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129 East 62nd Street, date unknown. This neo-Grec style building, constructed between 1873 and 1874 by John Prague, has the triangular pediment (over the door) that is indicative of that architectural style. This is the final building in a row of 15 structures built at the same time, by the same architect, stretching from Park Avenue to the middle of the block on the north side of 62nd Street.

58th Street Branch, July 8, 1928. Designed by Carrère and Hastings and opened May 10, 1907, the 58th Street Branch looks very different today. The original wide library building was demolished in the 1960s and was replaced in 1969 by a new branch in the lower floors of an office tower at the same location.

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

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

New York is a city built on the labor of its people. This story captures a glimpse inside training spaces and workplaces of days past, many of which you'd be hard-pressed to find today.

Edward Durell Stone House, ca. 1980. In 1956 architect Edward Durell Stone purchased a narrow 1878-built rowhouse on 64th Street. Originally designed in a neo-Grec style by James Ware, the 15 feet wide facade was dramatically transformed by the modernist Stone. He removed the stoop and created the entrance at the basement level. The most impactful work was the addition of a bright white filigree screen that reached from street level to the roof, rendered with a somewhat dizzying geometric pattern that alternately looked like circles, squares or diamond shapes depending on the perspective. Though fiercely modernist, Stone respected the history of his home, adding his mid-century details alongside the 19th-century interiors in a harmonious way. This photograph captures the home sans screen when a few years after his father's 1978 death, Benjamin Hicks Stone removed the screen due to deterioration and instability. He reproduced and replaced it. When the home changed hands in 2004, the new owners hired Hicks Stone to restore it and update the kitchen, baths, and mechanical systems.

535 Park Avenue ca. 1913 535 Park Avenue began its life in 1909 when a group of businessmen and professionals began to plan for an apartment building on Park Avenue just above midtown. Intending on creating a co-op, the group hired the architect Herbert Lucas, known for his work on 24 Gramercy Park South. In designing the building, the group hoped that Lucas would land as close to "a private home as possible." Endeavoring to do so, Lucas came up with an elegant Colonial design, using simple brick and half-oval balconies. The co-op owners' apartments tended to be duplexes within the building, along with a numbed half floor simplexs that were rented, mostly to bankers and lawyers, to reduce the initial building costs. However, the press was not as kind. It was decried in the 1911 Architectural Review as a sham-palatial amongst other more biting critiques. The author, taking particular offense to the mix of red brick and terra cotta, called it "cheap finery" and described its cornice as that "of the cheapest and vulgarest kind of tenement houses." While 535 has aged well, the two-story terracotta band at its bottom has experienced some wear and tear, graying with dirt over the years. The co-op board undertook renovation work on the base in 2013, returning it to its original gleaming white color.

521 Park Avenue, 1930. The apartment building at no. 521 was constructed in 1911, and designed by architect William Boring, who is best known for the Immigration Station on Ellis Island. In 1913 the 12-story building was awarded an honorable mention by the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Its decorative metal balconies (some which run the width of the building, and others considerably shorter) have been preserved.

Mount Vernon Hotel Museum ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1799 STYLE: Federal The charm of this Federal style stone stable converted into a comfortable headquarters for the Colonial Dames is to be found in its superb masonry construction and its excellent proportions. The sharp profiles of the low pitched pedimented gable roofs cut a clean line that is both severe and pleasing to the eye. A smooth-faced stone belt-course separates the rock-faced masonry of the lower floor from that of the second story clearly defining the building’s perimeter.

Col. Smith House (also known as the Adams Mansion), 1924. This building was originally a carriage house on the estate of Colonel William S. Smith, aide-de-camp to Washington and husband of Abigail Adams, the daughter of President John Adams. The estate was known as "Smith's Folly." After his failure in business, about 1800, the buildings were brought by William T. Robinson and were said to have been completed by him. In 1826 the main house burned, and in 1830 the carriage house was bought by Jeremiah Towle, remaining in the possession of his family until 1906. It was later purchased by the Colonial Dames of America.

We know there's a lot of stressful news in your timeline, so here's a round-up of calming images for a #MuseumMomentofZen.

There's no place like NYC for the holidays! From iconic window displays to synchronized light and sound shows, this walk will guide you through the history of a festive city tradition that dates back to the 1870s.

Allan Stillman, the founder of "T.G.I. Fridays" unknowingly created what would become one of the most beloved and hated eating establishments of its era. Stillman, a perfume salesman, put down $5,000 (plus an additional $5,000 he borrowed from his mom) to turn a divey boy's bar into a hoppin' singles hangout, velvet ropes and all. Read on to learn the history of T.G.I. Fridays.

731 Lexington Avenue, at the southeast corner of East 59th Street; November 8, 1935. Sometimes referred to as Bloomberg Tower, this building is the headquarters of Bloomberg L.P. The complex, a 55-story tower on a 27-story base of offices, was built on the former site of the Alexander’s Department Store.

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

Mount Vernon Hotel Museum and Garden, ca. 1939. Located on 61st Street between 1st and York Avenue, this plot was originally purchased by Colonel William S. Smith, a Revolutionary War veteran and politician. Smith found the property with his wife, Abigail Adams, the daughter of founding father and second U.S. President John Adams. The two bought the land with intentions to develop it into an estate called "Mount Vernon," named for George Washington's plantation in Virginia. The couple eventually sold the land, never beginning construction of their planned estate. Instead, William T. Robinson, who owned a house nearby, purchased the property to build a stone carriage house and stable. He continued to call the area "Mount Vernon." Unfortunately, Robinson's main estate was lost to a fire in the 1820s. In 1826, the former carriage house was converted into a hotel by Joseph Coleman Hart. Surrounded by rural lands, the stone house provided an easy getaway for Manhattanites looking to spend a day in the country. In an era with no public parks, the area provided New York City's elite with a place to roam free and participate in many activities, such as boating and hiking in proximity to the East River. Mount Vernon was more of a country club than a hotel, and many guests returned home to the city in the evenings by steamboat or stagecoach. The hotel closed in 1833, likely put out of business by nearby competitors. It was purchased by Jerimiah Towle and converted into a private residence for his family. As photographs indicate, by the early 20th century the Standard Light and Gas Company began building tanks in the vicinity of the property and eventually purchased the home in 1905. The building's ownership was eventually passed down to the Colonial Dames of America, a patriotic society, who converted the former hotel into their headquarters in 1924. Coinciding with the New York's World's Fair, the building was converted into the Abigail Adam Smith Museum, which was later renamed the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum and Garden to better reflect its history. The Colonial Dames of America still operate the Hotel Museum and Garden, which focuses on the history of New York City after the construction of the Erie Dam in 1925.

Bloomingdale's, ca. 1995. The classic holiday windows at Bloomingdale's have drawn in crowds of locals and tourists from around the world for decades. Their decorative windows are typically unveiled just before Black Friday so that they can be viewed by holiday shoppers throughout the season.

Third Avenue Railroad Company car barn, behind the tracks of the Third Avenue El at 65th Street, October 8, 1936. This imposing French Second Empire structure opened in 1861 and later expanded to cover the entire block between Second and Third Avenues, 65th and 66th Streets. The car barn served as a storage and transfer facility for Third Avenue streetcars and also included stables until horse-drawn streetcars were discontinued in 1899. In the early decades of the 20th century, elevated trains, subways and the increasing prevalence of automobiles combined to make the streetcars redundant. When the fleet switched to buses in the 1940s, that spelled the end for the car barn: in 1946, the dramatic Victorian building was sold to New York Life and demolished. The Manhattan House, a groundbreaking modern apartment building, was completed on the site in 1951.

119-121 62nd Street, ca. 1911. Nos. 119 and 121 were originally separate structures built in 1873-74 by John Prague, as part of a series of 15 buildings on the north side of East 62nd Street. In 1910 the two homes were combined and a new single facade was constructed, creating a neo-Federal style building. The work was designed by Grosvenor Atterbury (who designed Forest Hills Gardens) for the owners of the structure, Dr. Lewis A. Connor, a famed heart doctor and founder of the American Heart Association. Today the building is the Consulate General of Bulgaria.

The most famous, and arguably the best example of the new, modern women’s hotel was the Barbizon Hotel for Women, built by Murgatroyd & Ogden and completed in 1928 at 63rd and Lexington. One of the Allerton Group partners, William Silk, was the developer, and the Barbizon resembled the Allerton in size and height, as well as in purpose: to provide amenities and entertainment in-house for single, professional women. Early newspaper coverage emphasized the Barbizon was designed for the “modern woman,” who was simultaneously depicted as “strong” and “dainty.” The Barbizon positioned itself as a hotel for women who wanted a career in the arts, taking its name from a school of French artists and advertising its proximity to cultural institutions. The hotel included artists’ studios and music rooms, as well as a rich program of cultural events. There were facilities for dining, entertaining, reading, and exercising as well, including a gymnasium and a pool. As with the Martha Washington, there were also elegant shops on the ground floor. Despite the modern and even luxurious amenities and public spaces, Barbizon bedrooms were small and fairly plain. As with earlier women’s hotels, the smaller rooms meant more occupants. A 1939 hotel brochure shows an image of a single bedroom with a somewhat glamorous inhabitant, while an amateur photo of a different single bedroom at the Barbizon reflects a starker reality: one window, a bureau, a small desk, and a day-bed.

Col. Smith House (also known as the Adams Mansion), 1924. This Federal style structure was originally built as the carriage house for the large 23-acres estate of John Adams' daughter Abigail and her husband, William Stephens Smith. Despite grand plans and an idea to name the estate after George Washington's home, the Smiths were forced to sell the estate due to financial troubles. This building was completed in 1799 by the next owner, William T. Robinson, a well-to-do merchant. By the 1820s the building and its nearby structures and land were purchased and converted in the Mount Vernon Hotel, which was a day hotel catering to a rising middle class looking to escape the crowding and congestion of downtown. The hotel would only stay open for seven years. For the rest of the 19th and early 20th century it was a private residence. The building was sold to Standard Gas and Light Company in 1905. The Colonial Dames of New York purchased it in 1924 (the year this photo was taken) and turned it into a museum. It has continued in that capacity into the 21st century.

Church of St. Vincent Ferrer, ca. 1930. The Gothic Revival church by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue was completed in 1918, for a Roman Catholic parish dating to 1867. Andy Warhol, an East 66th Street resident for 13 years, regularly attended daily mass.

Saint Vincent Ferrer Priory and School ARCHITECT: William Schickel DATE: 1880-81 STYLE: Victorian Gothic, Church The St. Vincent Ferrer Complex consists of four buildings; the church (a designated New York City Landmark), the priory, the Holy Name Society Building, and the school, all of which display elements based on the Gothic style and form a unified ensemble. The Dominican Fathers, the Roman Catholic order who developed the complex, purchased the site two years after the close of the Civil War in order to serve the spiritual and educational needs of the community. The priory (1880-81), the oldest of the four, is a late, simple rendition of the Victorian Gothic by William Schickel, a noted 19th-century New York architect. The church (1916) is by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue and was considered by him to be his finest work in the ecclesiastical field. The Holy Name Society building was built in 1930 from designs by Wilfrid Edwards Anthony and harmonizes sympathetically with the two earlier structures. The school was designed and built in 1948 by the firm of Elliot L. Chisling-Ferrenz & Taylor.

Located between 65th and 66th streets between Second and Third avenues, Manhattan House (1947-51) occupied a full block in an area that was undergoing significant change as the elevated train tracks that had imprisoned that swath of the city was either recently demolished or scheduled for demolition. An old trolley barn, tenements, and assorted commercial buildings were so affordably priced that New York Life bought extra property in the surrounding blocks. The clean, crisp modernist design by architect Gordon Bunshaft, principal at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), which was associated with the firm Mayer & Whittlesey on the project, was an immediate success and attracted famous tenants such as Benny Goodman, Grace Kelly, and furniture designer Florence Knoll, as well as Bunshaft himself. The apartments were spacious, but the overall density was an impressive 478 pp/acre. Thanks to New York Life’s interest in long-term profits, the building was more “tower in a garden” than “tower in the park” and covered a higher percentage of land (59 percent) than the vast publicly subsidized projects that were its contemporaries. Manhattan House inspired its share of glazed brick imitators, but the truth about private investment in postwar New York was grim. With unrelenting middle-class flight, the demand for high-quality, higher-priced apartments in Manhattan remained comparatively weak. Density reduction, given these facts, made more sense to both private and public developers. Had density levels of Manhattan House been pursued across large areas of the city during the postwar years, it is likely that the city would already be accustomed to much greater density as is the case in crowded cities like Hong Kong. Instead, market failure in postwar New York was used to justify an aggressive strategy of subsidized low-density living.

The Queensboro Bridge, viewed from East 60th Street underneath the tracks of the Second Avenue El, 1937.

My Archive Summer 2019 “I was a Fiorucci addict from 1977-87, in whatever city I was in if there was a Fiorucci, I shopped it. I love the NYC store, and once when I was there I noticed the live model in the window and snapped some exterior shots and some from the inside behind the model. I prefer the indoor photos as I like the people's reactions to her and the wardrobe, reflective of the era. I love the twins in their matching outfits and the man with his hands in his pockets who just might be looking at me.” —Meredith Marciano

131-135 East 66th Street Apartment House ARCHITECT: Charles A. Platt; Simonson, Pollard & Steinam DATE: 1905-06 STYLE: Italian Renaissance Vertically the facade is divided into four sections separated by band courses or cornices. The first division or base, three stories high, is rusticated and accented at the fourth floor by a wide band course. The second section is only one story. The third section of two stories is surmounted by a cornice at the level of the seventh floor window sills with another smaller cornice below it at the fifth floor window sill level. An added accent is achieved in these two cornices by having Them projected forward above all the framed windows. On these two floors art the windows, except the end ones, are joined together by eared frames with keystones and have decorative spandrel panels between them. The next section above is four stories high and has windows set in a plain wall and is separated by a band course from the attic windows, which are set in the architrave of the entablature.

Barbizon Hotel ARCHITECT: Murgatroyd & Ogden DATE: 1927-29 STYLE: North Italian Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance Designed by the prominent hotel specialists Murgatroyd & Ogden, the 23-story Barbizon Hotel is an excellent representative of the 1920s apartment hotel building, and is notable for the high quality of its design. Its vigorous stepped-back massing reflects the influence of the 1916 zoning resolution. The Barbizon’s design is distinguished by the complex arrangement of setbacks and recessed courts, which create subtle transitions between the various elements of the design, and by the masterful handling of its eclectic mixture of North Italian Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance ornament. The richness of the building’s exterior brickwork that varies considerably in hue and texture, the careful proportioning of its details, and its dramatically massed roofline with its 18th story Gothic arcades and chapel-like crown have also won critical acclaim.

Arion Hall, ca. 1908. Founded in 1854 to promote "the perpetuation of love for some of the characteristic elements of German civilization," the Arion Society was a musical group that built this headquarters in 1886-1887. The grand pile was an Italian Renaissance style building with stone balconies, two sculptural groupings at the roofline, Guastavino-tiled arches inside that created huge vaulted spaces, a German beer hall, and a ballroom with seating for 500. While the society was successful through the end of the 19th century, performing at the White House and hosting international statesmen, they ran into trouble by the entry of the U.S into the Great War. When asked to sign a “pledge of loyalty to President Wilson," along with other German societies, the Arions refused. Their response was, “we regard the invitation to sign as a doubt of our loyalty and therefore an insult.” Soon after, a member refused to play the Star-Spangled Banner during a classical concert. (The conductor stated it was not a un-American sentiment, but that the song is "decidedly unclassical and did not fit in with the programme.") These actions proved the death knell for the society. They sold the clubhouse within weeks to the brewer George Ehret, and the interior furnishings were sold at public auction. The later history of the building is strange and varied. It served as the Anderson Galleries, home to art dealers, agents, and appraisers. Then it was empty between 1931 and 1946 before opening the Park Avenue Theater, a “unique and artistic movie house designed to meet the needs of a subscription clientele.” By 1957 the building had a bank, an auto salesroom, and a dance studio. Then it became the Chapel of Saints Faith, Hope, and Charity, an annex of St. Patricks's. Finally, in the late 1970s, the diocese sold the building, and the new owner razed the four-story building for a sleek new office building completed in 1981.

Abigail Adams Smith House, 1935.

"Mr. Himmel from the New York Association for the Blind, 111 East 59th Street, standing outside with his seeing-eye dog, 1929." The New York Association for the Blind was established in 1906 and offered home counseling and instructional programs for the visually impaired. Today the organization is called Lighthouse Guild International and is headquartered at 15 West 65th Street.

120 East 65th Street, ca. 1911. No. 120 (the farthest building on the right) was originally built in 1874 as one a series of speculative brownstone-fronted homes (nos. 120-130). Because of the locomotives that once traveled down the middle of Park Avenue (previously called 4th Avenue) the homes east of Park were originally not hugely desirable. Once the railroad was moved underground in 1875, the value of these attractive homes increased greatly. No. 120 was the home to a series of well-to-do merchants. In 1897 is became the St. Joseph’s Home for Babies, an orphanage run by Dominican nuns. By 1902 the structure was a private home again and undergoing a massive renovation. Owners Isaac Chauncey McKeever and his wife Julia commissioned architect S. E. Gage to transform their Victorian rowhouse into a neo-Federal house. The most striking new feature was the stoop turned sideways with dogleg configuration (meaning it included a sharp bend). Today the home, with the unique stairs, still sits directly next to a series of Victorian rowhouses that look exactly as it once looked.

Manhattan House ARCHITECT: Mayer & Whittlesey; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill DATE: 1947-51 Considered by many writers to be the first white brick apartment building, it was also notable for being one of the first multiple dwellings in New York City to attempt “an indoor-outdoor synthesis” through the integration of large windows and deep projecting balconies, as well as landscaped driveways and a block-long rear garden enclosed by a low granite wall. Manhattan House generated considerable media attention and in 1952 received an award from the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, which described it as “extremely attractive in appearance and beautiful in detailing.” Future New York Times and Wall Street Journal architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable also praised its design, commenting in 1960 that Manhattan House was “one of the best examples to date … notable for its clean architectural shape, as well as for its superior execution in a highly competitive, speculative, building field.”

Postwar, the private sector showed signs of renewed interest in high-density housing. The resurgence of the city’s service sector, as embodied in gleaming office towers of midtown, indicated a real estate vitality not seen in the city since the 1920s. Modernist apartment projects pointed the way to stylish, in-town living. Explore the entirety of the Skyscraper's Museum's Exhibit: Housing Density From Tenements to Towers.

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

67th Street Branch, NYPL, July 26, 1930. Built in 1905 by Babb, Cook & Willard, the 67th Street Library has the Italian Renaissance Revival design of many of the Manhattan Carnegies. The most distinctive feature of the building is the unusual Art Nouveau transom window above doorway (seen at right).

125 East 65th Street, undated. This Neo-Georgian Townhouse was designed by Charles A. Platt for Dr. Frederic S. Reed in 1904. Platt was a notable architect whose clientele included Vincent Astor and Sara Delano Roosevelt. Henry R. Luce purchased the home in 1944, eventually gifting it to the China Institute, who remained at this address for 70 years. More recently, the building was the Kips Bay Decorator Show House, which invites 24 designers to reimagine the interior of the five-story home.