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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.