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

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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.

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.

West 40th Street Carnegie Library Branch, 1914. Completed in 1913 (relatively late for a Manhattan Carnegie) the West 40th Street Branch was designed by Cook & Welch. The architects had designed a number of other Carnegie libraries, including the Seward Park Branch. The neighborhood that surrounds is drastically different from when the building was constructed. Once flanked by four and five-story tenements, today the building is surrounded by the ramps and infrastructure of the Lincoln Tunnel, constructed in the mid 1930s. The library was decommissioned at some point in the late 20th century and was attached to a newer structure that was part of Covenant House, a charity that combats teenage homelessness. In 2020, the library was demolished to make way for redevelopment of the block.

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.

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

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.

246 West 38th Street, ca. 1923.

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.

41st Street Public Paths, ca. 1905. Built in 1904, this bath house was possibly one of the first to be demolished, according to NYC Bath House expert Michael Minn. Its address places it adjacent to or perhaps within the footprint of the 1931-built McGraw-Hill skyscraper. Though a 1956 seems to depict at least a section of the building in place and noted as a bath house.

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

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.

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."

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.