The West 47th Street Police Station was built in 1860. The station was nestled in Hell's Kitchen and in proximity to the Theater District, which meant the station was always busy. One rumor claims that after a risque play titled "Sex," actress and playwright Mae West was arrested and brought in to the station. The station was known as the 26th, 9th, 18th, and then 16th precinct, exchanging titles as Manhattan's landscape changed around it. In 1933, the station became the target of a lively protest. In summer months, children living in tenement apartments across the city sought relief from heatwaves by prying open fire hydrants. At the expense of instant relief, streets, gutters, and cellars were flooded. Soon the fire department claimed that so many hydrants left open might deplete their supply of water if an actual fire broke out. In response, the police closed every hydrant. Outraged a crowd of "400 youngsters, most of them clad in bathing suits and other scanty attire, staged a noisy demonstration outside the West 47th street station." The demonstration, which lasted less than an hour, was reported in the New York Times on June 10th, 1933. By the 1960s, the station, then known as Traffic Station D, was slated for demolition. After the building was razed, the city-owned plot was given to the FDNY as a potential site for developing a new firehouse, though it remained empty for a number of years. Seeking the empty lot as a space for community growth and development, a coalition of local activists, led by Ramon Aponte, garnered the support of a local developer to buy the plot for public use. Hell's Kitchen was riddled with crime from the 1970s through the 1980s, and Aponte recognized creating public spaces was key to reinstilling a sense of safety in the area. The land was turned into a park with a playground and was maintained by the 47th Street Block Association, Community Board #4, Fountain House, and the Green Guerillas for the decade after it was purchased by the community. The park was eventually made an official New York City Park and is named after Aponte.

Stella Tower, 425-437 West 50th Street, ca. 1980. Ralph Thomas Walker, lauded as the "architect of the century" by the New York Times upon his receipt, in 1957, of the American Institute of Architects Centennial Medal of Honor, designed this Art Deco gem in 1927 for the New York Telephone Company. In 2014, the top half of Walker's 18-story tower was transformed into fifty-one luxury residences. Verizon, the successor to New York Telephone Company, now operates out of the building's lower floors. Upon its redevelopment, the building was rechristened the "Stella Tower," after Walker's wife Stella Forbes.

Columbus Branch, 1909. Though the Columbus library building was created using the funds from the 1901 Carnegie bequest, the bulk of the original library collection was transferred from the reading room of the Columbus Catholic Club, a social and educational club for young men. The building was designed by Babb, Cook & Willard and completed in 1909. The building included a roof garden with a glass canopy, called an open-air reading room for the summer months. The Italian Renaissance Revival style facade was considerable altered during the 20th century. The third floor was removed in 1960 (and with it the roof-top garden). The small set of steps and original entrance were also removed and replaced by a ground level entrance and a non-historic door.

Stryker's Lane Community Center, ca. 1940. In 1918 Linda Holt and Isabel Merritt established the Stryker's Lane Community Center (Stryker Lane was the nickname for 53rd Street). The organization was a community center that focused on social and athletic activities. The pictured structure on 52nd Street was a recreation hall, a gymnasium created from an abandoned garage in 1921.

In December 1936, the Winter Sports Show and International Ski Meet was held at Madison Square Garden.

631 West 46th Street, November 14, 1947.

New York's first automat opened in 1912. It was operated by the Philadelphia-based food service company Horn & Hardart, who were the first non-Europeans to receive patented vending machines from Max Sielaff's Automat factory in Berlin.

Film Center Building, ca. 1948 The Film Center was built in 1928 and was used for various functions of film productions during the late 1920s and 1930s when New York City was the center of filmmaking. The building housed sets, editing, and production facilities, as well as a distribution center. The Film Center Building was designed by Eli Jaques Kahn in an Art Deco style. Kahn was a prominent architect in the first half of the 20th century, known for his modernist designs. The building has one of the most detailed surviving interiors from that period in New York City. Both the exterior of the building and a portion of the interior were landmarked in 1982.

Entrance to Film Center, ca. 1995.

328 West 48th Street, south side between Eighth and Ninth Avenues showing Public School 17, ca. 1920. Originally constructed as Public School 17 in 1908, the facility is also known as the Midtown West School. Designed by C.B.J Snyder, the school survived through the 20th century, and at some point had its designation changed to Public School 212. In 1990 the building became home to the Professional Performing Arts School. This small, specialized school focuses on the development and showcasing of students in dance, drama, and vocal music, along with traditional subjects. Famous alum of the school include actress Claire Danes, actor Jesse Eisenberg, and singer Alicia Keys.

United Parcel Service Building, seen at the corner of 12th Avenue and West 43rd Street, July 1, 1965. Rendered in glass and a light brown brick, the UPS Building is a modernist structure built in 1961-1962 The firm that designed this building, Leon & Lionel Levy, were best known for the New York Coliseum, a convention center on Columbus Circle erected in 1956 through the influence of master planner Robert Moses.

Eagle Brewery, ca. 1892. This 19th century west side brewery has a history intertwined with the oldest brewery in the United States, Yuengling. Eagle Brewery was founded in by John Frederick Betz, a young man who had apprenticed at Yuengling in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. After a trip to Europe to learn from master brewers in Germany and Austria, he returned to America and opened his business in 1853. Betz began a brewing empire, with operations in Philadelphia and Jersey City. In 1890 the name was changed to Lembeck and Betz Eagle Brewery. The NJ and PA breweries closed in 1920 during Prohibition, so likely this one did as well. It is unknown when the buildings were demolished.

Sacred Heart of Jesus Church, 457 West 51st Street, ca. 1980. The Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a Roman Catholic parish, founded in 1876 by Reverend Martin J. Brophy. Designed in the Romanesque Revival style to the plans of LeBrun & Sons, the building, according to the AIA Guide to NYC is a "symmetric confection of deep red brick and matching terra cotta frosted with light-colored stone arches, band courses, and copings." Before construction completed in 1901, the congregation worshipped at the Plymouth Baptist Church, also in Manhattan. In 1966, the interior of the church was the first in the Archdiocese of New York to be reconfigured after the Second Vatican Council.

"Larry David, Alicia Keys, and Samuel L. Jackson walk into an elevator. Sounds like the prelude to a bad joke? Actually, that’s just daily routine at Manhattan Plaza, a 1,600-unit affordable housing complex for performing artists in Times Square that has served as the launching pad for thousands of creative careers since it opened in the late 1970s. It was in this anonymous high-rise in Hell’s Kitchen, that Alicia Keys first learned to play the piano. It was here, in a federally subsidized apartment, that Larry David first met Kenny Kramer — the 'real' Kramer — and wrote the pilot for Seinfeld. To this day, Manhattan Plaza continues to serve as affordable 'on-campus housing' for thousands of performers in the nearby Theater District. But despite Manhattan Plaza’s enormous contributions to popular culture — not to mention the local entertainment economy — the project is little known. To most passersby, it’s just another ugly redbrick tower block. That’s about to change with the release of the forthcoming documentary Miracle on 42nd Street, which explores the project’s dramatic history and features countless Manhattan Plaza 'alumni' paying tribute to the project’s transformative impact on their lives and careers. The film also offers fresh insights into familiar moments in the city’s history: the fiscal crisis, the AIDS crisis, and the revitalization of Times Square." For more on Manhattan Plaza, check out this interview with award-nominated filmmaker Alice Elliott in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History.

De Witt Farm School was a three-quarter-acre "Farm Garden," whose 360 plots covered a portion of De Witt Clinton Park. The Farm School, whose pupils were both boys and girls of ages nine through twelve, grew crops of corn, beets, beans, turnips, lettuce, spinach, cabbage, celery, and radishes. In the farmhouse, "home-ec" like courses were taught to girls while boys learned outdoor chores. Though chores were gendered, boys and girls joined together to learn how to cook their harvest. This "farm garden" was opened by Frances Griscom Parsons in 1902. Parsons was a mother of seven. She considered farming a crucial component of a child's education. To instill these values in her own, she would take them to the country to learn the ways of the farm. However, Parsons was conscious that the luxury of a countryside home was not available to all New York children, thus she developed the "Farm Garden:" a vital educational tool and a piece of the countryside all city children could access. Her first Farm Garden was located adjacent to tenement apartments in what is now Hell's Kitchen. The program gained success quickly, and, in 1903, Parks Commissioner William R. Willcox said, "Older persons who live thereabout declare they can see a decided difference in the courtesy and general conduct of youngsters since the plan was first adopted." Parsons believed that kids who were kept busy were kept out of trouble. Not only did the program keep youngsters occupied, but it also beautified the park which hosted Farm Gardens. Unfortunately, the construction of the West Side Highway led to the De Witt Clinton Park's closure in 1932. Other Farm Gardens based on Parsons' model in Harlem, the Lower East Side, Williamsburg, and Brownsville carried on the legacy of the De Witt Farm Garden.

Madison Square Garden at Eighth Avenue and 50th Street, ca. 1930, the third structure to bear that name.

Film Center Building ARCHITECT: Ely Jacques Kahn DATE: 1928-29 STYLE: Art Deco The Film Center Building interior design is an example of the Art Deco style. The architect, Ely Jacques Kahn, was one of the city’s most prominent architects working in modernistic styles. The interior incorporates a technique of “woven” plaster wall and ceiling surfaces, and a wide-ranging polychromatic program, and it survives largely intact. The building was built to service the motion picture industry then centered in Times Square to the east and still serves the functions for which it was constructed.