OSBOURNE APARTMENTS INTERIOR, MANHATTAN Address: 205 West 57th Street New York, NY 10019 Constructed:1885 The Osbourne’s interior is a remarkable gem within the bustle of ever-changing 57th Street in Manhattan. Completed in 1885, the building’s intact interior is evocative of the panache and glimmer that defined the Gilded Age. The space glows with warmth with and opulence, featuring Italian marble wainscoting and carved marble recesses with benches. The floors are mosaic tiles and marble, and the arched ceiling is treated in vibrant in hues of red, blue and gold. Designed to resemble a vertically-extended Renaissance palazzo, the Osborne, built in 1883-85, is the second oldest luxury apartment building in New York--preceded by the venerable Dakota. The building is a massive rectangular structure constructed of heavy Romanesque-Revival-inspired rock-faced stone blocks. The architect of the Osborne, James Edward Ware (1846-1917), frequently combined Renaissance and Romanesque elements to his work. Ware practiced in New York for many years, establishing his office in 1869 and joining in partnership with sons Franklin and Arthur in 1899. Ware was an extremely versatile architect, designing buildings for many different uses. The Osbourne is named for Thomas Osborne, a stone contractor who began the construction of the apartment building in 1883. Unfortunately, the cost of the building led Osborne to bankruptcy and the structure was completed by John Taylor, a hotel developer who had lent Osborne money. The Taylor family retained control of the Osborne until 1961, when it became a cooperative. Because of its location, the Osborne has long been known as the "residential Carnegie Hall" and has been home to such musical and theatrical luminaries as Leonard Bernstein, Van Cliburn, Shirley Booth, Lynn Redgrave, and Gig Young. Reflecting the influence of an Italian Renaissance palazzo, the Osborne is horizontally divided into four symmetrical sections, each of which was originally crowned by a cornice. The modest cornice at the top of the building has been removed and the lower two cornices have lost their classical balustrades. On 57th Street the cornices do not continue across the entire facade, reflecting the presence of a 1906 addition by owner/architect Alfred S.G. Taylor at the western end of the building. The distinctive stone facing and the subtly curving bays, as well as the bartizan-like forms at the corners, are among the notable features of the facades. The major portion of the Osborne has eleven floors, but the rear, visible on Seventh Avenue, has fifteen stories, creating duplex levels for many of the apartments. The street level has been altered for commercial use. The Osborne has a sumptuous ground floor interior. The entrance vestibule and the lobby have ornate mosaics, marble, leaded glass, gold-leafed ornament, coffered ceilings, and murals. The design is attributed to John LaFarge, the noted 19th-century American artist.

St. Regis Hotel ARCHITECT: Trowbridge & Livingston DATE: 1901-04 STYLE: Beaux-Arts, Hotel The St. Regis Hotel is one of the most elegant and sophisticated Beaux-Arts style buildings in New York. Among the oldest of the early “skyscraper” hotels, it rises nineteen stories above the intersection of Fifth Avenue and East 55th Street. Begun in 1901, it was designed as the city’s most luxurious hotel by the firm of Trowbridge & Livingston. The st. Regis was commissioned by John Jacob Astor whose family had built the city’s first luxury hotel, the Astor House of 1836. The St. Regis is still one of the most important buildings on Fifth Avenue, contributing to the avenue’s fashionable character, reminding us all of its extraordinarily rich past.

Trans-Lux Theatre, 1937 Opened on May 16th, 1931, this was one of the city's first purpose-built "twin" cinemas. This second Trans-Lux theatre occupied the retail space of the new Lecourt (later Brill) Building. Its two small auditoriums each had its own box office and entrance, but they shared the wide marquee seen here. Opened during the Depression the twin theatres, which showed newsreels, shorts, and cartoons. The struggling venue limped along until 1937 when boxing champion Jack Dempsey and his business partner took over the space for a self-branded eatery. The Jack Dempsey’s Broadway Bar and Cocktail Lounge opened in 1937 and survived in the Brill Building until 1974. After vacating this space, Trans-Lux opened a much more successful, single-screen theatre at 1607 Broadway.

"Upwardly mobile, both literally and figuratively, in 1877 Belle Huntington moved with seven-year-old Archer from 109 Lexington Avenue, near 28th Street, to a large house uptown at 4 West 54th Street. By now a studious autodidact, passionately interested in art and interior design, she gutted the house, added a wing, and installed a stunning array of opulent features, including rosewood paneling, a stained glass skylight, brocade wall coverings, a Moorish smoking room, Turkish bath, Japanese bedroom and — the piece de resistance — one of the first Otis elevators in a private home. In June 1884, in her parlor, Arabella Yarrington Worsham married the recently widowed Collis P. Huntington — for the second time… Shortly after her wedding, Belle sold her furnished house on 54th Street to John D. Rockefeller, Sr. who, except for new carpets, barely changed a thing. And so Belle’s exuberant and imaginative Gilded Age decor remained intact until shortly after Rockefeller’s death in 1937, when his son demolished the building to make way for the construction of the Museum of Modern Art." Continue reading Margaret A. Brucia's profile of Archer Milton Huntington (co-founder of The Hispanic Society of America and other cultural institutions) in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History.

Bimbo, “the heroic pup,” was a cartoon star before he became the boyfriend of Betty Boop, who originally was drawn with long dog ears. When censorship became a part of the film industry, and as Betty Boop lost her canine features, Bimbo was replaced by a human male, “Fearless Fred.” Readers were instructed to cut out the successive images of Bimbo and practice animation themselves.

Radio City Music Hall ca. 1976 Radio City, and indeed all of Rockefeller Center, came out of a plan to move the Metropolitan Opera. In the late 1920s, a plan had sprung to use the Rockefeller site to build a new opera house, but due to a lack of an endowment and various internal issues, it was canceled. However, John D. Rockefeller Jr. had been brought in to the prospective plan and had no desire to leave the plan alone. Striking a deal with RCA, Rockefeller imagined Rockefeller Center (and Radio City) to be developed as a media center with large theatres. Theater mogul Samuel Roxy Rothafel, having joined the advisory board in 1930, suggested they build two theaters: The International Music Hall on the north side of the center and the RKO Roxy Theater on the south side of the center. While the design of both theaters was in the hands of Edwin Durell Stone and Donald Deskey, Roxy strived to create a more modern theater through his suggestions. Roxy envisioned a more sleek, oval theater that somewhat eschewed the tiered seatings of others. In its design, Stone matched Radio City Music Hall's exterior to the rest of Rockefeller Center in its use of limestone but designed its now-iconic signs to distinguish it. For its interior, Stone conceived of a grand foyer with high ceilings, a curved staircase, and a 220 square meter mural "Quest for the Fountain of Eternal Youth" painted by Ezra Winter. Deskey supposedly was appalled by Stone's design and created the rococo interior of the theater to help make it palatable in his eyes. Construction began in December of 1931, and a year later, the Radio City Music Hall (the name change from the International Music Hall Stemming from the partnership with RKO) was ready for a lavish public opening. The Rockettes had already made it their home and Roxy had planned a series of elaborate acts. The opening, as it turned out, was a colossal failure, boring even the center's patron John D. Rockefeller, but the design was immediately beloved. Initially running a huge deficit, Radio City Music Hall was forced to begin showing feature films and its mixed film and stage format made it successful. It became a go-to New York venue for premieres and until the 1970s would complete 4 performances of their "spectacle" a day. While in the 60s the hall flourished with millions of visitors, the 70s marked a decline for the theater. On April 12th, 1978, the Music Hall closed its doors, having projected a multi-million dollar loss for the year. With the theater's future in jeopardy, a huge campaign arose to save it. Its interior was landmarked, it was added to the national register of historic places, and many of its devotees protested and voiced their support. Rockefeller Center eventually ended up renovating the Music Hall and changing up its performance roster. Through diversification, use as a venue, and a multitude of strategies, in 1985, the Music Hall posted its first profit in three decades. Since renovated again, the Radio City Music Hall continues to operate and serve up shows such as its famous Radio City Christmas Spectacular.

In 1835, artist and entrepreneur Jared Bell pioneered the large-format poster, which was rich with vivid colors to advertise a circus. By 1918, bold imagery and slogans calling attention to food, medicines, and entertainment filled New York's already saturated visual field.

Ogden Goelet Mansion (at right), ca. 1915. The Goelet family arrived in New York in the 17th century and began their real estate acquisitions early on. Ogden Goelet, made rich by the inherited wealth of his bachelor uncle and father, commissioned architect E. H. Kendall to design him a grand mansion. The four-story stone home, complete with light moat and ornate dormers and chimneys, was even more extravagant on the inside, with interiors designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany's early design firm called Associated Artists. The home was finished in 1884 and celebrated with a small society party of 500! The home hosted lavish events for the next few decades before being razed in 1930, following the death of Odgen's wife the year before. It was the last large mansions on Fifth Avenue below Central Park to be demolished.

1231 Sixth Avenue, ca. 1937. The crowd here on the west side of Sixth Avenue between 48th and 49th Streets stand in front of a number of employment agencies. These include the Claremont Agency at no. 1231, the Atlantic Hippodrome Employment Agency at no. 1233, and the Geneva Agency at no. 1235. Though undated, the scene belies the massive employment lines that crowded New York streets for much of the Depression. The 50th Street station of the Sixth Avenue Elevated line is seen in the background. Service on this line ceased in late 1938 and it was razed in 1939, dating this photo to sometime prior.

Alvin Theatre, September 1935. Built in 1927 as the Alvin Theatre, the Broadway house was designed by architect Herbert J. Krapp for the developer and real estate mogul Alexander Pincus. The name Alvin was a portmanteau of the names of producers Alex Aarons and Vinton Freedley. The theatre opened with a premiere of George and Ira Gershwin's 'Funny Face' with Fred and Adele Astaire. Gershwin also had his best known musical 'Porgy and Bess' premiere here in 1935. The theatre was renamed for playwright Neil Simon in 1977, after the Nederlander Organization bought the building. In the 1980s the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated a number of Broadway Theatres, including this one (in 1985).

On Sunday, October 12, 1823, a new Protestant Episcopal congregation was organized in a meeting room at 44 Broome Street. In July 1824, in accordance with the resolutions of that congregation, the cornerstone for the new St. Thomas Church was laid at the intersection of Broadway and Houston Street. By 1866 this part of town had turned seedy, impelling the worshippers to build a new church, which endures, at 53rd Street and Fifth Avenue. Saint Thomas's current structure, finished in 1914 and the fourth church built for the congregation, was designed in the French High Gothic Revival style by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue and Ralph Adams Cram.

James J. and Josephine Goodwin Residence ARCHITECT: McKim, Mead & White; Charles F. McKim; William Mead DATE: 1896-98 STYLE: Neo-Georgian This distinguished residence was built in 1896-98 for James Junius Goodwin, a prominent New York businessman. Designed in the neo-Georgian style by the firm of McKim, Mead & White, it is a handsome reminder of the fashionable townhouses that once characterized the West Fifties between Fifth and Sixth Avenues and is one of an ensemble of five townhouses on West 54th Street.

The Albermarle, ca. 1975. Opened in 1903 as the Hotel Carlton, this Beaux Arts structure stood 11 stories and hosted some of the city's high society. Over the next few decades, the hotel saw numerous name changes, broken windows from no less than two underground explosions (1912 and 1913), and thousands of tenants, well-behaved and overwise. In the mid-1920s former actress and speakeasy proprietor Mary Louise Cecelia "Texas" Guinan opened Club Intime in the basement of the then-Hotel Harding. Despite Prohibition, the club served alcohol and featured scantily clad entertainment. (Upon her many arrests for liquor law violations, she always insisted her wealthy patrons brought their own liquor.) Dorothy Parker and her friends enjoyed drinking here. Club Intime closed and was soon replaced with a new spot which was just as notorious (this time as a mob hangout). Renovated by Emery Roth in 1936, the hotel became a more traditional apartment house and today goes by one of its earlier names, The The Albemarle. The cozy bar in the building now called The Flute has hosted social events for the Dorothy Parker Society for more than 20 years.

The Museum of Primitive Art (far left, No. 15), Nelson Rockefeller townhouse (second from left, No. 13), ca. 1971 Rockefeller, the four-term Governor of New York and Vice President under Gerald Ford, founded the Museum of Primitive Art in 1954, in one of two twin townhouses he owned on West 54th Street. In 1979, he died of a heart attack at 13 West 54th Street. Rockefeller's death became something of a tabloid scandal after it emerged that he died not at his Rockefeller Center office, as initial reports had claimed, but at an office in the West 54th Street townhouse, where he had been in the company of a younger female aide. The buildings at center and right are the Rhodes School (Nos. 9-11) and No. 7 West 54th Street.

St. Regis Hotel ca. 1905 If one had sought out the most handsomely decorated hotel in Manhattan in the early nineteen-hundreds, one might well have turned to the new St. Regis, where rich marbles, bronze, and wood were displayed in a series of splendid salons, corridors, and suites designed by the firm of Trowbridge & Livingston. Today these glowing bronze doors still greet the visitor on arrival.

Radio City Music Hall (Rockefeller Center) ARCHITECT: Associated Architects DATE: 1931-32 STYLE: Art Deco The Radio City Music Hall is the only surviving Art Deco theater in the country to incorporate so great a variety of architectural, artistic, and decorative features. When the Music Hall was completed in 1932 it was rapidly recognized both nationally and internationally for its artistic and technical excellence and it was considered one of the finest designs in the history of modern theater. The artwork in the Music Hall was executed in novel materials by the leading designers, sculptors, and artists of the period. The auditorium of the Music Hall incorporates many unusual features, such as shallow balconies and side ramps. The great arched ceiling of the auditorium incorporates the complex lighting system as well as the air-conditioning and sound equipment. It is the only theater of its kind in the country, making it a principal attraction to New Yorkers and tourists.

Jack and Charlie's "21," date unknown The story of the bar that ended up here at 21 West 52nd Street began downtown. Cousins Jack Kriendler and Charlie Berns opened a speakeasy called the Red Head on East 4th Street in 1922. Jack and Charlie's venture moved to 88 Washington Place (it was called the Fronton here) and then 42 West 49th Street (called the Puncheon Club here). The Puncheon Club became one of the most popular speakeasies in town, with famous actors, artists, and politicians as regulars. They were forced out of their 49th Street digs by the development of Rockefeller Center in the late 1920s. Reopened as "Jack and Charlie's 21" here circa 1930, the club continued its illicit activities. They had clever ways to avoid detection. If the case of a raid, employees would push a button to enact a system of levers used to tip the shelves of the bar, sweeping the bottles down a chute and into the city's sewer system. After Prohibition ended the venue continued as a bar (legally) and restaurant. Supposedly a number of celebrities and politicians (JFK, Elizabeth Taylor, Sammy Davis, Jr. to name a few) have stored their personal wine collections here. Known today at the 21 Club, the 37 jockeys that line the facade remain (and even got a restoration in 2015).

My Archive Summer 2019 "In 1996 we got married at the now-demolished Roseland Ballroom off Times Square.. the first and last time our names were on a Marquis. We finally found a place to host 600 people at an affordable rate. This old dance hall had seen better days but we all fit in. It was a hoot." —Brocha Metzger @gothamfairytales

American Fine Arts Society ARCHITECT: Henry J. Hardenbergh DATE: 1891-92 The arched, main entrance doorway is well decorated, being flanked by tall, ornate, candelabra-like spindles executed in stone. The surface, surrounding the three gracefully arched second floor windows, is embellished with rich decoration, and these three arches are likewise separated by large sculptured stone spindles. Above them, on the third floor, three triple windows with mullions are flanked by pilasters, decorated with a profusion of detail. A balustrade, adorned with delicate urns, and the low pitched red-tiled roof add a touch of stability and color to this distinguished building.

Ziegfeld Theatre, ca. 1927. Constructed in 1927 by architect Joseph Urban, the Ziegfeld Theatre was the William Randolph Hearst-funded brainchild of Florenz Ziegfeld. Urban had also been a set designer for the Ziegfeld Follies in the 1910s and as a movie designer for Hearst's production company in the 1920s. The theatre was owned and managed by Ziegfeld until his death in 1932, at which point it became a movie theatre. In 1943 theatre impresario, showman and lyricist Billy Rose purchased the building for his productions. He remained successful in this location for about a decade but business declined in the mid 1950s, likely due to its location further uptown than the popular theatre district. Rose leased the space for filming television shows starting in 1955, and reopened it a Broadway theatre for a brief stint in 1965. He also purchased some adjacent lots in the hopes of selling to a developer. He died in 1966 and his estate did just that. A skyscraper was built on the site, which from 1969 until 2016 included a single screen movie theatre called "The Ziegfeld." The 1927 theatre was a gorgeous Art Deco limestone building with a bowed facade decorated with classically based ornamentation rendered in Deco and modernist forms. The large oval shaped auditorium, which sat 1660 patrons, was topped by a colorful mural of overlapping medieval, biblical, and literary scenes on the ceiling.

Central Substation, IND Subway, entrance detail, ca. 1994. Much of the infrastructure for the IND subway lines are designed in an Art Deco syle owing to their construction in the late 1920s and 1930s. This Central Substation was the largest of the IND powerhouses. The building is four-stories and constructed of a tan brick. Completed in 1932, the Art Deco lettering and ornamentation above the doors and at the roofline still remains.

Built on the site of the Capitol Theater, the Uris Building was built in 1970. Designed by Emery Roth and Sons, the 48 story tower was developed and owned by the Uris brothers. Following a series of vacancies in the 70s, the building was sold to Paramount.

Americana Hotel, ca. 1970. Constructed on the plot that was once occupied by a massive Moorish castle-esque warehouse, the Americana of New York was one of the tallest hotels in the world when completed in 1962. It was also the first hotel with over 1000 rooms to be built since the Waldorf-Astoria in 1931. Designed by Morris Lapidus, better known for his "Miami Modern" style, the Americana was rendered in a bent slab style with some modern flourishes at the ground level entrance. The hotel hosted famous performers at its supper club, The Royal Box. It also was the location for a number of political events, serving as Democratic headquarters for the 1976 Democratic National Convention and 1980 Democratic National Convention. In early November 1972, Brooklyn Congressman Shirley Chisholm stood up in front of 1300 supporters to announce her intention to run for the Presidency. The hotel still stands today as the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel and remains one of the tallest hotels in the world.

Chalmers Knitting Mill was founded in Amsterdam, New York (on the Mohawk River, northwest of Schenectady) in 1901. They used a revolutionary knitting process to manufacture long underwear (which was a ubiquitous article of clothing for men at the time). The patented process was called 'Porosknit,' and it left small holes in material allowing a person’s skin to breathe (union suits up to that point were usually hot and uncomfortable). They later further transformed the underwear market in the 1910s by dividing the union suit into two pieces — top and bottom. (oh happy day!) The underwear company had an uneven financial history but tended to do well during war years as they manufactured goods for the military. 1917 must have been a flush year as they were able to afford a fancy electric sign in the prime location of Times Square!

Art Deco architecture flourished in Europe and the United States during the 1920s and 1930s. Spurred by the 1925 Paris exhibition Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes which boasted over 16 million visitors, structures such as the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building began dotting the New York City skyline. The following are photos from MCNY's collection that struck me as particularly beautiful in their exemplification of Art Deco architecture.

My Archive Spring 2019 "I love old photographs of buildings and architecture, especially if my family is in them! This is my beautiful Mom, Maria Bambace Lofaro, who had immigrated from Italy a few years before this photo was taken, so this must be around 1953-54? A family friend or relative must have taken it. This could have been a big outing for my Mom because she lived in Greenwich Village, and they ventured to Midtown." —Mary Lofaro

Alvin Theater ARCHITECT: Herbert J. Krapp DATE: 1926-27 STYLE: Neo-Georgian, Adamesque The Alvin Theater survives today as one of the historic theaters that symbolize American theater for both New York and the nation. It was designed for Alex Aarons and Vinton Freedley, producers of some of Broadway’s most successful musical comedies. The facade designed for the Alvin by Herbert J. Krapp, the most prolific designer of Broadway theaters, is an exceptionally handsome neo-Georgian design. This facade, based on elegant proportions and Adamesque detailing, distinguished the theater headquarters of Aarons and Freedley, and as such represents a special aspect of the nation’s theatrical history. The Alvin Theater Interior was designed in Adamesque style. The elegant Adamesque detailing distinguished the theater headquarters of Aarons and Freedley, a company that produced some of Broadway’s most successful musical comedies. It represents a special aspect of the nation’s theatrical history.

Rockefeller Apartments ARCHITECT: Harrison & Fouilhoux DATE: 1935-37 STYLE: Apartment Rockefeller Apartments were commissioned by John D. Rockefeller,Jr., and Nelson Rockefeller. Rockefeller Apartments changed the current standards in apartment house planning, giving 15 percent more space to light and air than required by the building codes. Other apartment house plans sought only to provide the maximum number of livable and rentable rooms using every available inch.

Manhattan Storage, 1936. Constructed in 1899 as a warehouse for the Manhattan Storage Company, this massive building was designed by the firm of J. E. Ware & Son. Ware was most famously known as the creator of the "dumbbell" or "old law" design of New York City tenement buildings. He won a tenement design contest in 1879 organized by a magazine in response to the new housing law that required air shafts.

My Archive Summer 2019 “My family is on the way to Radio City for my birthday celebration. But what is a visit to the city without going to Rockefeller Center? I love the hats my sister and I are wearing. That was when you dressed up to go to the City. We were from Bayside, Queens, so Manhattan was always the City. We are wearing hats and white gloves.” —Marueen Engeleit

Museum of Modern Art, 1976. The Museum of Modern Art began as the brainchild of three women in 1929: Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Lillie P. Bliss, and Mary Quinn Sullivan. The women rented rooms in the Heckscher building on Fifth Avenue with the idea of creating a museum that championed modern art, especially the new European modernist artists. Bringing in A. Conger Goodyear as the museum's president as well as other influential trustees, Rockefeller and co were able to open to the public in November of 1929. Abby's husband (John D. Rockefeller Jr.) wouldn't pay for the endeavor as it began and the Museum had several temporary sites after the Heckscher building, including Rockefeller Center. However, he eventually donated land for MOMA's permanent (and current) home. It was in 1939 that the MOMA's new site, notable for architects Philip L. Goodwin and Edward Durrell Stone's international design, opened to the public

The design and craftsmanship within the spaces Goelet Building make it among the finest examples of an Art Deco commercial interior. The marble polychromy, the horizontal and vertical battens, the inlay, and the aluminium leaf, characteristic components of the Art Deco, effectively define the sequence of these spaces. Robert Goelet, a financer, and real estate developer wished a building that would be comparable in architectural merit and prestige to the family mansion it replaced and would also complement the use and appearance of the buildings of the adjacent Rockefeller Center, then under construction. The decoration of the ceilings covered with aluminum leaf, with the exception of the Goelet swan, a specific and realistic referent to the client, offers a broad range of stylized and geometricized Art Deco elements.

W.H. Vanderbilt Residences ca. 1898 William H. Vanderbilt purchased the entire block front on the west side of Fifth Avenue between 51st and 52nd streets in 1879, having recently inherited a fortune from his father, Cornelius Vanderbilt. Architects John B. Snook and Charles Atwood designed twin houses connected by a glass atrium and entrance vestibule, and the famed Herter Brothers decorated the houses with such extravagance that Artistic Houses devoted 17 pages to its interiors upon their completion in 1883. W.H. Vanderbilt and his wife lived in the southern house, while their two daughters and sons-in-law occupied the other.

Rodin Studios, 1922. Conceived as a studio-residence for prosperous artists in the 1910s, the Rodin Studios were the project of painter John Fry, his wife Georgia Timkey Fry, and painter Lawton S. Parker. Named for the sculptor Auguste Rodin, the architect Cass Gilbert designed a striking Gothic facade clad in sculptural terra cotta. When completed in 1917, the building included retail and offices on the lower floors for additional income. The upper floors were studios, studios with adjacent living spaces, and duplex apartments. In 1926 novelist Theodore Dreiser and his wife moved into the Rodin. They held a weekly Thursday night gathering of a diverse cross section of New York society, inviting financial tycoons, writers, artists, critics and social scientists. By the turn of the 21st century most of Gilbert's interiors were long gone. The ornate exterior was in bad condition, with chucks of terra cotta falling to the streets below. The building underwent a massive restoration. 235 historic wood window were renovated and terra cotta sections were replaced with new casts. Finally the 8-foot tall cornice was removed and replaced with new structural steel and glass fiber reinforced concrete replicas.

Alwyn Court, February 15, 1938. A 12-story apartment building, Alwyn Court was a ''studio palace'' co-op built between 1907 and 1909. Dreamed up by the artist Walter Russell (who would leave the project early) and developer Alwyn Ball Jr, the building was designed by the architects Harde & Short. Led by Ball's vision, the apartment house became one of the most luxurious in the city. A 32-room duplex within the building was listed at $22,000 per year. The mostly iconic feature of the building though was the intricate terra cotta facade. Created by the Atlantic Terra Cotta Company the entrance includes Gothic details while the rest is of French Renaissance styling. The building was advertised as an appropriate residential replacement for costly private homes. (Apartments were still palatial. They required less staff. And repairs were taken care of quickly by building staff!) Some of the original residents included Jacob Wertheim, president of United Cigar Stores, and Frederick Steinway, president of the piano company. Though popular in the 1910s, the building was largely empty by the late1930s. The building's owners foreclosed and the building was gutted, with 75 smaller apartments replacing to two dozen original ones, and major alterations of the facade. In the 1980s the building went through a co-op conversion. The facade, though spectacular, has required a near constant effort of regular and continual cleaning and replacing damaged sections.

RFK was interviewed on WEVD radio, an indication of the Forward’s deep support of progressive politics. The call letters are the initials of American socialist leader Eugene V. Debs, who was a candidate for president four times, including once from prison, where he was serving time for defying a court injunction against a strike.

Sperry-Rand Building, September 11, 1963. Designed by the firm of Emery Roth & Sons, the massive Sperry-Rand Building, completed in 1963, stand 43-stories high and includes two million square feet of space. In the 1970s the Sperry Corporation, which had been founded in Brooklyn in 1910 to manufacture navigation equipment, sold typewriters, office equipment, electronic digital computers for business and the military, farm and aviation equipment, and consumer products like razors. These items were each produced under their own separate businesses but they formed the Sperry conglomerate.

Each month the Landmarks Conservancy highlights New York City’s extraordinarily rich architectural heritage by featuring a different building style or function. As the City we love continues to reopen we are proud to celebrate the return of Broadway and the magic of live theater and will feature many of the majestic houses that have hosted iconic music and memorable performances across the decades.

Church of St. Mary the Virgin Complex ARCHITECT: Napoleon Le Brun & Sons; Pierre Le Brun DATE: 1894-1985 STYLE: Gothic-inspired St. Mary’s was designed to evoke, in the church and Lady Chapel, the 13th-century French Gothic style and, in the Rectory, Clergy and Mission Houses, the 14th-century French Gothic style. The result is one of the finest Gothic-inspired designs of New York’s late 19th-century. The steel frame construction of the church can be said to have made the building the first of its kind and size in the world, thus redefining the conventional methods of ecclesiastical building construction. Among the building’s several specific Anglo-catholic characteristics are the subjects selected for the sculptures of J. Massey Rhind.

Alwyn Court Offering a complete contrast to many contemporary buildings which are totally devoid of ornament, this structure has scarcely one square inch of surface which is not decorated. The salamander, symbol of Francois I, is much in evidence, and most of the ornament here employed is that borrowed from Italy during the early phase of the French Renaissance.

Rockefeller Center at Christmas, ca. 1945 While the official Christmas tree tradition at Rockefeller Center began in 1933– when 30 Rockefeller Plaza opened, its tradition began during the Depression-era construction when workers decorated a smaller 20 foot tree on Christmas Eve. According to Rockefeller Center, workers pooled money for that tree with the garlands made by workers' families.

Sixth Avenue El demolition at 50th Street, 1939. Constructed in the 1870s, the Sixth Avenue El was the second elevated line erected in the city (after the Ninth Avenue El). After nearly 60 years of shadowing Sixth Avenue, shaking its adjacent buildings, and dropping all sorts of debris from its tracks, the Sixth Avenue El's death knell was sounded when the city began work on the underground Sixth Avenue Line in 1936. The city purchased the line for $12.5 million and made plans for its demolition. Following a loud and boisterous trip, as passengers stripped the train car for souvenirs, the final IRT Sixth Avenue Elevated train rumbled into the station at 53rd Street and Eighth Avenue at 11:26pm on December 4, 1938. The last passengers made off with destination signs, light bulbs, and straps, all the while smoking cigarettes in flagrant disregard of the printed signage (which was likely stolen too)! The process of razing the elevated structure began in early 1939. The Wurts Brothers captured this crowded process of demolition at 50th Street. The IND Sixth Avenue Line opened in December 1940, two years and one week after the elevated ceased operations.

13 West 54th Street House (far left) ARCHITECT: Henry J. Hardenbergh DATE: 1896-97 This handsome townhouse was built in 1896-97 as one of a pair with No. 15 West 54th Street for William Murray, a prominent businessman from Larchmont, New York. Designed in a Renaissance-inspired style by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh, the residence is a distinguished example of the fashionable townhouses that once characterized the West Fifties between Fifth and Sixth Avenues and is one of an ensemble of five townhouses on West 54th Street.

Completed in 1961, the Equitable Life Assurance Building was designed in the International style by the firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (architects of Lever House and the Manufacturers Hanover Trust, among others). With this new building, the Equitable Company moved uptown from its long-held (and disaster-tinged) location at 120 Broadway. The building includes a 42-story main tower and a 14-story mid-block wing. Rendered in a glass curtain wall with low profile aluminum spandrels, the building appears to have a glassier facade than it truly does. The occupancy of the building was well announced with massive lighted signage at the top floors. Once reading Equitable, the lighted sign now declares UBS the building's major tenant.

Chickering Hall, the American Piano Company (Ampico) building, West 57th Street; January 1, 1925.

Museum of Modern Art, 1939. In 1929, Lillie P. Bliss, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller and Mary Quinn Sullivan founded the Museum of Modern Art to encourage and promote the schools of modern art developing abroad. The museum's 1939 glass-and-steel building, designed by Philip L. Goodwin and Edward Durrell Stone, remains a striking architectural presence in the museum.

Roxy Theatre ca. 1932 One of the great, lost movie theaters of New York City, the RKO Roxy Theatre was like a little sibling to Radio City Music Hall, both of which opened in December 1932 on the Sixth Avenue side of Rockefeller Center. It wasn’t as large or as sumptuous as Radio City, but it still boasted a distinctively elegant Art Deco design. Intended to be a movie palace, it claimed to have the largest chandelier in the world in its auditorium, and when visitors weren’t busy enjoying the entertainment, they could descend from the Grand Foyer to the Grand Lounge in the theater’s basement. In spite of the building’s charms, however, it was never a great commercial success. Known as the Center Theater for most of its existence, it tried hosting live shows, television broadcasts, and even some ice skating, before eventually being demolished in 1954.

30 Rock ca. 1938 Rockefeller Center has a visionary dimension: it materialized a microcosm of the twenties' ideal, rationalized city of the future. Unprecedented in its sweeping scale of "urban renewal" (decades before the term was invented), Rockefeller Center replaced three full city blocks of low-rise, low-rent buildings, stretching from Forty-eighth to Fifty-first Streets between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, with a skyscraper complex of more than a dozen mixed-use buildings, with its multiple towers, widely spaced for sunlight and views. The centerpiece of the harmonious architectural ensemble was the seventy-story RCA Building, a tower that took the new form of a "slab," rather than the stepped pyramid produced by the zoning law, and that achieved a titanic scale, a volume of more than two million square feet, that was matched only by the Empire State Building. Raymond Hood and Harvey Wiley Corbett collaborated as key senior figures on the Center's larger team of designers, called the Associated Architects of Rockefeller Center. In the earliest stages of the design, Corbett advised on the overall site plan, advocating for plazas and arcades, a two-story commercial mall that bridged the cross streets, and separate pedestrian and vehicular zones, as in his visionary proposals. Hood's major contributions to Rockefeller Center were the massing of the RCA Building and the introduction of roof gardens throughout the complex.xtensive development of roof areas as interlocking gardens and a lofty observation deck created a romantic landscape in the sky that surpassed the visionary drawings by Hugh Ferriss of the early 1920s. Raymond Hood saw roof gardens as a transformative element in the modern metropolis. He objected to ìthe dirty-brown cluttered waste of unrelieved ugliness which is the roof view of New York we have accepted as inevitable.î Instead, as he wrote in "Hanging Gardens of New York," The New York Times Magazine article shown here, tower occupants could enjoy "a picture to which art and nature have contributed color and design with a note of gayety." Hood proposed nearly seven acres of gardens for Rockefeller Center, covering two thirds of the total roof area. To sell this idea to his businessmen clients, Hood emphasized the gardens' economic value. Water H. Kilham Jr., who worked on the project, recounted how Hood approached the developmentís manager J. R. Todd, disingenuously inquiring how much rental value might be gained if the Center's towers overlooked an open space like Bryant Park. When Todd replied "Around an additional dollar per square foot." Hood exclaimed: "A dollar, Mr. Todd! . . .Do you know there will be about seven acres of roof over the lower parts of Radio City? A lot of office space will look out over those roofs. At a dollar more per square foot extra you could afford to landscape those roofs like the hanging gardens of Babylon." Not long afterward, Kilham recalled, "the architectural sculptor RenÈ Chambellan was indicating foliage in plasticine on the model of the roofs, and I was working out a system of wire netting that would retain the roots of trees so they wouldnít blow over in the relatively shallow soil." About four acres of gardens were actually constructed at Rockefeller Center.

Brill Building ARCHITECT: Victor A. Bark, Jr. DATE: 1930-31 STYLE: Art Deco Designed in the Art Deco style by architect Victor A. Bark, Jr., the white brick elevations feature handsome terra-cotta reliefs, as well as two niches that prominently display stone and brass portrait busts that most likely portray the developer’s son, Alan, who died as the building was being planned. A remarkable number of tenants have been music publishers, but the building is also notable for attracting an evolving roster of songwriters, booking agents, vocal coaches, publicity agents, talent agents, and performers

Sohmer Piano Showroom, 1922. This lot on 57th Street was once occupied by the Rothschild mansion, a 19th century brownstone-fronted Italianate rowhouse. In the 1910s as this neighborhood was moving from residential buildings to commercial structures, Sohmer Piano Company leased the plot at no. 31. The rowhouse was demolished and a new six-story commercial building was erected for the piano firm. Randolph H. Almiroty designed a Italian-inspired facade that fit in well with the look of its neighbors. This location was well known from 1985 until 2014 as the home of the Rizzoli Bokstore. The bookstore was forced to relocate in 2014 ahead of plans to demolish the building and its neighbors for a new large building.

Cort Theatre, undated. Built in 1912 by famed theatre architect Thomas W. Lamb for producer John Cort, the Cort Theatre sat more than 1000 patrons. The exterior was modeled after the Petit Trianon, a small chateau on the grounds of Versailles, while the interior was decorated in an over the top Louis XVI-style with marble and elaborate plaster panels. The Shubert Organization has owned the theatre since 1927, and it was named a designated NYC landmark in 1987.

View of Rockefeller Center from 30 Rockefeller Plaza, ca. 1934.

Forrest Hotel, pictured at left, next to the Eugene O'Neill Theatre.

Russian Tea Room, c. 1935. The Russian Tea Room opened in 1927 as an after-hours hangout for the Russian Imperial Ballet and other ex-patriots. The restaurant, with an elite club-like atmosphere, was supposedly founded by a Jacob Zysman though 1929 records list dancer Albertina Rach as its president. The room opened at 145 West 57th Street but moved across the street to 150 West 57th Street after a short while. Before the tea room, this property was an Italianate brownstone residence owned by John F. Pupke. Originally, the building had a stoop occupying the ground floor, though this was removed in 1919 when an automobile showroom moved in. A 1988 issue of the New York Times called it a "brownstone peanut," compared to its towering modern-day neighbors. Kitty-corner of Carnegie Hall, the restaurant was known for its colorful clientele. A pamphlet for the establishment stated, "for more often than not the artist will come to the Russian Tea Room Restaurant straight from the performance, flowers and all." A Siberian émigré, Alexander "Sasha" Maeef is credited as orchestrating this lush environment. He took over the business from 1933 until 1946. In these formative years, patrons could find Russian luxuries like caviar on blini, chicken kiev, and pelmeni. Maeef sold the restaurant to first-generation Russian-American Sidney Kaye, who cloaked the establishment in the kitschy themed rooms that still exist today. Only the facade received a re-do in 2000 that divorced it from its brownstone past. The Russian Tea Room closed in 2002 but re-opened in 2006 with no visible update. Over the years, it has been visited by Michael Douglas, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Jackie Kennedy, Anne Bancroft, Barbara Streisand, and Dustin Hoffman.

University Club ARCHITECT: McKim, Mead & White; Charles F. McKim DATE: 1896-1900 STYLE: Italian Renaissance The University Club on its conspicuous corner site is one of the most handsome buildings on Fifth Avenue. Although this granite building of stately and noble proportions closely resembles a sixteenth-century Italian Renaissance palazzo, its exterior displays a combination of original architectural features. The handsome facade is divided into three main horizontal divisions separated by two strongly defined band courses. Each of the three divisions contains a row of large arched windows.

Gallo Theatre, 1928. Opened as the Gallo Opera House in 1927, the theatre at West 54th Street has a long, varied, and unique history. Both early opera and straight play productions were commercial flops in the Eugene De Rosa-designed theatre. Sold in foreclosure less than two years after opening, the building became the New Yorker Theatre and a WPA Federal Music Project venue in the 1930s. Renamed Studio 52 in 1943 when purchased by CBS (the number had nothing to do with the street address), the space hosted radio and TV productions through the 1970s, including What's My Line?, The $64,000 Question, and The Jack Benny Show. In 1977 the building entered its most famed period as the nightclub Studio 54, a glitzy, glamorous, celebrity-filled disco. Studio 54 closed in 1986. Occupied by other clubs and concert venues through the late 1980s and 1990s, the theatre was restored to much of its architectural grandeur in 1994 (the nightclub owners had covered or painted black much of the interior). It was leased by the Roundabout Theatre Company in 1998 for a production of Cabaret and was purchased by Roundabout in 2003.

International Building Interior ARCHITECT: Associated Architects DATE: 1933-34 STYLE: Modernist The ground floor interior with accompanying mezzanine floor interior of the International Building is one of the grandest and most dramatic interior spaces in the Rockefeller Center complex and a major component of the Center’s second largest building. This interior follows the east-west axis of the International Building at the northern end of the Center. The lobby gains its effect from the form of the space and its decorative finishes. The elements of the design and rich materials are not only characteristic of Modernist design, but are also some of the finest examples of their type.

Central Doorway of RCA Building, 1933. Designed by Raymond Hood, the head architect of the Rockefeller Center complex, 30 Rockefeller Plaza was originally built for the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) between 1931 and 1933. The 30-story building has an austere Art Deco facade with Gothic elements. The Art Deco decoration is best seen at ground level and features heroic and mythical themes (inspired by the Rockefeller's philosopher consultant). The relief above the center door seen here was created by Lee Oscar Lawrie, a preeminent architectural sculptor (he also created the statue of Atlas with Rene Paul Chambellan for the complex). The relief called Wisdom considers the power of universe; the central, bearded figure (biblical or perhaps Zeus) holds a compass. He is blowing away clouds, which represent ignorance. With the compass he is directing the cosmic forces. The quote inscribed below the figure comes from the Old Testament Book of Isaiah: "Wisdom and Knowledge Shall Be The Stability Of Thy Times." He is flanked by smaller reliefs depicting Sound and Light.

In the mid-1930s, the Steuben Glass Company (a division of Corning) commissioned architects William and Geoffrey Platt and John M. Gates to design a new headquarters for the firm which highlighted its product. The facade was four times more glass then limestone. The limestone acted as a frame for the 3,800 glass blocks made of Corning's Pyrex. The critics were mixed regarding the design. One called it ''a definite disappointment,'' while Lewis Mumford thought it ''simple and excellent." A local newspaper suggested that the facade of fixed windows could be ''washed off with a hose, dust and grime coming off as if it were a mirror.'' In 1959 Steuben decamped to an even more modern and glassy building across the street. No. 718's new owner, the jeweler Harry Winston, gave the building a neo-Classical travertine facade with entirely different fenestration (arrangement of windows and doors). Today the building looks much like it did following the 1960 renovation

The Marble Twin's Story begins with the construction of the St. Regis Hotel. Furious about the 18 story hotel, the wealthy denizens of the neighborhood began rapidly buying up the surrounding real estate in order to control development. On Fifth Avenue between the Union Club and the Plant mansion, George Vanderbilt commissioned the firm Hunt & Hunt to build two matching townhouses. The houses that would become known as the marble twins were built such that they could be combined to form a larger mansion. Completed in 1905, they were in the style of Louis XV and presented Fifth Avenue with a unified facade. The Vanderbilts then sold them to wealthy friends (along with conditions that hotels or apartment buildings would never be built on the grounds.) The Goelet family moved into 547 and Willaim B. Sloane purchased the other for his daughter. Eventually, as society moved northward, the two twins were converted for commercial purposes. Gimpel & Wildenstein, fine art dealers, leased 547 Fifth Avenue and used it as a gallery to sell their collection of old masters. It would largely remain unchanged until American Express renovated it in 1938 in a commercial alteration that destroyed its graceful stone balcony and refined the first story. Seven years later, its twin 645 Fifth Avenue would be demolished. 647 Fifth Avenue would survive though and when Versace leased it in 1995 it would pay for a restoration of its original balcony and first floor. The corner twin is now the last of the many Vanderbilt built mansions that once lined this part of Fifth Avenue.

Seventh Avenue, north from West 48th Street, ca. 1929.

Rodin Studios ARCHITECT: Cass Gilbert DATE: 1916-17 STYLE: French Renaissance The Rodin studios building, built in 1916-17, was designed by Cass Gilbert specifically for artists. Named for the most innovative living artist of the time, it represents a refinement on the earlier essays in what was a relatively new building type. The two principal elevations of this fourteen-story, reinforced concrete frame building, are sheathed in rough brick, polychromatic buff to gray, laid in American bond. The elaborate and extensive terra-cotta and iron trim is molded and cast in the late Gothic-early Classical motifs which characterize the French Renaissance style, the style of the neighboring Arts Students League as well as a style Gilbert thought appropriate for artists.

Lines in front of Employment Agencies, date unknown (1930s).

Osborne Apartments ARCHITECT: Architect: James E. Ware DATE: 1883-85 STYLE: Romanesque Revival, Renaissance Revival The Osborne Apartments was one of the earliest luxury apartment buildings in New York City. Constructed in what by 1890 had become New York’s first apartment house district, near Central Park, this architecturally-impressive building is a rare surviving example of the original development in this city of multi-family dwellings for well-to-do residents, an increasingly important building type in the 1880s. The design draws elements from the popular Romanesque Revival style, such as the heavy, rusticated stone exterior with deeply set windows, for a sense of solidity; these are combined in a bold and original manner with the refinement, proportions, and strong horizontality of the emerging Renaissance Revival style.

Construction on the IRT Broadway-Seventh Avenue Line's 50th Street Station, outside the American Horse Exchange building, July 14, 1902. William K. Vanderbilt built the American Horse Exchange in 1881, creating a massive full-block hub for the city's elite to quite literally horse trade. An 1896 fire caused extensive damage to the structure, killing 60 horses. Vanderbilt restored the exchange and in 1910 leased it to the Shubert family, who converted the property into the Winter Garden Theatre, today known as the venue where "Cats" had its 18-year run.

Roxy Theater ca. 1927 When Samuel L. "Roxy" Rothafel opened the Roxy Theater in 1927, it contained over 6,000 seats and was considered the largest theater of its kind in the world. Elaborate live performances were also part of the show: the orchestra pit seated 100 musicians and the ballet corps had up to 100 dancers, including the Gae Foster Roxyettes featured in this card. These high-stepping dancers were the forerunners of the Rockettes, the group "Roxy" took with him when he moved his show to Radio City Music Hall in 1932. The Roxy was razed in 1961.

Lower East Side original character actor Sam "Shalom" Jaffe had an acting career that spanned decades, was studded with awards and was throughly unexpected. A City College college graduate who went on to study engineering at Columbia University, Jaffe was headed for industry when his artistic interests grabbed hold. As a child he appeared in Yiddish theatre, and as an adult, The Forward was gifted with his generous appearances on their behalf, such as at The Forward's WEVD radio station studio seen in the archival image above, where he is seen performing before ABC radio microphones.

Whitney Mansion, 1895. Constructed in 1875 for millionaire Frederick W. Stevens and designed by George Harney, the mansion was filled to rafters with antiques and furnishings that Stevens purchased in Europe. After Steven's passing, his widow sold the home to Oliver Payne who gave it to his sister Flora and her husband William C. Whitney. The Whitney's had the home remodeled by Stanford White, but only lived their briefly as Flora died in 1893 and William remarried and moved to a different Fifth Avenue mansion. William's son Harry Payne and his wife Gertrude Vanderbilt lived in the home until 1907 when it was sold and demolished. In the 1920s the Heckscher Building (also called the Crown Building) was erected on the site.

The Brill Building, 1935. The Brill Building is a landmark structure that was developed in 1930-31 by Abraham E. Lefcourt. When Lefcourt first leased the land from the Brill Brothers, he planned to erect the world's tallest building on the site, which he would then name after his son, Alan. When Lefcourt failed to meet the terms of their agreement, the Brills foreclosed on the property and changed the name of the near-complete building from the Alan E. Lefcourt Building to the Brill Building. Since its construction, the Brill Building has been synonymous with American music. From the last days of Tin Pan Ally to the emergence of rock and roll, it has been home to a number of remarkable tenants in the music industry. Many big-name performers have leased office space in the building, including Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, and Nat King Cole. At its height in the '60s, more than 160 tenants were involved in the music industry, giving the Brill Building a genre of its own: "The Brill Building Sound."

B.S Moss Colony, ca. 1932. The theatre at 1681 Broadway opened in 1924 as the B. S. Moss’s Colony Theatre, a vaudeville and movie theatre. Designed by one of the premier theatre architects of the 1920s, Eugene De Rosa, the venue has a large seating capacity (1,765 seats) and deep stage (60 feet). During its two stints as a movie theatre (1924-1930 and 1934-1940), Walt Disney debuted two of his most famous early films there. "Steamboat Willie" opened in 1928 and "Fantasia" in 1939. Given a number names in its early years (Universal's Colony Theatre, B.S. Moss' Broadway Theatre, and Earl Carroll's Broadway Theatre), the theatre became a venue for live Broadway performances starting in 1930 and then again in 1940, when it was christened the unimaginative, Broadway Theatre. Bought in 1939 by the Shuberts, the theatre has been renovated a number of times. The interior and exterior were designed in an Italian Renaissance style. The original facade was resurfaced in a grey polished granite in 1991 when a skyscraper was constructed above the theatre. One of only five Broadway theatres that actually front the street, Broadway, this venue has often been the location that successful shows transfer to near the end of their runs.

Night Scene of R.C.A. Building from 9 Rockefeller Plaza, 1937.

Completed in 1891, Andrew Carnegie’s Music Hall was opened as the new home for the Oratorio Society of New York, with a five-day musical festival during which Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, one of the world’s foremost composers of the day, conducted several of his own works. Often considered one of the premiere centers of American musical life and history, Carnegie Hall has continually featured the work and performances of countless LGBT artists. Few had as close an association with the Hall as Leonard Bernstein, who appeared more than 430 times between 1943 and 1990, as conductor, pianist, composer, and educator. Dimitri Mitropoulos was the conductor of the New York Philharmonic between 1950 and 1957, until he became the victim of McCarthy-era homophobia. Other conductors here included Jeffrey Tate and Michael Tilson Thomas. Premieres of classical works by LGBT composers Samuel Barber, Benjamin Britten, Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, David Diamond, Marc Blitzstein, Gian Carlo Menotti, Ned Rorem, and John Corigliano were conducted here. African-American composer and pianist, Don Shirley, also performed here. Innumerable LGBT performers have ranged from pianists Vladimir Horowitz and Van Cliburn, to dancer Isadora Duncan, leading Wagnerian heldentenor Lauritz Melchior, popular singers Chris Williamson, Meg Christian, and Rufus Wainwright, and the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus.

The Gotham Hotel ARCHITECT: Hiss & Weekes DATE: 1902-05 STYLE: Neo-Italian Renaissance The imposing neo-Italian Renaissance Gotham Hotel (now the Peninsula Hotel) is one of the few structures on Fifth Avenue which recalls the golden age of luxury hotels and the prominent place they occupied in the formation of the city. Rising twenty stories, including a multi-storied rooftop addition, at the southwest corner of West 55th Street and Fifth Avenue, the boldly rendered Gotham is a stylistic counterpoint to its contemporary, the flamboyant Beaux-Arts St. Regis Hotel directly across Fifth Avenue.

Heckscher Building, ca. 1921. Today known as the Crown Building (so named in 1983 for the crown-like look of the illuminated building at night), the 26-story building was completed in 1921 as the Heckscher Building. Designed by architects Warren & Wetmore, the French Renaissance style building was one of the first office towers designed and erected after the passage of the 1916 zoning laws. it was topped by a 12-foot gold-plated weathervane in the form of a rooster. In November of 1929 the Museum of Modern Art opened in galleries on the 12th floor of the Heckscher Building. The first exhibition was a show featuring the works of Cezanne, Gauguin, Seurat and van Gogh. The museum remained until 1932 and its final show in the space was "Modern Architecture: International Exhibition," curatated by Phillip Johnson. The gold weathervane was removed in 1942 and melted down for the war effort. The building was stealthily purchased by Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos in 1981 and soon after had its facade gilded and illuminated by a lighting designer (hence the name change based on its new look). Following the fall of the Marcos regime, the building was sold in 1991. Its most recent sale in 2015 for $1.8 billion made NYC real estate history, a world record price per square foot, $4,564.

Elizabeth Arden Building, 689-691 Fifth Avenue, ca. 1977. Formerly the Aeolian Building, now the Elizabeth Arden Building, 689 Fifth Avenue was constructed in 1925-27 by Warren & Wetmore for the Gould Realty Co. Designed by the same firm that built Grand Central Terminal, this 14-story French Renaissance structure was leased to the Aeolian Company, a top manufacturer of pianos and roll-operated instruments, until 1938. During that time, the company maintained a 150-seat recital hall on its second floor. Since Aelion's departure, 689 Fifth Avenue has served as the flagship location of Elizabeth Arden’s Red Door Salon. In 1970, the building set a retail leasing record when Gucci agreed to pay $100 per square foot for retail space in the corner store.

Goelet Building ARCHITECT: Victor L. S. Hafner; Edward Hall Faile DATE: 1930-32 STYLE: Art Deco The ten-story Goelet Building at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 49th Street, built in 1930-32, was designed by Victor L. S. Hafner in the Art Deco style but modified to exhibit the supporting skeletal frame devised by the engineering firm of E. H. Faile. The spare horizontality of the lower stories’ glazed curtain walls suggests that, stylistically, this building is a transitional monument between the Art Deco and the International style.

The massive scale of Rockefeller Center is adorned with countless art deco reliefs and sculptures which soften the harden corners and squared-off entryways of the building. This selection gives a brief overview of a few works of art perched on the exterior of this monumental complex.

In the early 1880s, as stone cutters were completing work on the William K. Vanderbilt mansion, the home's well-loved architect Richard Morris Hunt discovered that the artisans had created his likeness as a tribute. The statue of Hunt as a stone-cutter was installed on the roof over the entrance to the house. That home was demolished in 1926 and it is unknown if the statue was saved.

University Club of New York ca. 1915 Of all the buildings in New York which have been influenced by the Italian Renaissance, this club probably comes closest to resembling a sixteenth-century palazzo; yet despite this fact, the combination of details is quite original.

Rockefeller Apartments, October 20, 1947. The Rockefeller Apartments, constructed between 1935 and 1937 in the International style, were commissioned by John D. Rockefeller, Fr. and Nelson Rockefeller. Designed by Wallace Harrison, who would go to collaborate further with the Rockefellers, the two buildings (the other is 24 West 55th Street) were created as a unit and were constructed with 15 percent more space given to light and air than was required by the building codes.

Steinway Hall, June 30, 1925. In 1864 William Steinway opened a showroom for his pianos on 14th Street near Fifth Avenue. Owing to overwhelming popularity, he built a new concert hall as a venue to display and promote his pianos. This was the original Steinway Hall. Opened in 1866 the hall sat 2,500 guests and was one of the biggest halls in the city of New York. Over the next 25 years, it was the home of the New York Philharmonic. The success of Steinway Hall in promoting Steinway's instruments was considerable, so much so that his competitors, the Aeolian Company and Chickering & Sons, felt the need to open their own concert halls. Owing to a desire to have their showroom and concert venue near Carnegie Hall, Steinway & Sons commissioned a new building on 57th Street in the early 1920s. The new Steinway Hall, seen here, included not only showrooms and a hall, but also recording and broadcasting spaces. Designed by Warren and Wetmore, the neo-Classical building officially opened on October 27, 1925. Steinway & Sons sold the building and land in 1958 but continued to use the building as a rental. In 1999 they bought the building back but were required to continue to lease the land it occupied. In 2014, in a deal that cost a combined $177 million ($46M for the building and $131M for the land), a development company purchased Steinway Hall and its plot. Steinway Hall moved to 1133 Sixth Avenue, while a controversial plan for the landmark 57th Street building has it being restored and incorporated into a supertall residential tower.

Fine Arts Building of the Art Students League of New York, ca. 1910.

As the city expanded and the relentless churning of commerce caused New York's population to explode, the city pushed northward. As the city itself moved northward, so did its elite. They settled along the undeveloped edge of the brand new Central Park, building enormous homes and mansions to celebrate their fabulous wealth. This walk takes you through a selection of the Fifth Avenue mansions that would have once dominated the Avenue.

Aeolian Building ARCHITECT: Warren & Wetmore DATE: 1925-27 STYLE: Neo-Classical The Aeolian Building was constructed to the design of architects Warren & Wetmore, a firm best known for its designs for hotels and railroad-related buildings. Designed in a restrained and graceful neo-Classical style with French Renaissance style detailing, the Aeolian Building is clad in Indiana limestone with Italian marble spandrel panels, and buff-colored terracotta on the upper portion.

"Atlas" in front of the International Building at Rockefeller Center, ca. 1976. Lee Lawrie's seven-ton bronze statue depicting Atlas, the Titan of Greek mythology, was installed in 1937.

Hammerstein’s Theater, now the Ed Sullivan Theater ARCHITECT: Herbert J. Krapp DATE: 1927 STYLE: Gothic The Ed Sullivan Theater Interior was designed in Gothic style, and it includes leaded glass light fixtures and polychromatic ceramic tile, making it unique among the Broadway theaters. Despite a number of alterations the interior retains most of its original character and configuration.

Carnegie Hall ARCHITECT: William B. Tuthill DATE: 1889-91 STYLE: Italian Renaissance This building with its 15 story tower has an intrinsic character and integrity of design which evoke considerable praise. Music lovers consider no building in the City with more reverence. Modified Italian Renaissance in style, its facades include a veritable vocabulary of Renaissance detail. The details for this building were selected with great taste and discrimination, producing an overall design that is truly fascinating. The reddish-brown Roman brick, which is used for the largest areas of the walls, combines with band courses, arches, pilasters, and other terracotta decorations, to produce a beautiful color, which has mellowed with age.

St. Nicholas Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, 1923. The western blockfront of Fifth Avenue between 48th and 49th Streets, including private residences and the St. Nicholas Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church. W. Wheeler Smith’s magnificent Gothic Revival church was built in 1872 for the well-heeled uptown congregation of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, a denomination that had been active in New York since 1628. Smith’s design featured an out-of-scale 265-foot steeple, visible for miles around. The church attracted prominent members, including the Roosevelt family, who occupied pew no. 39. As Midtown development accelerated and skyscrapers encroached on the church and its valuable real estate, the congregation found themselves under increasing pressure to sell. The final service was held in July, 1949. The church was razed later that year, to be replaced by the Sinclair Oil building at 600 Fifth Avenue.

The famous art collector Peggy Guggenheim opened her first gallery called Art from this Century on the seventh floor of this building. The gallery, which opened its door in the midst of World War II (1942), became the meeting place and exhibition space for exiled European artists. The opening show was a groundbreaking success, displaying works by established European Cubists and Surrealist artists. Most notably, the gallery is credited for launching the career of many American Abstract Expressionist artists such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko.

Mecca Temple ARCHITECT: H. P. Knowles DATE: 1922-24 STYLE: Moorish-inspired Designed by Harry P. Knowles in a Moorish-inspired style which is both symbolic and functionally expressive, the building is a major example of fraternal architecture. In 1943, under the leadership of Mayor LaGuardia, the building became the home of the City Center of Music and Drama, where it fostered a vast array of performing arts, including the New York City Ballet and the New York City Opera, for the people of New York City.

The Lotos Club—so named for Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem “The Lotos-Eaters”—was founded in 1870 by a group of young writers, journalists, and critics. According to the club’s constitution, it sought to promote and develop “literature, art, sculpture, music, architecture, journalism, drama, science, education and the learned professions,” to encourage the professionals who work in these fields, and “provide a place of assembly for them and other persons interested in and sympathetic to them, their objectives, effort, and work.” The Club featured a roster of recognizable names, including author Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain); art collector and philanthropist Solomon R. Guggenheim; 34th United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower; writer, director, and actor Orson Welles; newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst; and steel magnate Charles M. Schwab. Though membership was originally limited to men, the club began admitting women in 1977, welcoming opera singer Marilyn Horne, writer Mary Higgins Clark, and actress Angela Lansbury, among others. The club remains in existence today, at 5 E. 66th Street, and forms part of New York City’s long history of private clubs.

130 West 57th Street Studio Building ARCHITECT: Pollard & Steinam DATE: 1907-08 STYLE: Neo-Renaissance The 130 West 57th Street Studio Building, along with its almost identical neighbor at 140 West 57th Street, was built in a prime location, on a wide cross-town street, with other artists’ studios, the Art Students’ League, Carnegie Hall, and many other nearby sites devoted to art and music. The duplex plan of the building allowed for seven double-height stories facing the street, with twelve stories in the rear, and was popular with artists and non-artists alike for the abundant amount of space it provided. Located on the south side of 57th Street, the tall, projecting bay windows set in geometrically-ornamented cast iron frames bring in the north light so prized by artists, and suggest the unique spatial arrangement in this building

The Coronet, 1912. The Coronet is a 10-story brick and stone Beaux-Arts building completed in 1902. It aimed to be a high-class, modern apartment building. And high class it was with balconies, carved lions’ heads, heavy scrolled brackets, an impressive two-story arched opening, and stone parapet at the roof. By the 1970s the building was suffering from the loss of wealthy tenants. Some of its grand architectural features were lost including the parapet and some of the balconies. In 1976 the building was converted to an 85-apartment condominium. Today the building still stands, though it does not exude the grandeur it once presented.

William K. Vanderbilt Mansion ca. 1928 No single building better symbolized the Gilded Age than the home of William K. Vanderbilt, completed in 1883. While the rich had been flaunting their wealth in costumes and jewels, Vanderbilt displayed his dollars in limestone. And then other society men and women followed suit. When Vanderbilt's house went up, most of the city's elite lived in unassuming homes such as J.P. Morgan's. The Houses produced a streetscape so monotonous that it provoked "Edith Wharton's ire. She wrote of "little, low studded rectangular New York with its universal chocolate-colored coating of the most hideous stone ever quarried," and bemoaned the lack of "towers, porticoes, fountains or perspectives." Vanderbilt commissioned architect Richard Morris Hunt to create something that no doubt met Wharton's desire for something different. With Vanderbilt's wife, Alva, directing the project, Hunt produced a French Renaissance-style house that came to be known as the "petit chateau." It quickly commanded not only local but also national attention. In 1885, the country's 75 top architects named it the third best building in the United States, after the United States Capitol and Trinity Church. Within a few months of moving in, Alva hosted an extravagant costume ball that doubled as housewarming and social vindication. Mrs. Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, the doyenne of New York Society, had denied the Vanderbilt family invitations to her own affairs. This time, it was Alva who left Mrs. Astor off the list- but only after encouraging Astor's daughter to practice a dance for the party. In response, Astor paid her first house call to Mrs. Vanderbilt, which led to an invitation and social acceptance. Just seven months later, the Vanderbilt family would further solidify their place at the center of elite society with the opening of the Metropolitan Opera house, which William's father, William H. Vanderbilt, had helped to establish. The mansion went up for sale a few months after Vanderbilt's death in July 1920. It was demolished in 1926. The site has been occupied over the years by two successive office towers.

Beloved Academy Award winning German-Jewish actor Luise Rainer, arrived in America in 1935, as fascism continued to seduce Europe. In December 1940, a mere five years after arriving, having already won 2 Oscars two years in a row, and with America still sitting it out, and the war in Europe headlining the news, Rainer guest starred at The Forward's radio station WEVD, "Salute To America" program highlighting American democracy.

Bickford's Restaurant, 1936. Samuel Longley Bickford began a career in restaurants just after the turn of the century, but it was not until 1921 that he established his eponymous restaurant chain. In the decade after opening, the chain grew to more than two dozen locations in New York City and Boston. The lunchrooms were self-serve with a limited menu. The goal was quick turn over, while maintaining high quality and moderate cost. Eventually the chain included more than 85 locations. During the 1930s most of the restaurant locations were designed by architect F. Russell Stuckert (whose father had designed Horn & Hardart restaurants). With 42 New York City locations in 1970 and only two in 1980, Bickford's disappeared from the city entirely in 1982.

Time and Life Building, undated postcard. Opened in the spring of 1937, 9 Rockefeller Plaza (now called 1 Rockefeller Plaza) is a 36-story skyscraper. Completed in 114 work days, a month ahead of schedule, it was the eleventh building in the Rockefeller Center complex. The Art Deco office building was designed by Rockefeller Center's associated architects, led by L. Andrew Reinhard and Wallace Harrison. Early tenants of the building included the Girl Scouts, a number of advertising agencies and publishing houses, and the Museum of Modern Art (who stayed until their new building was completed 1939). The largest tenant, who moved in a year after the building opened, was Time, Inc, the publisher of Time Magazine, Life, and Architectural Forum, among others. This tenant gave the building its name; it was the original Time-Life Building (today the 1957-completed building at 1271 Sixth Avenue is the Time-Life Building).

My Archive Summer 2019 "My parents were divorced, and my dad used to take me to a fancy lunch on Sundays and then we would walk along Fifth Avenue, or sometimes go ice skating or to the zoo. So it's a photo of me (Jennifer Place) taken by my father (Willard Fiske Place)." —Jennifer Place

Seventh Avenue at the north west corner of 47th Street, ca. 1915. This is a quintessential Times Square photograph from the early 20th century. Originally Long Acre Square, the center of the city's horse carriage industry in the late 19th century, the area would have its name changed in 1904. Times Square was christened that after the New York Times newspaper constructed their headquarters on 42nd Street. In the next two decades, the introduction of the subway and the construction of hotels and theatres prompted a massive boom of the area into a busy cultural center. The billboards depicted here advertise nearby attractions including the Shubert and Winter Garden Theatres, as well as take advantage of the well traveled intersection to advertise products such as beer and automobiles.

Winter Garden Theatre, May 3, 1930. The building at 1634 Broadway was constructed in 1896 for William Kissam Vanderbilt's American Horse Exchange. In 1911 the building was leased by the Shubert family for a theatrical venue. They hired architect William Albert Swasey to redesign the theatre. The fourth New York theatre to be named 'Winter Garden," the venue opened March 10, 1911 with a production of the musical revue "La Belle Paree." In 1922 the building was completely remodeled by famed theatre architect Henry J. Krapp.The rebuilt stage is wider than most other Broadway theatres, with a a low proscenium arch. The Shuberts purchased the name and format of the Ziegfeld Follies after the death of Florenz Ziegfeld in 1932. The Winter Garden hosted the Follies in 1934 and 1936. The Winter Garden, though, is best known as the venue that hosted the 18-year run of the musical "Cats." The show premiered on October 7, 1982 and ran 7,485 performances. (Currently it is the fourth longest Broadway run, only exceeded by "Phantom of the Opera," 'Chicago," and "The Lion King.")

653 Fifth Avenue ca. The story of 653 Fifth Avenue begins like the story of many of the mansions on Fifth Avenue: with a family dynasty. Morton Plant was the son of a fabulously wealthy railroad magnate Henry Plant. By all accounts, Henry and Morton's relationship was strained and upon his death, Henry attempted to leave his massive fortune to his grandchild. However, Morton was not one to stand idly by and he challenged the will successfully. The money having been secured, Morton began to live the life of a robber baron. Nor was Morton profligate, a successful businessman himself, he built on the advantages given to him by his father. Befitting his newfound status, Plant purchased the land at 653 Fifth Avenue from William Vanderbilt and commissioned the architect Robert W. Gibson to build him a home. Gibson, who had previously designed cathedrals and churches, built the sumptuous six-story mansion with a pillared entrance on 52nd Street. However, while it completed in 1905, the neighborhood around the home was changing. Real estate developers and tradesmen were moving in, and the heirs and robber barons that occupied the area were losing the struggle to preserve the neighborhood. With the Waldorf, St. Regis, Plaza and other hotels opening, the area was getting busier and busier. However, Morton withstood the changing area and his marriage would bring Maisie Plant into the home in 1914. It was Maisie that would give Morton a reason to leave. One day, Maisie was shopping at Cartier's flagship on Fifth Avenue when she spotted a beautiful set of pearls. The double-string set was valued at a million dollars and presented an interesting and unique opportunity. Pierre Cartier had been looking for a showroom that would properly enhance the brand's prestige and Morton was looking to get out of the neighborhood where he built his mansion. A deal was struck: the mansion was traded for 100$ and a string of pearls. Cartier assumed ownership of the mansion and Plant was free to move uptown. Cartier agreed to leave the exterior almost entirely untouched (and until it's 2000 renovation made very few alterations to the interior as well.) Morton Plant's body might not have agreed to the deal however, he died the next year, leaving Maisie single and wealthy. Cartier has preserved and used the mansion ever since as their primary US showroom.

Saint Thomas Church and Parish House ARCHITECT: Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson DATE: 1906-13 STYLE: Church The elevations are replete with ornament. The buttresses of the square tower, as well as those on the 53rd Street side, are simple and serve as beautiful foils for the elaboration of the main entrance and rose window above it. In beauty, detail and construction, this church is a masterpiece. The Parish House (formerly the Rectory) nestles alongside the Church on 53rd Street to the west of the chapel, and the integration of these elements is a superb accomplishment.

The Forward’s fav opera and recording star Richard Riven Tucker was much beloved by Metroplitan Opera fans as well as Forward readers, including as a one time deli sandwich! Yes, to celebrate the centennial of his birth, he was given that special NYC honor of being a deli sandwich, and having then NYC Mayor Bloomberg honor his birthday, August 28, as “Richard Tucker Day”.

Lotos Club, ca. 1909. Established as gentleman's club for those interested in literature, science and the fine arts in 1870, the Lotos Club—named after a feature in a Tennyson poem—has called a number of buildings home in its nearly 150 year history. The club's first home was at 2 Irving Place. Mark Twain was an early member of the organization. After a series of moves that had the club inching further uptown, the first true clubhouse was purchased in 1893 at 558 Fifth Avenue. In 1909, with the financial support of Andrew Carnegie (who was a member), the club moved into a headquarters specifically designed for their purpose at 110 West 57th Street. Designed by architect Donn Barber, the Italian Renaissance was lauded as beautiful with features painted in orange, blues, and greens and multi-toned grey brick. The building became a venue at the forefront of arts and culture in the city, presenting fine art exhibits and lectures by renown orators. The club knuckled though the Depression with downsized events but they completed paying off their mortgage in 1941 (which they celebrated by burning the paperwork in their oversized fireplace). By 1945 the Lotos Club was looking to downsize and moved into a Beaux-Arts building 5 East 66th Street. They made $166,000 on a building that had cost them $750,000 in 1909. The building was largely striped down to its steel framing in 1949 and had a new modern facade installed as it was being converted into offices. Since the mid 1960s it has been the home of the Directors Guild of America.

Built in 1924. The group that constructed the enormous Moorish-style temple was known as the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, or the "Shriners" in short. Though their name suggests they may have been affiliated with a religious cause, the fraternity was an offshoot of the order of Freemasons. The Shriners were established by an actor, William Jermyn Florence, and a surgeon, Dr. Walter Millard Flemming. The group wasn't interested in mysticism by any means, but rather "fun, fellowship...love, relief, and truth." From the group's conception, Florence and Flemming stressed a policy of fun in support of medical research. They met in various locations around New York before purchasing a plot on 55th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenue. Legend has it, they met in Carnegie hall before they were evicted for producing an intolerable amount of cigar smoke. The Shriners, red fez-wearers themselves, were taken aback by a mysterious Orient and went about designing and constructing a massive mosque-like structure to host their own meetings and with auditoriums which could be leased out to rake in some extra cash. The site was bought from Yale University for $400,000 and had been the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation's movie studio site. The Shriners were fittingly just as theatrical as the previous tenant. Architect, Shriner, and Master Mason Harry P. Knowles, who was known for neo-Moorish constructions, designed Mecca Temple before he passed away in 1923. Firm Clinton & Russell were then brought on to carry out Knowles' designs. The ornate structure, with romanticized Ottoman and Andalusian elements, was the largest Masonic Shrine in the city. Its hall seats 3,500 and is topped with a red terracotta-tiled dome crowned by the Scimitar and Crescent - symbols of the Shrine. In contrast to the colorful interior, its facade was of sandstone and nearly completely flat, save for shallow-arched recesses. The Landmark Preservation Committee characterized the Temple's outward appearance as a "huge sandstone cube...which is articulated by a cornice of heavy dentils...and the chamfered upper corners making the transition to the great, glazed tiled dome." The design of the temple came from no specific precedent overseas but drew upon Knowles' academic knowledge of the Alhambra, various Egyptian Temples, and expertise in navigating an elevational scheme that meshed a monolithic presence with carefully-scaled entrances. The Mecca Temple included an auditorium and three Masonic Lodge rooms. Steep balconies in the grand auditorium required all sorts of structural acrobatics to be performed. Unfortunately for the Shriners, the financial crash of 1929 left them so bruised that they were unable to pay taxes on the building and it became city property. However, architectural tourists looking to travel to this "Mecca," an example of an arabesque architectural wonder nestled in the towering apartments of Midtown need not fear. Mayor LaGuardia saved the building from demolition in the early 1940s by converting it to a performing arts center. Presently, it is a home of groups such as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Manhattan Theater Club, The Flamenco Festival, and Martha Graham Dance Company.

In the early 1910s, the building was taken over by art and antique dealer Charles Duveen (brother to the more famous dealer Joseph Duveen). Charles added the sixth floor (with his name boldly advertised at the top) and toned down the facade decoration.

Carnegie Hall ca. 1979 In 1959 the owner of Carnegie Hall announced the decision to demolish the famed concert hall when its major tenant, the New York Philharmonic, moved to its new home at Lincoln Center. A skyscraper clad in bright red porcelain panels was set to rise on the valuable site at 57th Street and Seventh Avenue. Lovers of architecture, history, and music united in a preservation effort. Demonstrations and petitions demanded that the building be saved. But the hero of this battle was violinist Isaac Stern, who saw Carnegie Hall as "the be-all and end-all of musical life" in the United States. Stern teamed up with Jacob Kaplan, an entrepreneur who created the J.M. Kaplan Fund - a foundation that over the next 20 years supported preservation activism and organizations - to establish the Citizens Committee for Carnegie Hall, with Eleanor Roosevelt as honorary chair. The committee persuaded the city to buy the site, and a non-profit was established to run it. Carnegie Hall remains one of the world's great concert halls.

Julliard Mansion, ca. 1905. In 1903 self-made millionaire, dry goods tycoon, and Park Commissioner Augustus D. Julliard purchased the mid 19th century brownstone mansion at 11 West 57th Street. Once the home of the scion of another dry goods empire, John Auchincloss, the Victorian mansion was considered out of date when Julliard purchased it. He commissioned Trowbridge & Livingston to design a new, modern mansion for the lot. The resulting five-story structure was completed in a French Renaissance style with a steep mansard and somewhat pointy dormers. The interior was similarly styled with 16th century ornamentation, complemented by the family's vast collection of tapestries and antiques. Julliard died in the home in 1925 and years later it was converted into apartments with a ground floor commercial space. In the late 1930s it served as the headquarters of the German Railroads Information Office, who were expelled in 1941 after being outed as a Nazi propaganda outlet. The building survived in the 1970s but eventually succumbed to the commercial development of 57th Street. The Julliard Mansion was demolished in 1974 along with some neighbors for the sloped facade Solow Building.

St. Regis Hotel ca. 1907 John Jacob Astor conceived of the St. Regis Hotel as a companion to the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. While the Waldorf-Astoria was successful, its neighborhood was waning in social value. Astor decided that he was going to build a hotel that would match the best of Europe in elegance and luxury. Buying land on East 55th Street and Fifth Avenue, Astor intended the St. Regis to be sited in the most elegant part of town. Astor hired the architecture firm Trowbridge and Livingston. The architects designed a Beaux-Arts 18 story hotel that would be one of the first of New York's skyscraper tower hotels. However, it was met with controversy from the moment construction began in 1901. The land Astor had bought was in the midst of rows of mansions owned by the Vanderbilts and other wealthy New Yorkers. The St. Regis would tower over their homes and make their chic neighborhood into a new hub. The St. Regis' neighbors used their influence to delay as much as possible. First, the Board of Buildings discovered that the hotel wasn't fireproofed properly, which put a halt to construction. Next, the neighbors sued due to the blasting necessary for the hotel's foundations, however, the courts ruled against them. Finally, the neighbors found that the St. Regis violated a New York liquor statute due to its proximity to St. Thomas. The statute made it illegal to obtain a liquor license if you were within 200 feet of a church. The St. Regis was able to prevail in court by maintaining that their front entrance was far away enough not to violate the statue. The St. Regis was completed and opened on September 4th, 1904. Some estimates claim it cost a (staggering for the time) 5.5 million dollars. The rooms were fully modern with everything from telephones to heat to electric lighting. However, the fight was still not over. The liquor law also demanded the St. Regis needed permission from two-thirds of their neighbors in order to approve the liquor license. In 1904, William Rockefeller quickly bought a neighboring mansion in order to use it to revoke the St. Regis's license. However, J.J. Astor immediately bought another to support it. Stories in the newspaper were placed to smear the hotel's reputation, but high profile visits from the Roosevelts and the Japanese Imperial family helped bolster it. Finally, friends of J.J. Astor's in the New York Senate pushed through an amendment to the liquor law that exempted hotels with more than 200 rooms. The new law left the St. Regis and J.J Astor victorious. However, Astor was not to enjoy the St. Regis's success for long, dying in 1912 aboard the Titanic. His son Vincent would sell the St. Regis to the Duke's Durham Realty company, who expanded it by adding another wing. However, during the great depression, Vincent bought it back for a song and invested money into bringing it back to its former glory (including installing the Old King Cole Mural from the Knickerbocker Hotel.) Since then it has been restored and remodeled a number of times. In 1988, it was closed for three years as Sheraton did a full restoration. Similarly, Starwood would renovate the hotel again in 2014.

When the Vanderbilts, Astors, and Rockefellers moved uptown, the hotels quickly followed. The gravitational shift of New York's social scene meant that prestigious hotels like the Waldorf-Astoria were no longer in the thick of it. However, developers are never too far behind a trend and soon some of the world's most luxurious hotels sprouted next to the mansions of Fifth Avenue.

Built in 1872 this brownstone structure at the southwest corner of Fifth and 56th was appropriately ornate for early Fifth Avenue. The building featured prominent quoins (masonry bricks at the corners), fancy bulls-eye windows, and a decorative stone railing at the roofline. Originally a home, in the 1890s the ground floor was converted for commercial use. During the 1910s and 1920s, the building was home to a number of art and antique showrooms and galleries

B. F. Goodrich Company Building ARCHITECT: Howard Van Doren Shaw; Ward & Willauer DATE: 1909 STYLE: Elizabethan, Jacobean 1780 Broadway was constructed in 1909 as the New York headquarters of the B. F. Goodrich Company, a leading American manufacturer of automobile tires and other rubber products. Since the late 1880s the company had operated a Manhattan office and this project coincided with the company’s reincorporation in New York State. Clad with mostly red brick and limestone, the 12- story facade is distinguished by abstract, stylized ornament that suggests the influence of Elizabethan and Jacobean sources, the English Arts and Crafts movement, and the Vienna Secession.

Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964) was an extremely influential critic, novelist, photographer, and cultural arbiter, especially noted for his advocacy of African-American art and culture. Although married, Van Vechten had many long-term gay relationships and his sexuality was an open secret during his life. In May 1924 Van Vechten moved from a small apartment at 151 East 19th Street (the so-called Block Beautiful, between Irving Place and Third Avenue) into a large and elegant apartment on the seventh floor of the newly-completed building at 150 West 55th Street. “Harlem was sexually attractive to him mainly because it was a point of fusion among his homosexuality, his fascination with blackness, and his natural voyeurism.” Edward White, biographer Van Vechten was instrumental in introducing the artists of the Harlem Renaissance to white society. This is especially evident in the homoerotic photographs that he took of African-American men. He was also famed for his portrait photography, including images of many lesbian and gay writers, actors, and celebrities. Van Vechten was known for his parties, as they were among the few venues where black and white New Yorkers freely intermingled on an equal basis. Notable gay and lesbian attendees included Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Ethel Waters, Somerset Maugham, Salvador Dalí, and Bessie Smith.

Residence of Charles R. Lohman Ann Lohman, also known as Madame Restell, provided contraceptives and abortions to women looking to prevent or terminate unwanted pregnancies—a practice that remained exceptionally lucrative even as antebellum abortion laws hardened. By the 1870s, Restell’s services made her one of the richest women in New York City; her profits funded the construction of her lavish mansion, pictured here, on the corner of the Fifth Avenue and 52nd Street. Image Info: Hatch & Co. Publishers, 1875 CREDIT: Museum of the City of New York, Gift of J. Clarence Davies, 29.100.2111

Goelet Building, 1935. Considered a transitional moment between the Art Deco and International styles, the 10-story Goelet Building was completed in 1932. Originally created in the Deco style by architect Victor L. S. Hafner, the engineering firm of E. H. Faile modified the design of the upper floors to visibly incorporate the supporting skeletal framing in the facade.The glazed deep green marble curtain wall of lower floors render in a simple horizontal arrangement hearken to the modern International style. The building replaced the 1882 mansion belonging to the Goelet family. Designed to compliment the nearby buildings of Rockefeller Center, this structure had ground floor retail and office spaces on the upper floors. Since 1964 the building has been called the Swiss Center, for the group of Swiss business, working in commercial, cultural, travel and financial activities, who began leasing it then.

My Archive Spring 2019 "Rockefeller Center. The subject in the excellent sweatshirt outfit is yours truly, supported by my mom." —Isabel Sen

Steinway Hall ARCHITECT: Warren & Wetmore DATE: 1924-25 STYLE: Neo-Classical Designed in a restrained neo-Classical style, Steinway Hall is L-shaped in plan, with a front portion clad in Indiana limestone that terminates in a setback, four-story colonnaded tower, and a central campanile-like tower with a steep pyramidal roof and large lantern. The main facade’s base is embellished by a music-themed sculptural group by Leo Lentelli and by a frieze with medallion portraits of distinguished classical composer-pianists. The style, materials, setbacks and massing, picturesque towers, and decorative elements add distinction to the building and make it a monumental architectural presence along the West 57th Street cultural corridor.

605 Fifth Avenue, 1925. Designed in 1924 by architect William Van Alen (of later Chrysler Building fame), this midblock building was forecast by the New York Times to be “one of the finest buildings along Fifth Avenue in this section.” The asymmetrical structure had six full stories of curved windows on one corner. The architect took advantage of the setback of the neighboring church to showcase this innovative feature. Completed in 1925 for the Child's restaurant chain, the resulting edifice of gleaming white limestone and expansive plate glass was called a veritable jewel-box” by a contemporary design magazine. It was said to have been the first building in the U.S. without corner columns. The unique vantage point by which passersby could look right through the curved corner of the building was lost in 1952 with the demolition of the church and the construction of 600 Fifth Avenue, a 26-story office building. Since 1997 the building has been home to TGI Friday's. For many years the facade was painted a bright blue with contrasting red and white awnings. In the last few years, the facade has gone back to white, but a four-story advertisement covers the upper floors (and curved windows).

The Mechanics National Bank was founded in 1810 in New York. By 1921, it was one of four national banks with branch offices in the city: accompanied by Chatham and Phenix National, Irving National, and National City Bank. Of this list, only the National City Bank (Citibank) remains. In 1911, the Mechanics National Bank merged with the National Copper Bank to become the Mechanics and Metals National Bank. Then in 1914 and 1920, the bank merged with the Fourth National Bank and the Produce Exchange Union. The Mechanics and Metals National Bank was consolidated by Chase National Bank in 1926. After the bank vacated the building for an office downtown, The Russian Tea Room, now located at 150 West 57th Street, was founded at this address. In 1991 the building was razed to make way for a 21-story tower for the Japanese American Nippon Club.

Rivoli Theatre, 1918. Designed by renowned theatre architect, Thomas Lamb, the Greek Revival theatre opened to the public on December 28, 1917. The very first movie screened was the Douglas Fairbanks film "A Modern Musketeer," which was presented with a "live" program featuring musical soloists, the organ, and house orchestra. The Rivoli was built as the sister theatre to the Rialto (at Broadway and 42nd Street). The auditorium could accommodate 2270 patrons and was noted for its acoustics. The house orchestra was 50 pieces and conducted by Dr. Hugo Riesenfeld. The design of the stage was specific for the movie screen (in the large center proscenium) and two side for the orchestra and soloists. A stage for live theatrical productions was only constructed in 1926. Comic book writer, editor, publisher Stan Lee was an usher at the Rivoli in his youth. In the 1950s the theatre was converted to a 70mm Todd-AO setup with a deeply curved screen. The theatre was demolished in 1987.

Saint Thomas' Church ca. 1975 Despite its asymmetrical composition, with only one tower, this church is such a beautiful example of French Gothic architecture that we are hardly aware of the lack of a second tower. The plan is ingeniously arranged and has functioned successfully for the congregation and for some of the most fashionable weddings in New York.

The Warwick, date unknown. Designed by Emery Roth in association with George B. Post & Sons, this 36-story Renaissance Revival building was financed by publisher William Randolph Hearst. One of the original tenants of the residential tower was Hearst's mistress Marion Davies. (It is said he commissioned the building specifically for her.) Today the Warwick remains a luxury hotel.

Cort Theatre ARCHITECT: Thomas W. Lamb DATE: 1912-13 STYLE: French The Cort Theater represents a special aspect of the nation’s theatrical history. Beyond its historical importance, it is an exceptionally handsome theater, with a facade modeled on the Petit Trianon in Versailles. Its triple-story, marble-faced Corinthian colonnade is very unusual among the Broadway theaters. Thomas Lamb was New York’s most prolific theater architect, but the Cort is one of only two legitimate stage theaters of his design surviving in the Broadway area. The design of this theatre is based on the French architecture at Versailles, and the interior’s significant architectural features include plaster cameos, a mural, and a unique proscenium arch of plasterwork and art glass. For over three-quarters of a century, the Cort Theater has served as home to countless numbers of the plays through which the Broadway theater has come to personify American theater.

Adelphi Theatre, March 30, 1937. Opened as the Craig Theatre opened on December 24, 1928, the venue on 54th underwent more name changes that most theatres (which is saying something since most changed names at least twice in their histories). The venue's longest running name was the Adelphi Theatre (1934–1940 and 1944–1958). In 1947 the theatre premiered the American opera "Street Scene" with music by Kurt Weill ("The Threepenny Opera") and book by Langston Hughes. In the 1950s the venue was used as a TV studio, episodes of the 'Honeymooners' were filmed there. It returned to live theatre in 1957, changed names a few more times and closed, finally, in the late 1960s. The building was razed in 1970 and eventually replaced by the office tower at 1325 Avenue of the Americas.

Carnegie Hall, 1895. The main structure of the world-renowned venue, Carnegie Hall was built in 1891 and designed in the Renaissance Revival style by William B. Tuthill with Richard Morris Hunt and Dankmar Adler as consultants. Funded by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, it was originally called Music Hall. The official opening night performance on May 5, 1891 was a concert conducted by famed Russian composer Tchaikovsky. Renamed Carnegie Hall in 1893 the building had two residential towers added a year later, design by Henry J. Hardenbergh. Carnegie Hall became the preeminent concert hall in the United States during the 20th century, with performances in diverse genres. Slated for demolition in the late 1950s after the Philharmonic announced their plan to move to Lincoln Center, the building was saved through the advocacy of a group of musicians, including violinist Isaac Stern. Special legislature allowed the city to buy the building and a non-profit was created to run the venue. In the last decade, the last remaining residents of the towers were evicted prior to the redevelopment of those spaces into a new educational wing.

718 Fifth Avenue ca. 1937 718 Fifth Avenue was designed by Platt and Platt in 1937. The grand five-story structure on Fifth Avenue and 56th Street announcing glass as the epitome of modernity. The façade of Indiana limestone and 2 large windows made of 3,800 square panes of translucent glass at night revealed divisions between floors and diagonal bracing, all the while showcasing the glass, another architectural advertisement.

Listen to the Bowery Boys' podcast on the history of the iconic Carnegie Hall while examining these archival images!