P. Lorillard Tobacco factory, 1927.

New York Hospital under construction, 1940. The original New York Hospital was founded in 1771 by Edinburgh graduate Samuel Bard in lower Manhattan. The hospital moved a number of times in the ensuing centuries until it landed at its current location in 1932 (it had become affiliated with Cornell University a few years earlier in 1927).

501-7 East 71st Street, at N.E. corner of York Avenue. In the foreground is the excavation for the Cornell Medical College-New York Hospital, July 31, 1930.

York Avenue - 74th Street, looking northwest, 1934. This corner of mostly empty storefronts and apartments on the upper floors would not survive long after this photograph was taken. In 1939 a Norman Gothic style church was erected on this corner for a congregation with a long New York City history. The Church of the Epiphany was established in 1833 as the first church of the New York Protestant Episcopal City Mission Society. The parish, which began in a small room on the Lower East Side, had their first church building at 130 Stanton Street. Through various moved and mergers with other parishes the church had services in locations on 47th and 50th Streets, as well as Lexington Avenue. The current church building was constructed around the time that the nearby hospital facilities were also being built. The architect of the church, Marion Sims Wyeth of the firm Wyeth & King, is perhaps currently (2017) best known as the architect of Mar-a-Logo. This Florida mansion built by socialite Marjorie Merriweather Post as a winter retreat for presidents was purchased in 1985 by Donald Trump and has been used in 2017 by the 45th president.

Webster Branch, November 20, 1928. Constructed in 1906 to the designs of the architectural firm of Babb, Cook & Willard, the Webster Branch of the New York Public Library became an important community hub for the neighborhood's large Czech population. The library provided Czech newspapers and magazines, children’s story hours in Czech, a location for Bohemian Club meetings, and exhibition space for cultural displays.

Three-story frame structures, southwest corner of 1st Avenue and 75th Street, 1935. Charles Kosches was a furniture store that had locations uptown as well as on 14th Street and st Avenue.

Public School 158, 1920. This large school which fronts York Avenue from 77th to 78th Streets opened on Jan. 9, 1899. For more than four years, a school trustee, W. Horithal, had been advocating for a school building to education the rapidly growing population of immigrant children in the neighborhood. Today the school is named for Bayard Taylor, an American poet, literary critic, translator, travel author, and diplomat.

New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center (now NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center), ca. 1931. The view is from Roosevelt Island, then known as Welfare Island.

The four buildings of the former Shively Sanitary Tenements (a.k.a.East River Homes, Vanderbilt Model Tenements); 1911. Built in 1910-11, the Shively Sanitary Tenements, named for Dr. Henry Shively, were an experiment in housing for sufferers of tuberculosis and their families. Shively, architect Henry Atterbury Smith, and benefactor Anne Harriman Vanderbilt envisioned a housing development where poor tuberculosis patients could receive treatment in an environment replete with fresh air and sunlight — without being quarantined from their non-infected families. Smith's design prioritized features encouraging exposure to fresh air: open stairways, courtyards, rooftop recreation areas, and triple-hung windows were all thought to confer therapeutic benefits. The trustees were ultimately unable to provide meaningful help to poor New Yorkers with tuberculosis, though not for any failure of design or treatment — the apartments were simply too expensive for the communities they were intended to serve. In 1923, the trust governing the project was dissolved and the buildings sold for residential use. In 1986, the residential units were again turned over for condo conversion, with the new development dubbed the Cherokee apartments, after neighboring Cherokee Place.

FDR Drive, north of 78th Street, ca. 1979. The City and Suburban Homes Company was a firm established in 1896 whose goal was to create humanely designed tenements that produce a substantial profit. In 1901 they began filling the block between 78th and 79th and York and First Avenue. The block would eventually include 13 model tenements. The one outlier on the block was the building at the northwest corner of 78th Street and the East River. Constructed in 1910-1912 as a joint project with the Junior League of New York, the building was called the Junior League Hotel for Working Women, and was a residence specifically for single women. Designed by Philip Ohm, in a simple style with neo-Renaissance features. The original entrance was facing the water on what was then quiet Exterior Street (now elevated and noisy FDR Drive). In 1913, there were 317 residents including 40 stenographers, 32 dressmakers, 18 librarians, 14 milliners and 5 telegraphers. In 1978-1980 the building was converted into apartments and after threats of demolition in the 1980s, the building was lanmarked in 1990. Today the building remains residential, though the entrance now sits , safely, on East 78th Street.

1314-1318-1322 York Avenue (Avenue A), at and adjoining northeast corner of 70th Street, 1928. No. 1314 (at corner) was built around 1905 on the site of the Davis Moulding Mill (1895). No. 1322 (at left) was built around 1895, as a cigar factory, and circa 1916 by the American Tobacco Company. These buildings were demolished soon after this photograph was taken in 1928. They were replaced by a building for the New York Hospital and Cornell Medical School, which included residences for nurses. Today that structure is called the Hemsley Medical Tower and is a residence for families of patients at New York -Presbyterian Hospital.