Hotel Pennsylvania, ca. 1919 Upon its opening in 1919, the Hotel Pennsylvania was the world's largest hotel, with 2,200 rooms on 22 floors. Designed by William Symmes Richardson of the firm of McKim, Mead & White, the hotel was one of the first to have private baths in every room. This was one of the many factors that made the hotel one of the most luxurious in the city at the time. Every detail was meticulously seen to, every feature of the hotel catered to the possible needs of the guests. The hotel also debuted its signature "servidor." The door to each hotel room had a two-sided cabinet concealed within. This allowed the guest to place an order, and the hotel staff to fill the order without entering the room. This service was used for laundry, food, and mail delivery. The building remains a hotel today, despite various threats of demolition between 1997 and 2010.

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.

Built in 1900 by Oscar Hammerstein I, the Republic was taken over in 1902 by David Belasco. The theater reverted to its original name around 1910 and continued as a legitimate house until 1932 when it became home to Billy Minsky's burlesque shows. After Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia banned burlesque in 1942, the Republic was converted into a movie theater, the Victory, and fell into decline. In 1995 the beautifully restored New Victory opened again as a theater.

Bush Terminal Building ca. 1938 Erected in 1917 by Irving T. Bush, the businessman who created the massive Bush Terminal warehouse and factory complex in Brooklyn, the Bush Terminal Sales Building at 130 W. 42nd St. was one of the last of the tall towers to rise without the setbacks the 1916 zoning law required. Its architect Harvey Wiley Corbett was a leading advocate of the setback form, but he was happy to oblige his client with a slender tower of stacked showroom floors that imitated a Gothic spire.

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

Hotel Knickerbocker, 1913. Not to be outdone by his cousin and occasional real estate rival William Waldorf, who had funded the Hotel Astor, John Jacob Astor IV built the Hotel Knickerbocker just a few blocks away. The Knickerbocker, like the Astor, was a Beaux-Arts building. Designed by Marvin & Davis, the 1906 hotel had a prominent mansard roof and light colored terra cotta decoration on its red brick facade. The hotel had 556 rooms, a 2000 seat theatre, and a Maxfield Parrish mural "Old King Cole" in its bars. (That mural has been installed in the St. Regis Hotel bar since 1935.) Supposedly the martini was invented in the bar at the Knickerbocker, though evidence proves otherwise. Astor would die in the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 and the hotel was closed and converted into offices in 1920 under financial strain by Astor's son. In the next nearly 100 years the building functioned as offices, residences, showrooms and studios for garment companies, and finally as of 2015, a hotel once again.

P.S. 28, 1920. Originally a public elementary school, this West 40th Street building was the original home of the School of Industrial Art, a public technical-vocational high school founded in 1936 with 128 male pupils (the school later expanded to a coeducational student body). SIA soon outgrew the 40th Street school house and moved into an annex of the Benjamin Franklin School on 79th Street. In 1960, the school, newly renamed the High School of Art and Design, moved to its long-term home at 1075 Second Avenue — adjacent to the present campus, which opened 56th Street in 2012. Notable alumni of SIA and Art and Design include performers (Tony Bennett, ‘54), visual artists (Art Spiegelman ‘65), and fashion designers (Calvin Klein, ‘60; Marc Jacobs, ‘81).

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

American Theatre ca. 1895 The American Theatre, designed by Charles C. Haight, opened on May 22, 1893, with The Prodigal Daughter. T. Henry French, the manager, was one of the country's foremost producers, specializing in lavishly mounted extravaganzas. In 1897, French lost control of the theater in a foreclosure judgement, and it was taken over and used for every sort of entertainment; its last tenants being a burlesque troupe. Damaged by fire in 1930, the theater was razed to make way for other commercial structures.

Macy's Herald Square, ca. 1975. In 1900, Macy's, whose original store had been on West 14th Street since 1858, began buying plots of land near Broadway and 34th Street for a new massive store. The story goes that an agent of a rival department store, Siegel-Cooper, purchased the plot. Siegel-Cooper wanted Macy's to sell them the building on 14th Street in exchange for this single corner plot at 34th Street. Macy's refused and instead built their flagship store around the lot. Perhaps the first instance of a real estate hold out in New York City. In 1903 Siegel-Cooper, defeated after Macy's had opened the year before, demolished the small structure that occupied the corner and constructed a five-story building, designed by William Hume. Since the 1920s, Macy's has used the little building for billboards and signage, so much so that slowly nearly the entire building has been obscured. Today only parts of the lower two stories are visible and the huge Macy's 'shopping bag' that covers the building is in place as part of a lease agreement.

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.

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.

989 Sixth Avenue, unknown date.

Port Authority Bus Terminal and the McGraw-Hill Building, ca. 1994.

National Theatre (far right), 1935. Opened September 1, 1921, as the National Theatre, this was (and still is) the southernmost theatre in the Broadway district. Common among New York theatres, the venue has gone through a number of name changes over its history. It has been the Billy Rose Theatre, Trafalgar Theatre, and finally the David T. Nederlander Theatre. Between 1996 and 2008 the Nederlander was the home of the long-running hit Rent. For that production, the facade of the theatre was made to look like a downtown club. (Rent is set in Alphabet City.) Today the theatre continues to host Broadway performances, though the facade has been returned to its original look of plain brick and metal details.

St. John the Baptist School, September 5, 1919. The school connected to the church of St. John the Baptist began in 1870 with 50 children educated in a space in a hotel on Sixth Avenue. The building seen here, which housed the monastery and school, was constructed in 1872 in the Collegiate Gothic style. It served as the church school through the mid 20th century. In 1974 the building was replaced by the brown brick, Brutalist Capuchin Monastery of St. John the Baptist, which currently still stands, though has been defunct since 2014.

New Amsterdam Theatre, ca. 1910. The Art Nouveau New Amsterdam Theatre was constructed between 1902 and 1903 to the designs of the firm of Henry Hertz and Hugh Tallant. The architects created a highly ornamented building; the first three floors are lavish in decoration and sculpture. Its popular roof garden was added in 1904. The building incorporated two theatrical spaces and an office tower to be leased to theatrical interests. Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., creator of the Ziegfeld Follies maintained an office in the building between 1913 and 1927, and the Follies themselves were performed on a New Amsterdam stage between 1913 and 1920, 1922 and 1925, and 1927. The roof garden venue at that time was called Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic and was known for more racy and tantalizing productions. The theatre closed in 1936 and was converted into a movie house for much of the rest of the 20th century. During this era the roof garden space was used as a rehearsal area for Broadway shows. In the 1990s the building was purchased by the Disney Theatrical Productions and underwent a massive and costly renovation to return the building to original grandeur. The roof garden was unfortunately permanently closed at this time, due to modern building codes. Since 1997 the venue has been the home of Disney-produced musicals, including The Lion King, Mary Poppins, and Aladdin.

Metropolitan Opera House, 39th Street and Broadway, ca. 1905. The first home of the Metropolitan Opera, the J. Cleavland Cady-designed “old Met,” opened in October, 1883 with a performance of “Faust” (the same opera that opened the Brooklyn Academy of Music twenty-five years later). The Met held its closing gala in April, 1966 (though an additional Bolshoi Ballet performance would be staged in May), ahead of the company’s move to its current home at Lincoln Center. The “old Met” was demolished the next year, after attempts to win Landmarks designation were unsuccessful.

Steam + Felt = Hats, March 1, 1938. The occupants of the upper floors of this building are hat manufacturers. The construction and finishing of felt hats (the material in style for hat making in the 1930s) involved massive amounts of steam to mold and shape the products. Surrounded by the garment district (then covering 34th to 40th Streets between Sixth and Ninth Avenue) and the fur district, the millinery district covered a smaller footprint than the others. In fact, in the early mid century more than 15% of the country's (not city, but the whole country's) output of hats was manufactured in this building captured by Berenice Abbott in 1938.

Theatre Republic, 1900. Theater mogul Oscar Hammerstein I opened this venue with a Venetian facade as the Theatre Republic in 1900. In 1902, its manager and theatre impresario David Belasco leased the building. He renamed the theatre after himself. When Belasco took over full operation of the venue, he undertook major work, installing an orchestra pit, a new lighting system and a modern stage with trap doors through which scenery could be hoisted. In 1910, Belasco's Stuyvesant Theatre on 44th Street took over the Belasco Theatre name, while this one returned to the name Theatre Republic. By 1931, the theater was once again renamed, this time as Minsky's Burlesque, Broadway's first burlesque house. Upon the ban of burlesque shows in 1942, it became "The Victory," a second-run movie house. Just as it set the stage as a place to indulge vices of the 1930s, in the 1970s the venue became the first porn theater on 42nd Street. The Victory cleaned up its act in the 1990s, and the stage was "once again graced by legitimate theater." It opened with the plays "Crowbar" and a production of "Romeo and Juliet." The Victory was acquired by the City and State to become part of the 42nd Street Development Project. The theater reopened as The New Victory Theater in 1995.

Following the Civil War, the resumption of industry, trade, and peace were boom times for New York City. Hundreds of thousands flocked to New York and as they did the city expanded. Out of this new growth came with it the Theater District, which teemed with shows, operas, and acts to amuse the city's population. This list highlights some of the theaters that sprung up during the turn of the century.

Hotel Governor Clinton The Governor Clinton Hotel was built by Murgatroyd and Ogden, designers of the Barbizon Hotel, Jolly Madison, Towers Hotel and Allerton, with George B. Post in x on the southeast corner of 7th Ave and 31st streets, the first new hotel built near Penn Station since 1919. The hotel had an asymmetrical mass more in accord with 12th century Italian Romanesque then with the Imperial Classicism of nearby Pennsylvania Railroad Station and Hotel Pennsylvania.

Metropolitan Opera, ca. 1905. It was here, at 39th and Broadway, where one of the greatest Gilded Age dramas played out. And it wasn't on stage! As new families made money from finance and industry, old-money New Yorkers tried to maintain their social standing by excluding the newcomers from events and institutions. But when the old guard denied William H. Vanderbilt one of the 18 private boxes at the New York Academy of Music on 14th Street—the city's premiere musical venue—Vanderbilt took a stand. He corralled a group of new-monied bankers and industrialists to create a performance space of their own. The Goulds, Morgans, Whitneys, and Rockefellers were among those who paid $10,000 each to begin a "social war of extermination." They hired the architect J.C. Cady to design the Metropolitan Opera House. The result was a yellow brick structure some called simple and dignified and others compared to a brewery: "Looked at from the street," wrote the New York World, "the building appears like an enormous malthouse. Inside it has the appearance of a Mississippi steamboat." But no one could dispute that is size was impressive. It had 122 boxes (versus the Academy's 18), the largest stage in the United States, and the capacity to fit more than 3,000 people. On opening night, according to the New York Dramatic Mirror, "all the nouveau riches were on hand. The Goulds and the Vanderbilts and people of that ilk perfumed the air with the odor of crisp greenbacks" and "the tiers looked like cages in a menagerie of monopolists." Ultimately, new money won the battle to take center stage in the city's social scene. A little more than two years after the Metropolitan Opera opened, the Academy of Music closed. Its owner told the press: "I simply could not fight a battle with all Wall Street." The Broadway building was torn down in 1967 after a failed attempt by political leaders and preservationists to designate it as a landmark. Since 1966, the Metropolitan Opera has made its home at Lincoln Center.

The New York Herald Building, ca. 1894.

1400 Broadway (at left) and Bricken-Casino Building (no. 1410, at right), December 5, 1935. These two neighboring building rise to nearly the same height and have similar setbacks and white brick facades. 1400 Broadway actually wraps around no. 1410. Both were designed by Ely Jacques Kahn, though the plans for no. 1400 were filed just before Kahn's partner Albert Buchman retired, so it is credited to both. The Bricken-Casino Building has been referred to as a wedding-cake-style office building. It (and its neighbor) were completed between 1930 and 1931. The base of the building (obscured here) is rendered in black granite and brass, while the upper levels have contrasting strips of white and black brick. This building was only one of a number of buildings constructed for developer Abraham Bricken. Bricken was Jewish immigrant who began his career in the garment industry. Turning from garment work to the real estate and construction industry, he was immensely successful. Between 1921 and 1929 his Bricken Construction Company built more than $50 million of real estate in the garment district alone.

Mills Hotel, 1907. Around the turn of the 20th century, banker and philanthropist Darius Ogden Mills had the idea to build residential hotels for single working men. The structure on 36th Street was the final of three hotels built and the largest. Completed in 1907, Ernest Flagg designed the 16-story, neo-Renaissance building. Flagg had written a landmark article in 1896 which decried the problems with the then-standard dumbbell layout of tenement housing. His plans for a "light-court tenement" involved less wall enclosure and greater room space, light, ventilation, and fire protection. After two successful Mills Hotels designed by Flagg, Mills commissioned a final one (though he hired the firm of Copeland & Dole, not Flagg). The building continued to serve as a home for single working men through the 1940s. In 1954 new owners renovated the building in a new, traditional hotel called the Keystone. Later in the 1980s, the building was retrofitted for offices and showrooms and parking lot on the first floor!

EMPIRE THEATER, MANHATTAN Address: 234 W 42nd St Architect: Thomas Lamb Constructed: 1912 The Empire Theater was designed by premier theater architect Thomas Lamb in 1912 in the heart of the Broadway Theater District. Lamb designed at least 48 theatres in New York City alone during his career. In 1998, it was moved 170 feet westward and now serves as an entry for a 25-screen multiplex, with the original auditorium converted into a lobby and lounge. The exterior remains intact and features a swath of glazed terra cotta in varying colors, which encrusts an enormous rounded archway, the building’s focal point.

Koster & Bial's, located at 34th Street and Broadway, on the current site of Macy's department store, was New York's other major vaudeville house in 1898. Built by Oscar Hammerstein in 1892, this was the first theater to bear the name Manhattan Opera House. Hammerstein offered Koster and Bial a partnership if they would take over this theater. The partnership was not a success and, after a succession of managers, the theater was closed in 1901. Offering more of a stag atmosphere, with drinking available on the premises, it attracted many of the top names in variety.

Lefcourt-Marlboro Building, 1925. The Lefcourt-Marlboro Building was constructed by George & Edward Blum for Abraham Lefcourt. Completed in 1925, the structure was originally designed as a garment manufacturing building. Its name comes from the site, on which formerly stood the Marlboro Hotel.

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

On February 11th, 1899, a blizzard known as the Great Arctic Outbreak moved across the United States, reaching as far as Florida, New Orleans, and even Cuba. In New York City, the average temperature was −6 °F and Central Park saw 16 inches of snow, with other areas measuring a record 2-3 feet.

Port Authority ca. 1950 Spanning two blocks on 8th Avenue between 40th and 42nd Streets, the Port Authority Bus Terminal, depicted here before subsequent renovations, was the largest mass-transit center of its kind in the world when it opened in December 1950. It offered such amenities as heated on- and off-ramps to melt snow, air-conditioned telephone booths, redcap service, and telephones on walls near terminal entrances which allowed customers immediate access to "information girls" who could give departure, fare, tax, and routing information almost instantaneously.

Steam-cleaning the exterior of the Equitable Life building at Seventh Avenue and 31st Street, ca. 1940.

Bush Terminal Building ARCHITECT: Helmle & Corbett DATE: 1916-21 STYLE: Neo-Gothic Combining historical neo-Gothic detailing with a modern, pronounced vertical emphasis, the building represents an important intermediate stage in the development of the skyscraper. Secondary elevations finished with an innovative treatment of trompe l’oeil colored brick piers, and the engineering solutions for the towerlike steel-frame building erected on a very narrow plot were features of interest.

Seventh Avenue facade of Louis Martin's, ca. 1912.

Eltinge Theatre, 1927. Designed by famous theatre architect Thomas Lamb, this theatre was named for Julian Eltinge, an American stage and screen actor and female impersonator. Funded by producer Al Woods, it was given this name to honor the entertainer who helped Woods built his fortune. Opened in 1912 the theatre featured Woods' new approach to seating for patrons of all sizes: "slender," "medium," and "stout" seats. Woods was forced to sell the theatre during the Depression, and by the late 1930s, it was a burlesque theatre. In 1941 it was converted into a second run movie house, and in 1954 it was renamed the Empire Theatre. In 1998, as part of the renewal plan for 42nd Street, the landmarked building (all 7.4 million pounds of it) was lifted onto tracks and, using steel rollers, moved 170 feet down the block. In its new location, the old theatre building now functions as the ground level facade, entrance, lobby for the 25 screen AMC movie theatre.

🥞 🍳 ☕... ✔️ 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.

Knickerbocker Hotel ARCHITECT: Marvin & Davis; Bruce Price DATE: 1901-06 STYLE: Beaux-Arts, French Renaissance The Knickerbocker Hotel is one of the very few grand hotels in the Beaux-Arts style surviving in the Times Square area. The building was financed by John Jacob Astor, the fourth namesake of the patriarch of one of America’s richest families. It is executed in red brick, richly ornamented with French Renaissance detail, and crowned by a prominent copper mansard roof with corner pavilions and cresting.

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.

1450 Broadway ca. 1936 Garment lofts had to be flexible with floors easily subdivided, because space was leased to multiple businesses. Ely Jacques Kahn designed the 43-story Continental Building at the northern end of the Garment District in 1930. In 1931, he divided floors for the new tenants. On the 19th floor, four garment-related firms had their offices, while only one occupied the 25th floor, with its offices and two showrooms. Sign boards at the entries to factory lofts such as the Kaufman Building often listed the names of the multiple tenants renting space.

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!

Macy's Entrance on the original 34th Street facade, ca. 1975. Macy’s claims to be the first department store in New York City to display festive holiday windows. In 1862, it featured an in-store Santa for children to visit, and several years later, in 1874, the first major holiday window displays. The windows showcased a collection of porcelain dolls from around the world and scenes from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

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.

Nicknamed "The Deuce," West 42nd Street between Sixth and Eighth Avenues was once one of the roughest and seediest spots in New York City. Home to dozens of sex-related businesses, from live sex shows and grindhouses, to peep shows and prostitution, the sex industry dominated the bottom of Times Square in the 1970s and 1980s (long after this photograph of the street was captured).

Macy's, ca. 1928.

The Casino Theatre was designed by Francis H. Kimball and Thomas Wisedel in a Gothic style. It was the home of musical comedies and housed the famous Gilbert and Sullivan attractions. The theater fell to the wreckers' ball in 1930.

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.

Seventh Avenue Looking South from 35th Street, December 5, 1935.

Built in 1882, the Casino Theatre signaled a number of firsts for New York's theaters. Since the days of the Astor Place riots, New Yorkers had proved themselves voracious theater fans, and the Casino Theatre, and others like it represented the next step in forming the theater district that would make Broadway famous.

Lefcourt Normandie Building, 1944. The Lefcourt Normandie Building was built by Abraham Lefcourt on the former site of Hotel Normandie, a landmark structure that once stood on this corner for more than 50 years. During its heyday, it was one of the most popular hotels in the city. According to a 1928 New York Times article, the Lefcourt Normandie "ranks as the finest in the history of the A.E. Lefcourt realty holdings." It was Lefcourt's twenty-first structure in New York and fourth on Broadway between 34th and 42nd streets. When the building opened in 1928, every square foot of space was leased. The second and third floors were occupied by the Lefcourt Normandie National Bank, a bank Lefcourt founded himself to finance new real estate developments.

The Corduroy Club, located here from March 1967 to 1971, was a significant effort by the pre-Stonewall LGBT community in New York to have a social space that was outside of the control of the Mafia, New York State Liquor Authority regulations, and police arrests and entrapment. The club also hosted a number of early LGBT organizations. In 1986, black fashion designer Isaia moved his clothing label here just as he was becoming one of the most sought-after young designers in the city. He died from AIDS-related complications in 1989.

Lefcourt-State Building, 1944. The Lefcourt-State was the third of four enormous office and showroom buildings in the Garment District that Abraham E. Lefcourt erected on Broadway and the first designed by Ely Jacques Kahn. Built specifically to house jobbers in the high-end dress trade, the building offered 450,000 square feet of rentable space, all of which was leased months before completion. In 1931, sixty-nine firms rented space in the building. The Times reported that "it is estimated that the annual shipments of wearing apparel from this building will reach a figure of over $75,000,000 the first year." Kahn was one of a circle of prominent architects who introduced Moderne, or Art Deco design to New York. For Lefcourt, he designed a powerful building with a four-story stone base, vertical massing, and evenly stacked setbacks, each ornamented with simple geometric detail. Intricate bas-relief brick spandrel panels beneath the windows ( gave additional interest to the façade. Typical of Kahn's buildings, the lobby was a lavish entry with inlaid marble floors, marble walls, complex molded plaster detail, bronze elevator doors, and other features, all now gone.

246 West 38th Street, ca. 1923.

The Empire Theatre was built by Al Hayman and Frank W. Sanger for Charles Frogman, the architects were John B. McElfatrick and Son. Opening on January 25, 1893, the Empire remained one of New York's favorite theaters until the final performance on May 30, 1953, of The Time of the Cuckoo. An office building was alter erected on this site.

Lefcourt-Manhattan Building, 1928. The Lefcourt-Manhattan Building is one of four office buildings that Garment District developer Abraham E. Lefcourt erected on Broadway. Despite a sharp decline in clothing manufacturing in Manhattan in the late 1920s, Lefcourt's building demonstrated that there was still demand for high-class showrooms and loft space in the city. The structure, which stood on the site of the old Polter Building and Harrigan Theatre, was 90% leased before it was even ready occupancy.

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.

McGraw-Hill Building. Up shot from 42nd Street, October 4, 1931. The McGraw-Hill Building is an Art Deco structure completed in 1931. Designed by Raymond Hood, it was the second building for publishing company in the city (the first was located at 469 Tenth Avenue). The facade of the 33-story building is covered in blue-green terra-cotta ceramic tiles, alternating with green-metal-framed windows. Starting in 1939 the building housed the headquarters of Timely Comics, which would later become Marvel Comics. In the Captain America #1, creator Jack Kirby gave the building address as the mailing address to which fans could write to the superhero.

Seventh Avenue Looking North from 35th Street, December 5, 1935

Seventh Avenue, at and adjoining the southwest corner of 42nd Street, 1929. The large brick building in the background is the Hotel Hermitage. Built in 1907, the 13-story structure was designed by Robert D. Kohn for Timothy F. Paddell, a liquor dealer. The building was a bachelor hotel designed to be "vigorous and modern" with no "conspicuous leanings toward any recognized style," according to a contemporary article in Architectural Review. The base of the building had four double story columns, the middle of the structure was a simple brick facade with subtle arts and crafts style inset decoration, and the top of the building was a mix of Gothic and Art Nouveau in style. In the 1930s what was once a bachelor hotel went the way other surrounding buildings and neighborhood, becoming a bit seedy. In 1943 the building's operator was convicted on charges of prostitution, owing to the fact that the eighth and ninth floors and a separate elevator were exclusively used by prostitutes and their clients. The building had its lower floor columns removed in the 1930s and replaced with a modern facade. In the early 1990s, the hotel (by then renamed the National) and the entire block front of Seventh Avenue between 41st and 42nd Streets was demolished for a 39-story building.

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.

Greenwich Savings Bank ARCHITECT: York & Sawyer DATE: 1922-24 STYLE: Ancient Roman Philip Sawyer, one of the architects, displayed his knowledge of ancient Roman prototypes, and his appreciation for the organization which characterizes eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French planning, in the adaptation of the Greenwich Savings Bank’s great, elliptical banking room and its accessory spaces, entrance vestibules, foyer, and upper loggias to the bank’s irregular four-sided site. The Greenwich Savings Bank’s interior displays Sawyer’s consummate skill in manipulating the classical architectural idiom to create a spatial allegory, a veritable temple to thrift in limestone, sandstone, and steel.

Built by Ned Harrigan in 1890 and named the Harrigan Theatre, the venue was taken over in 1895 by Richard Mansfield, who changed its name to the Garrick. Mansfield leased it to Charles Frogman, who managed it until his death in 1915, when it was sold at auction. It became the home of the Theatre Guild, and after the Guild relocated it became a burlesque house. Severely damaged by fire in 12932, it was demolished as a safety hazard.

McGraw-Hill Building ca. 1936 The McGraw Hill building located on 330 West 42nd Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues was designed in 1931 by architects Raymond Hood and Andre Fouilhoux to meet the specific needs of the McGraw-Hill publishing company that occupied ¾ of the building. With a series of setbacks on its north and south sides, in accordance with New York City's building and zoning codes and the programmatic needs of a book production factory, the McGraw Hill building from east and west has the appearance of an Art Deco stepped tower. From the north and south it appears as a sleek 33 story Commercial Slab building in the International Style. The shock value of its innovative materials, the first clad with machine made terracotta and glass in a provocative blue green color and Hood's avant-garde formal language sets it apart as one of the gems of the city, fondly called "The Jolly Green Giant."

New Amsterdam Theater ARCHITECT: Herts & Tallant DATE: 1902-03 STYLE: Art Nouveau This interior is a rare example of Art Nouveau architecture in New York City. Working in conjunction with sculptors, painters, and other craftsmen, the architects used the Art Nouveau style to carry out a dual theme: the representation of the spirit of drama and the theater and the representation of New Amsterdam in its historical sense as the City of New York. The ornament, sculpture, murals and color scheme are intrinsic parts of the overall scheme. It was designed with innovative and extensive technical facilities to make the New Amsterdam the best possible theater. Many notable artists worked on various aspects of the interior.

Built in 1883 as the New Park Theatre, and containing most of the interior fittings from the Booth Theatre, this playhouse was not successful until 1894 when it booked the Richard Mansfield Company and changed its name to the Herald Square Theatre. It turned to movies in 1912, was sold in 1914, and was torn down to make way for a garment industry building.

Cine 42 was a single screen movie theatre that opened in 1974 in a small space next to the New Amsterdam Theatre. The theatre was "twinned" (i.e. converted to two screens) four years later. The venue presented only kung-fu and schlocky movies, surviving until 1992. Today, the building serves as the box office for the neighboring Broadway theatre.

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.

McGraw-Hill Building. Entrance detail, October 4, 1931. ARCHITECT: Raymond Hood; Godley & Fouilhoux DATE: 1930-31 STYLE: Art Deco, Skyscraper Among its important qualities, the McGraw-Hill Building is a unique skyscraper, being both one of New York’s major Art Deco monuments and the herald of the newly emerging International Style. It was designed by the distinguished American architect Raymond Hood who achieved fame as a skyscraper designer. Among its outstanding features are the two profiles, one being a stepped tower and the other a slab, the distinctive blue-green terra-cotta facing, the horizontal window bands, and the entrance treatment. It was built to serve a distinguished American publisher. The building has received wide critical praise since its completion. The building is a key element in the revitalization of the west side.