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.

"First Avenue, north west corner of East 51st Street showing P.S. 135, 1920." Though most of the still standing ornate public school buildings in the five boroughs were designed by C.B.J. Snyder, BOE Superintendent of Buildings from 1891 to 1923, a few remain from an early time. Public School 35 (later no. 135) was the final structure designed by Snyder's predecessor George W. Debevoise. Built on the land of the once James Beekman mansion (built 1763), the Romanesque Revival building of brick and brownstone, with large window openings, was to house 1354 students. The school missed the opening of the 1892 school year and its next two planned opening dates in November and March 1893. After a fire in February 1893 and more than $15,000 in damage, the school finally opened in May. In 1897 the school became P.S 135 and the Assembly Hall was used for twice-weekly free lectures for adults. Later in its life, the school would become known for its dancing-as-gym program, open air classrooms during the tuberculosis scare of 1910s, and a fully-equipped school unit for children with cerebral palsy in the 1940s.

Gnome Products Building roof, 1933. Following a facade and storefront redesign in the early 1930s, the building at 316 East 59th Street because the fairytale-esque 'Home of the Gnomes." The bakery, which sold bread (often in unique shapes) used nearly every inch of their building as advertising. The gnome sitting on the roof, chomping on a bread roll, was best viewed from the entrance roadway to the Queensboro Bridge. Alas the rooftop gnome was removed by 1935 after the business was taken over by new owners and converted from a retail to an industrial bakery.

East 56th Street from Third Avenue, looking toward Lexington Avenue, 1940. On the north side of 56th Street is no. 141, completed in 1940. The 12-story building was designed by H.I. Feldman, a prolific city architect whose projects include the Park Lane Tower on Third Avenue between 85th and 86th Streets, the NYCHA LaGuardia Houses on the Lower East Side.

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.

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.

This synagogue building (seen at center at 221-223 East 51 Street) began its life as the Good Will Chapel, a Presbyterian mission of the nearby Madison Avenue Church, sometime in the late 19th century. The building was then purchased by Congregation Orach Chaim, a Orthodox congregation, in 1898. The congregation occupied the ornate building for only eight years before moving uptown to an even more elaborate structure. In 1906 the building was purchased by Congregation Beth Hamedrash Hachodosh Talmud Torah, an Orthodox synagogue established in 1901. By the mid 1950s the congregation had became a conservative synagogue known as the East 51st Street Synagogue. In the 1960s and 1970s many changes came to the building and the nearby streetscape. The congregation purchased the land at nos. 225 and 227 and constructed a new building, while also selling the parcel at no. 221 to the Rockefeller family. No. 221, along with two properties to the west, became Greenacre Park, a “vest pocket park,” with a 25 foot waterfall next door to the new Sutton Place Synagogue.

“55th Street, north side, east of Lexington Avenue. The church is the Swedish Baptist Church, and beyond it is the Babies Hospital. March 28, 1928.” In 1929, both the First Swedish Baptist Church and Babies Hospital left their 55th Street locations, the former for a new building on East 61st Street, while the latter shifted operations to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital on West 168th Street in Upper Manhattan.

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.

Loew's Lexington Theatre, 1925. This structure was originally called the Lexington Opera House and was opened by Oscar Hammerstein I in 1914. Due to a negotiation with the Metropolitan Opera which disallowed Hammerstein from staging opera, the so-called "opera house" opened with a program of vaudeville acts and films. Hammerstein sold the theater to Marcus Loew, who utilized it as one of his circuit's most popular venues. Leow's Lexington Theatre was kept in pristine condition, and the Beaux Arts design was hardly altered until its demolition in 1961. The theatre sat 2,500 and had 40 boxes. It was razed to make room for another of Loew's ventures, the Loew's Summit Hotel

An exterior photograph looking North on Lexington Avenue. The intersection at 55th Street is visible in the distance. Apartment houses line the street, with several businesses, such as a laundry and a grocer, occupying the ground floor. In the distance, there is a throng of pedestrians and streetcars and a horsedrawn carriage can be seen. To the extreme right, there is a statue of a Native American in front of a shop.

135 East 52nd Street, 1912. Constructed on land purchased with donations by a number of wealthy New York society women, the Young Women's Christian Association building was completed and dedicated in 1912. The building housed the national headquarters of the charity. The section of the building entered through 135 East 52nd Street was known as "the Annex;" it provided space for the National Board Training program and residences for its trainees. Affectionately known as as "600," it was the first building to be built in the United States solely for the use of a woman's movement. The National Board of the organization decided to sell the building (which they had received many previous offers for) in 1981. The building was demolished and redeveloped. The Y.W.C.A moved into a number of rented headquarters through the 1980s and 1990s, including a stint in the Empire State Building. Following a reorganization in 2003, they consolidated their activities into their Washington, D.C. office.

Hotel Beverly, 1930. Built in the "hotel alley" of Lexington Avenue north of Grand Central Terminal as part of the two decade development known as Terminal City, the Beverly Hotel was completed in 1927. Designed by Emery Roth with tiered, set back massing, the hotel was marketed to “sophisticated New Yorkers” and advertised their "many sunny outdoor terraces." The building's striking silhouette made it a favorite subject for artists. Today, the neo-Romanesque building is the boutique Hotel Benjamin, and has retained (or been returned to) its original appearance.

Church of St. John the Evangelist ca. 1928 Philip DiFalco constructed this model of an East Side parish church over a period of years while he lived at 304 East 59th Street with his father and sisters. The Church of St. John the Evangelist stood at First Avenue and 55th Street from 1881 into the 1970s. The parish had been founded in 1840, on East 50th Street. News coverage of the church's dedication noted that the edifice was 14th-century Gothic in style designed by architect Arthur Crooks, with a campanile tower on the north end and 18 large stained glass windows imported from Munich.

312 East 53rd Street CLIENT: R. V. J. Cunningham ARCHITECT: Robert & James Cunningham DATE: 1866 STYLE: French Second Empire This attractive little wood house, one of a pair, was built for R. V. J. Cunningham in 1866. Simple as it is, it nonetheless reflects faithfully the post-Civil War architecture so much influenced by French Second Empire models. Here are the Mansard roof and the carefully framed windows and front door, all displaying cornices carried on brackets. The arrangement of the windows is somewhat unusual as the two long ones at the left of the door follow an asymmetrical pattern, while the two above are symmetrically placed with reference to the center of the building, as are the two dormers above them. They are all the double-hung type with the broad central muntin intended to simulate casement windows. This was characteristic of our desire to look French while retaining the practicality of double hung windows.

General Electric Building, January 27, 1937. Built in 1931 as the RCA Victor Building, this 50-story skyscraper was designed by the firm of Cross & Cross. The building combines the general form of Gothic architecture (emphasized verticality,piers and butresses, and pinnacles) and Art Deco motifs and ornamentation. Both of the base and the tower boast fantastic design and ornamentation. The top of the tower has the look of Gothic tracery (or the stonework elements that support the glass in a Gothic window), but includes Deco depictions of electricity and radio waves. The facade of the building uses three brick colors (orange, buff, and tawny) which are also the brick colors of the adjacent domed St. Bartholomew's Church, which can be seen in this image at the bottom center.

Rosario Candela played a major role in shaping the architectural legacy of 20th-century Manhattan: the distinctive "prewar apartment buildings that define the cityscapes of streets like Park and Fifth Avenues and Sutton Place." Even today, almost a century after they were built, Candela's buildings rank among the most prized in the city.

Lexington Avenue between East 53rd and 54th Streets, ahead of subway construction. The northward extension of the IRT East Side Line, later dubbed the Lexington Avenue Line would be completed more than six years later, in 1918. This view includes two important landmarks of Lexington Avenue religious life: at left, the 1870s-era Central Synagogue; at far right (No. 619), St. Peter's Lutheran Church. The latter building has since been replaced with an angular granite structure described by the New York Times's David Dunlap as "New York’s most architecturally successful postwar sanctuary."

Gnome Products Building, ca. 1935. The bakery at no. 316, right next to the Queensboro Bridge entrance, entered the city directories in 1932. By the next year, the building was in the midst of a major renovation. In the 1920s and 1930s, with the rise of large chain and department stores, many smaller businesses aimed to standout in the streetscape by shaking up storefront design. Here the architects created a new storefront, new steeply pitched roofs, and a third story. The new look included dramatic signage that announced the building as 'Home of the Gnomes," a multipaned storefront and, of course, some painted gnomes dancing around a stalk of wheat on numerous exterior walls. The figure of a giant gnome leaning against the chimney eating a loaf of bread (mentioned in some of the articles about the building) seems to have already been removed by the time of this circa 1935 photograph. Described as a ''a Hansel and Gretel cottage," the look didn't last long. The retail bakery went bankrupt within its first few years and the next business owner (Gnome Bakers, an industrial bakery) supposedly replaced the ground level shop with a truck bay. Later used by a framer, an exterminator, and a kitchen furnishings store, the building has been converted into a quirky private residence (sans any exterior gnome imagery, unfortunately).

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.

The East 54th Street Baths opened in 1911 with 79 showers for men and 59 for women. In 1895 a New York State passed a law requiring that cities over 50,000 provided free public bathhouses. In the era of cramped tenement living (with no indoor plumbing), this socially progressive initiative allowed the city's working class a free sanitary facility. The neo-classical building also housed recreation activities such as a pool, gymnasium, jogging track, and basketball court. Despite its very functional purpose, the building featured unique and decorative interior and exterior details, including Guastavino tile vaulted ceilings and colorful brickwork patterns on the facade. Originally under the control of a newly formed city agency called the Public Recreation Commission, the baths and recreation center are now under the auspices of the Parks Department. And though the need for free public showers has changed, the building still houses recreational and athletic activities.

River House ca. 1932 The River House a luxurious 64-unit apartment building overlooking the East River. Designed by the architects Bottomley, Wagner and White in 1931 it has a 14-story U-shaped base creating a courtyard and a 26-story tower. This innovative grand gray brick and limestone building with elaborate detailing and terrace garden rooftop marked a turning point in the history of skyscraper housing; combining the courtyard with the tower. Vincent Astor, Archibald M. Brown, Edward B. Meyer and J. B. Patterson were among the residents in these exclusive accommodations located uncomfortably near dilapidated tenements. This very condition of extreme class distinction may have inspired Sidney Kingsley's play, Dead End.

"135, 137 and 139-141 East 55th Street (left to right), at, adjoining and east of the N.E. corner of Lexington Ave., showing the International Medical Centre (formerly the Babies Hospital); a four story residence and the American Music Hall (formerly the Swedish Baptist Church). September 18, 1937."

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.

Summit Hotel, undated postcard. The Summit Hotel (completed 1961) was the first major New York project for architect Morris Lapidus. Known for his oversized and somewhat garish Miami hotels (the Fontainebleau Hotel, particularly), Lapidus introduced a new type of building geometry to the staid rectangular forms of midtown. The 51st Street frontage is rendered as a subtle curve, with a uniform facade pattern of windows tucked between protruding white-brick masonry. Architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable said of the hotel: ''The Summit is a glittering display of gaudy confusion...\[m]osaics, marbles, woods, enamels, fabrics, synthetics, colors and crafts have been poured forth and combined with profligate abandon and aggressive insensitivity.'' Others have described it as jolly and welcome surprise among the city's grid. The architect himself noted many years after its completion that it was the "most hated" hotel in the city. But despite its scorn, it can be credited with—if not directly inspiring other eclectic building— at least laying the foundation for later experiments in architectural geometry. The hotel has changed hands a number of times in the last few decades and has had extensive alterations. Today it is the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Metropolitan. While many of the more ostentatious features have been removed or toned down, the groovy eight-story sign on the Lexington Avenue facade, which now spells out Doubleday on its oval protrusions, remains.

General Electric Building ARCHITECT: Cross & Cross DATE: 1929-31 STYLE: Art Deco Designed by the firm of Cross & Cross in the Gothic mode of the Art Deco style which is both symbolic and expressive of the function of the building, this tower is a major example of Art Deco architecture. The massing and articulation of the building, shown through the use of ornament and color, is remarkable and laudable. Not only does this treatment illustrate the breadth of the Art Deco, but it also gives the General Electric Building exemplary status. Moreover, the building is the successful culmination of the Cross & Cross firm’s efforts to develop a coherent and cohesive articulation for tall office buildings.

"First Ave., west side, south from East 52nd Street. Shown at the N.W. corner of East 51st Street, is P.S. No. 135, 1928." In 1960 the nearby P.S 53 opened and most of the students were moved into that school. For a decade and a half the massive school only housed the cerebral palsy unit, then the small UN International School and later a private school. In the late 1970s the school was sold to a developer who planned to demolish the building. The neighborhood reacted harshly and enacted a "Coalition to Save 931." The preservation efforts paid off as the building was listed on the National Register and the Board of Estimates confirmed the desire for preservation. The city put the building up for auction in 1983 with the caveat that the facade remain intact. More than a decade passed before appropriate plans were developed. Between 1996 and 2004 a proposal was agreed on, and construction commenced on a luxury high-rise apartment building which incorporated the exterior walls of P.S. 135.

Beverly Hotel (now The Benjamin) ARCHITECT: Emery Roth DATE: 1926-27 STYLE: Romanesque Above a handsome two-story arcaded limestone base (largely reconstructed) the upper stories of grayish-brown brick terminate in a series of skillfully modeled setbacks that rise toward a lofty octagonal tower with wheel windows that is topped by a pavilion with tile roof and copper finial. The Beverly Hotel is richly ornamented with stylized Romanesque motifs and incorporates details such as pelican and owl sculptures and warrior-head corbels.

Central Synagogue ARCHITECT: Henry Fernbach DATE: 1871-72 STYLE: Moorish Revival Central Synagogue is the oldest Jewish House of Worship in continuous service in the State of New York. Although the plan is Gothic in its arrangement, this stone Temple is our finest extant example of the Moorish Revival style in New York City. Dominating the East elevation are two striking octagonal towers, surmounted by globe-shaped domes enhanced by the patina of age. A prominent design element of this imposing facade is the largo handsomely enframed and geometrically constructed circular window, centered in the well decorated front wall which connects the two towers.

The Campanile (far left), 1932. The Campanile is a luxury co-op building that was completed in 1927. Designed by Van Wart & Wein, the 14-story building sits on a bluff at the end of a dead-end street. The Campanile is oriented toward the East River with balconies and bay windows on its eastern facade and once included a private entrance to the boat landing for the Mayfair Yacht Club. Famous tenants of 16 apartments included Greta Garbo, actor Rex Harrison, and members of the Heinz and Rothschild families. Alexander Woollcott, critic, member of the Alquonquin Roundtable and good friend to Dorothy Parker, lived here in the 1930s. Other members of the Roundtable visited and given its peculiar location considered naming the home, "The-Little-Apartment -on-the-East-River-That- It-Is-Difficult-to-Find-a-Taxi-cab-Near." Parker decided instead to call it "Wit's End."

Billy's Bar, December 8, 1936. The first location of Billy's Bar, opened in 1870, was on First Avenue near 56th Street. The bar moved in 1880 to the southeast corner of that intersection and remained there until 1966 when it moved south a couple blocks to 948 First Avenue. This 1936 Berenice Abbott photo depicts the large mahogany bar and original gas lanterns of interior in its longest occupied location at 1020 First Avenue. Billy's was a neighborhood and, truly, a city institution. The red checkered tables cloths, friendly long-term staff, and pricey American steakhouse meals – which most people agreed were not that good – greeted patrons for decades. A bar most often filled with regulars, generations of families dined here, starting off their meals with the cole slaw that arrived when they sat down, likely delivered by a waiter who had been working there for more than two decades. The restaurant's tenure at the 52nd Street and First Avenue location (post-1966) came with new interiors a and few new menu items, including vegetables (!), likely sometime in the 1980s, and pasta in 1991. After a run of 134 years Billy's closed in 2004.

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.

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!)

Destroyed trolley after an explosion near the Grand Central Terminal Powerhouse at 50th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues, December 1910. On December 19, 1910 an explosion at the New York Central Railroad's Sub Station killed 13 people and injured dozens of others. At 8:22 A.M. the massive explosion (likely two blasts, one from a gas issue and one from the dynamite kept in the still-being completed powerhouse) rocked the area. The blast threw up brick, stones, beams, and other building materials, tossing them hundreds of feet. Windows in the area were blown out and a passing trolley felt the brunt of the force, killing at least four passengers.

316 East 59th Street ca. 1935 The Gnome Products Company was a two story shop for “unusual bread and rolls” at 316 East 59th Street near the Queensboro bridge ramp. Renovated in 1933 by the American Architects Adams & Prentice, the building has a cottage charm complete with slanting pitched roofs, gingerbread details, timber columns, a medieval German Kitchen, and a large papier-mâché Gnome sitting on the roof welcoming passersby.