post Office Building, 1912. Formerly the General Post Office Building, the main branch of the United State Postal Service was built as part of the Pennsylvania Station construction plan. The firm of McKim, Mead, and White designed both the train station and the post office in a Beaux-Arts style. The General Post Office and Pennsylvania Station became twin symbols of American progress and industry. With its giant order Corinthian colonnade stretching the length of two city blocks, the Post Office matched the grandiosity of Penn Station across the avenue. Bracing either side of the colonnade are square pavilions, capped with low domes expressed as stepped pyramids on the exterior. From the street, continuous steps lead to the main floor, which hosted various customer services. A dry moat at the base of the building allows for natural light to flood into the basement level, occupied by workspaces. On the interior, the ceiling is coffered and its floor is Knoxville marble. The colossal structure housed nearly one-acre of mail sorting space. In 1967, the facility was praised for handling one-tenth of all U.S. mail during Christmastime. However, the facility became outdated, hand-sorting technology just didn't cut it any longer, and the size of the building became too much to maintain. The former post office hosted a variety of bizarre functionalities: Operation Santa, beginning in 1912, authorized postmasters to respond to children's letters to Santa Claus. Pneumatic mail tubes facilitated the transport of mail (up to 100 pounds) to 22 post offices in Manhattan (and one in Brooklyn) at speeds of 30 to 35 mph. A Museum of Postal History occupied a small portion of the main floor, displaying postal paraphernalia until 2017. Portions of the landmark are now being converted to house the Moynihan Station, an Amtrak concourse which would expand Penn Station.

Revillon Frères fur storage warehouse, 1925. Built in 1924 by the firm Cross & Cross, the building was both a storage facility and retail location for Revillon Frères, the French luxury furrier. After the company left the building, the upper cold storage floors were substantially altered, with the diaper-pattern brickwork replaced by rows of windows.