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.

Catholic Apostolic Church ARCHITECT: Francis H. Kimball DATE: 1885-86 STYLE: Terra-cotta The Catholic Apostolic Church, built in 1885-86, was one of architect Francis H. Kimball’s earliest independent commissions in New York City. Kimball had previously worked mostly in Hartford, Connecticut, where he supervised the construction of the Collegiate Gothic style buildings at Trinity College designed by English architect-theorist William Burges, and where the foremost leaders of the Church were residents and would have known his work. Kimball was in the forefront of architects in using exterior architectural terra0cotta in New York during this period, and the Catholic Apostolic Church is significant in the history of American terra-cotta. The facade of the church is dominated by a central rose window within a pointed-arched surround, one of the most complex elements yet attempted in terra-cotta in the United States, and the sculptural ornament also incorporates iconography referring to Apostle-Evangelists and angels.

IRT POWERHOUSE, MANHATTAN Address: West 58th & 59th Streets, 11th & 12th Avenues Architect: Stanford White Constructed: 1904 Stanford White was able to design in 1904 what today seems like a minor miracle: a highly elegant and ornate utilitarian structure. It was all in a day’s work for White and other City Beautiful proponents who believed that public improvements should be built to create a city that is both functional and beautiful. This monumental structure is a remarkable example of Beaux-Arts design applied to a utilitarian building; its architectural grandeur meant to convince the public to embrace the subway, a major new mode of transportation in 1904. Designed as a showpiece, it now stands as a monument to progress and rapid transit. In addition to its architecture, the building holds an important place in industrial history. When it opened, it was the largest powerhouse in the world and provided the energy needed to run the first subway line along Manhattan’s west side, which in turn created and enabled the modern city of New York. Despite the unfortunate loss of its original smokestacks, the IRT Powerhouse remains a commanding presence and a dynamic anchor for an ever-changing west side. Occupying the entire block bounded by Eleventh and Twelve Avenues, West 58th and 59th Streets, the original powerhouse of the Interborough Rapid Transit Subway is the most monumental building associated with the subway system in New York City. This mammoth structure was the largest powerhouse in the world upon its completion in 1904, and it represented the highest level of technical sophistication in the production of electrical power at that time. From the powerhouse, current was generated and fed to eight substations to power the signal and lighting systems. In its role as company symbol, the building heralded a new era of electrified urban transportation, illustrating the power of technology to improve urban life. The IRT Powerhouse still stands as a monument to the engineers and architects who planned and built New York City's first successful underground transit system. The exterior of the powerhouse was designed by Stanford White of the prominent firm of McKim, Mead and White and is a rare example of utilitarian design by that firm. Executed in the Beaux-Arts style and drawing upon Renaissance prototypes, it is the embodiment of the aesthetic ideals of the civic-minded City Beautiful movement, spawned by World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, which held that public improvements could beautify American industrial cities. The structural design of the powerhouse was the responsibility of William C. Phelps, assistant engineer in charge of the Mechanical Department of the Subway Construction Company. Standing on a base of smooth ashlar granite, the building has symmetrically designed facades of buff-colored brick arranged in bays with two-story arched window openings that are decorated with terra-cotta moldings and keystones. The arcades are surmounted by an attic story with paired window openings framed by terra-cotta moldings and keystones. The six windows of the Eleventh Avenue facade are separated by brick pilasters with foliated terra-cotta rustication blocks and topped by terra-cotta wreaths. At the long north and south facades, pairs of rusticated brick pilasters separate the arched bays. Many of the windows retain their original multipane industrial sash. It is unclear whether any of the original six chimneys--which were erected on a steel substructure 76 feet about the basement floor of the powerhouse in order to maximize floor space--remain, and a new, much taller chimney has been added near the southeast corner. The original terra-cotta roof tiles and the upper cornice have also been removed.

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.

Public Bath No. 10 at the foot of West 51st Street and the Hudson River, ca. 1902 The city’s floating baths — public bathing areas on the city’s waterways, enclosed by floating pontoons — were introduced in 1870, but unofficial bathing areas existed decades earlier. Bathing hours were gender segregated, with dips limited to 20 minutes, and free to the public. The 1901 edition of the New York City Red Book lists six such baths on the Hudson, including this swimming area at the foot of West 51st Street.

Footrace at Hudsonbank gymnasium, 1898. Hudsonbank, the first outdoor public playground in New York City, was established by the Outdoor Recreation League in 1898, in order to encourage physical activity among the youthful residents of the city’s tenements. This photograph may document Hudsonbank’s opening exhibition, in August 1898. The Outdoor Recreation League was led by Charles Bunstein Stover, the eccentric founder of the Neighborhood Guild settlement house on the Lower East Side who later became Parks Commissioner. Stover, a former seminary student, was prone to unannounced disappearances. One such episode, a 39-day sojourn in 1913, prompted friends to produce a film reel with his likeness to be shown in theaters, in hopes of finding him. After rumored sightings across the country, he resigned his position as Commissioner and reappeared quietly in New York.

John Theurer Wagon Works, ca. 1913. A surviving piece of Hell’s Kitchen’s industrial heritage, the former Theurer building dates to about 1913, when a July edition of The Carriage Monthly announced: “John Theurer Wagon Works, Inc., announce that they have opened a new and modernly equipped plant for the manufacture and repair of wagons, trucks and commercial automobile bodies.”

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.

Workers inspect the site of the Ninth Avenue El derailment on September 11, 1905. At upper right is the 53rd Street spur, leading to the Sixth Avenue El, where the derailed train was mistakenly switched.

In 1935, giants dominated the west side of Manhattan, lined up one after another on the Hudson River piers. From around the world, these ocean liners ferried passengers back and forth to New York.

"Tenth Ave., west side, north from West 58th to 59th Streets, showing occupying this block front, the Haaren High School. This structure formerly housed De Witt Clinton High School, 1937." The ornate building on Tenth Avenue was built by C.B.J Snyder, the BOE Superintendent of Buildings, in 1906. It originally housed DeWitt Clinton High School, which had previously been located in Greenwich Village. The H- shaped school (a Snyder design innovation) was built in the Flemish Renaissance style, with large gables, dormers, high-pitched roofs, and red brick trimmed with limestone. DeWitt Clinton High School moved to the Bronx in 1929 and the building then became Haaren High School, a vocational institution, which lasted through the 1970s. The building underwent a renovation in 1998 which converted the courtyard into a glass atrium. Today it is Haaren Hall on the campus of John Jay College.

IRT Powerhouse, date unknown. Stanford White’s monumental Renaissance Revival structure directly embraces the City Beautiful philosophy, then in vogue among urban planners; its imposing grandeur and ornate detailing inspire viewers while the building itself serves a larger functional purpose: powering the New York City subway. The building was acquired by Consolidated Edison in 1959, after the subway system had adopted new power sources.

The Wm. Fox Corp. building at 55th Street and 10th Avenue, 1921. Construction on the Fox building, a $2.5 million endeavor supervised personally by founder William Fox, began in 1919. The building was both a film production facility, with fireproof construction specifically designed to accommodate hazards associated with flammable filmmaking materials, and the corporate headquarters of the Fox Film Corporation. The 1929 stock market crash and litigation over an unsuccessful bid to acquire the Loew’s chain of theaters left William Fox bankrupt. He lost control of the Fox Film Corp in a 1930 hostile takeover; even so, 20th Century Fox continues to bear his name. Today, the former Fox building on 10th Avenue is the Independence High School.

Ninth Avenue El derailment at 53rd Street. September 11, 1905. At a few minutes after 7 a.m., a downtown-bound train on the Ninth Avenue El plunged from the tracks at the corner of 53rd Street, ultimately killing 13 and injuring 48, in what was then the worst subway accident in city history. The wreck occurred at the point where downtown-bound Ninth and Sixth Avenue tracks diverged, with Sixth Avenue trains making a 90 degree turn East along 53rd Street. Ordinarily, the approaching downtown train would display a placard indicating to the towerman whether to activate the switch for the curve. In this case a miscommunication between the motorman and the towerman (who may not have been at his post) sent the train into the curve at more than three times its speed limit. The motorman braked, but was unable to prevent two cars from careening over the edge of the trestle. One car slammed into the ground while the other came to rest partially suspended by the second floor window of no. 798 Ninth Avenue. The New York Times described the scene: “The third car of the train, hurled forward by the weight of those behind it, was shoved over the elevated structure and its forward end was forced through the window of the apartment of Mrs. James G. Crowe, who lives above the drug store. The car rocked for a moment and seemed as if about to fall into the street. Then it settled, its forward end held by the sill of the window and the fire escape, and hung suspended like a bridge across the street. The frantic passengers clambered out of the windows and along the roof into the apartments of Mrs. Crowe, and thence to the street.”

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.

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.

Laren Garage, ca. 1937.

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.

Canada Dry Building, 1940. The charming Joe-Harry Diner is dwarfed by Canada Dry's plant in this image of pre-war industrial Manhattan. The Canada Dry Company began in Toronto, Ontario, in 1890. Its product-Pale Dry Ginger Ale- was first shipped to New York in 1919, and two year later, the first Canada Dry plant in the United States opened on West 38th Street. In 1930, ten years prior to Bryon's photograph of its 12th Avenue and West 55th Street facility, Canada Dry introduced tonic water, club soda, and collins mix.

“Men aboard a coach from the New York Herald City Beautiful Campaign. They are located at 54th Street & 10th Avenue.” April 29, 1900. On Sunday, April 29, 1900, the New York Herald ran a full-page feature (including the above photo) framed as a conversation on the topic “How Can New York Be Made The City Beautiful?” between panelists including the President and Landscape Architect of the Board of Park Commissioners, a member of the Municipal Art Society, and a Danish “Traveller and Sociological xpert.” The headline references City Beautiful, a turn of the century urban planning movement that aimed to improve the living conditions in cities by instituting new aesthetic principles to govern urban architecture, including the promotion of monumental municipal buildings.

The Outdoor Recreation League was founded in 1898 to provide for "proper and sufficient exercise and recreation places, playgrounds, and open air gymnasiums for the people." Byron captured the success of the Hudson-Bank Gymnasium, located within the new DeWitt Clinton Park between 11th and 12th Avenues and 52nd and 54th Streets, during its inaugural year in several photographs that document constructive play and exercise in this notoriously dangerous Hell's Kitchen neighborhood.

Sheffield Farms plant, 1938. Sheffield Farms was a milk company that in the first half of the 20th century became one of the largest dairy companies in the world. They also sold 20% of all of the milk purchased within New York City. Sheffield was established over a few years in the 1880s, as L. B. Halsey got involved in his wife's family butter business and then expanded it a larger scale dairy trade. In 1939 the company erected a plant on the West Side, consisting of a large three story (plus massive basement and sub-basement) plant and a six-story office building. By 1952 the operations at the plant were diminishing as the company moved their processing elsewhere. After a double sale, the complex was purchased by the television network CBS for its broadcast center, which remains in the space today.