222 East 79th Street James Brown Lord, 1902; renovation: Gwathmey Siegel & Associates 1986 NYC IL, NR-P The very first of the Carnegie-funded branches of the NYPL, the Yorkville Branch officially opened in December of 1902. The three-story building has a limestone facade, divided into three bays with elegant arched windows on the main floor and Ionic columns on the second. At the turn of the century, Yorkville was a densely populated German immigrant neighborhood, and as such, the third floor of the original building housed only German language publications. At the end of World War I, Thomas Masaryk used the Yorkville library to conduct the research that led to his founding of the Czechoslovakian state. The library’s interior was renovated in the late 1980s with funds donated by the Rose family. Once again the place of a pioneering event, the renovation was the first time a branch library was overhauled using private resources. The current library occupies two floors within the original ornate Palladian-inspired façade. The building was designated a landmark in 1967, only two years after the enactment of the New York City Landmarks Law. The library is an New York City Individual Landmark and listed on the New York City and State National Register of Historic Places.

Volney Apartments, 1916. This 12-story building was the final home of writer and critic Dorothy Parker. She first moved into a two-bedroom apartment in 1952 after a separation from her husband and being blacklisted during the anti-Communist years, forced her out of Los Angeles. At the Volney, she lived among largely elderly female residents and their many dogs. (She based the characters of the unsuccessful 1953 play, 'The Ladies of the Corridor,' on her neighbors.) After a brief two year reconciliation with her husband in California, which ended with his death from an overdose in 1963, Parker moved back into Volney. She remained here, when not hospitalized, until her own death in 1967.

In 1903, sisters Winifred and Edith Holt established the "New York Ticket Bureau for the Blind" after being inspired by a similar foundation in Florence, Italy. The charitable organization went on to become one with an international reach. Its mission: "to overcome vision impairment for people of all ages through worldwide leadership in rehabilitation services, education, research, prevention, and advocacy." Read on to learn the history and legacy of the Lighthouse Guild.

Phillips Presbyterian Church, Madison Avenue between 73rd and 74th Street. Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church (organized in 1839) merged with Phillips Presbyterian Church (organized 1844) in 1899. Together, the two congregations constructed a new, neo-Gothic style building to replace the R.H. Robertson Building that was donated to the Madison Avenue congregation in 1972 by philanthropist James Lenox. The resulting structure includes an 800-seat sanctuary, and was designed by architect James E. Ware.

This handsome, mid-block co-operative apartment building at 955 Fifth Avenue between 76th and 77th Street was built in 1938 and designed by Rosario Candela. With a one-story, rusticated limestone entrance beneath three stories of broadly fluted limestone, it's symmetrical setbacks are representative of Candela's style.

107 East 70th Street, date unknown (post 1921). This five-story building with stone trim was constructed in 1921-22 for Thomas Lamont, a principal at J.P. Morgan & Co. Inc. The architects Walker and Gillette were known for two types of structures: New York City townhouses and suburban mansions. This Tudor Revival style home features stone projected bay windows, a portico with Tuscan columns, large leaded-glass windows, and series of Tudor style chimneys. The architects also set the home back from the building ten feet, and did not build all the way to the lot line on the west side, creating a side garden hidden by a street wall. In 1954 the building was retrofitted for the offices of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York (upon donation of the home by the widow of Mr. Lamont). The organization still occupies the building, which underwent a massive interior renovation in 2009 by the preservation focused firm of Beyer Blinder Belle.

740 Park Avenue ca. 1945 740 Park Avenue combined the efforts of Architect Rosario Candela, who most likely focused on apartment planning, and Arthur Loomis Harmon, who probably styled its sleek exterior. (In a similar streamline moderne style, Harmon's firm, Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, designed the Empire State Building, which was under construction when 740 Park was completed.) Setting back above the 12th floor on the building's Park Avenue side, 740 featured a distinctive two-story base of corrugated stone, a body decorated with shallow pilasters, and stainless-steel doorways with elaborate geometric decoration. The building originally contained 30 apartments and its first tenants included builder James T. Lee, whose house had stood on the site. Lee's granddaugher, Jacqueline Bouvier--later Kennedy Onassis--spent part of her childhood in the building, and, in 1937 John D. Rockefeller Jr. created a triplex apartment for his family.

The Carlyle Hotel ca. 1947 The Carlyle Hotel, a 40-story yellow-brick and limestone building on 76th street and Madison Ave, was designed in 1929-30 by the architects Bien and Prince and decorated by Dorothy Draper in an Empire Manner. The 40 stories of the southern half are hotel rooms and the 17 stories of the northern half, not originally in the design, are apartments, both rise from a 12 story base and overlook Central Park. This asymmetry created a recognizable and unique silhouette in the "fashionable" Upper East Side.

Bohemian National Hall ARCHITECT: William C. Frohne DATE: 1895-97 STYLE: Renaissance Revival Bohemian National Hall (Narodni Budova) is a rare survivor of the social halls built in the nineteenth century for New York City’s immigrant ethnic communities. Constructed in two phases in 1895 and 1897, it replaced an earlier National Hall on East 5th Street, which had served the Czech and Slovak population living in the Tompkins Square area of the Lower East Side. The five-story building was designed by William C. Frohne in the Renaissance Revival style. Richly ornamented, it is faced in buff Roman brick, stone, and terra cotta. Among its prominent features are a projecting entrance porch with paired granite columns and a two-story arcade with Ionic columns resting on lion’s-head bases.

Doorway of the Chemical Bank, ca. 1990.

Intersection of East 74th Street and Madison Avenue, looking west toward Central Park, 1929.

Yorkville Branch, NYPL 222 East 79th Street James Brown Lord, 1902; renovation: Gwathmey Siegel & Associates 1986 NYC IL, NR-P The very first of the Carnegie-funded branches of the NYPL, the Yorkville Branch officially opened in December of 1902. The three-story building has a limestone facade, divided into three bays with elegant arched windows on the main floor and Ionic columns on the second. At the turn of the century, Yorkville was a densely populated German immigrant neighborhood, and as such, the third floor of the original building housed only German language publications. At the end of World War I, Thomas Masaryk used the Yorkville library to conduct the research that led to his founding of the Czechoslovakian state. The library’s interior was renovated in the late 1980s with funds donated by the Rose family. Once again the place of a pioneering event, the renovation was the first time a branch library was overhauled using private resources. The current library occupies two floors within the original ornate Palladian-inspired façade. The building was designated a landmark in 1967, only two years after the enactment of the New York City Landmarks Law. The library is an New York City Individual Landmark and listed on the New York City and State National Register of Historic Places.

The Henry T. Sloane House, designed by John Mermen Carrere and Thomas Hastings— both had been educated at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and both worked for McKim, Mead & White— demonstrated the viability of a modern French vocabulary for a New York townhouse. Begun before the Panic of 1893, the house was completed in 1894 on the north side of 72nd Street. Elaborate sculptural ornament enlivened the classically organized tripartite faced. Above a rather simple striated base, five engaged columns divided the second and third floors into four bays, each containing French doors surmounted by elaborately framed windows. Above a strong cornice, a mansard roof with four dormers articulated with scrolls and arched pediments completed the facade. The house stood apart from more restrained expressions of wealth. Architectural historian Wayne Craven has described the house as a "classicist's nightmare, a raging terror to the classical purist." At right is no. 15, once the home to the prominent businessman Benjamin Guggenheim, the brother of Solomon R. Guggenheim and father to Peggy Guggenheim. He and his family lived here until his tragic death on the RMS Titanic in 1912. As one of the most famous victims of the accident, his final moments aboard the ship have been portrayed in multiple films and TV series about the sinking. He famously met his death stoically- after helping women and children on to the lifeboats, he and his valet dressed in their finest clothes, poured themselves a glass of the finest brandy, and sat in the foyer of the grand staircase, smoking cigars as the ship went down. He remarked, "we've dressed in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen."

"East 74th Street, east from but not including Third Avenue. This view showing prominently the north side, 1937." Though the storefronts seen adjacent to the corner of 3rd Avenue (on the far right of the photos) have been replaced by a large apartment building, the building at nos. 214 and 216 (just slightly down the block) with the large arched doorways remains.

168 East 73rd Street CLIENT: William Baylis ARCHITECT: Charles W. Romeyn DATE: 1899 STYLE: Neo-Flemish Renaissance The 168 East 73rd Street Building is a fine example of the type of private carriage house built during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in this area of Manhattan. Constructed in 1899 for William Baylis, this carriage house was designed by Charles Romeyn in a sophisticated rendition of the neo-Flemish Renaissance style.

Whitney Museum of American Art, ca. 1974. Designed in the Brutalist style by Marcel Breuer in 1966, the building was the third location for the Whitney Museum of American Art. (The first two locations were on West Eighth Street and West 54th Street, respectively.) The modernist building with gray granite and reverse ziggurat facade was (and still is) a stark contrast to the surrounding 19th century brownstones, brick row houses, and postwar apartment buildings. The facade is made of 1,500 granite slabs with each weighing between 500 and 600 pounds). Ada Louise Huxtable, the New York Times architecture critic, said of the design, “the taste for its disconcertingly top-heavy, inverted pyramidal mass grows on one slowly, like a taste for olives or warm beer.” The museum always struggled with not enough space and finally in 2015 moved into a new building in the Meat Packing District. In 2016 the Metropolitan Museum of Art moved into the uptown building to display exhibitions that focus on modern and contemporary art.

William W. Cook House, October 23, 1944. Built for lawyer and corporate law expert, William Cook, the house on 71st Street was a French Renaissance mansion deigned by York & Sawyer. Completed in 1913, the two-story entrance with massive bronze gates and the fifth floor open portico (with tile ceiling by Rafael Guastavino) truly set the building apart from the other structures on the block. Upon his death, Cook donated the home to his alma mater, the University of Michigan, who sold it in 1942. During the middle of the 20th century the house was occupied by foundations that worked in scientific, educational and anthropological research and work. The home was converted back into a single family home in 1992 and remains remarkably similar to its original form.

117 East 69th Street, date unknown (post 1929). The neo-Federal building at no. 117 is a relative newbie in this neighborhood. While a number of other neo-Federals are the early 20th century renovations of original 19th-century rowhouses, this one was a brand new construction in 1928-9. Designed by Julius Gayler for the lawyer, banker, and one-time Governor of Puerto Rico (1904-07) Beekman Winthrop, the house has a huge skylight and dramatic spiral staircase. In 1977 the home was purchased by Jim Henson and became the New York headquarters of the Jim Henson Company and The Muppet Workshop. While it served this function, the home was supposedly extravagantly decorated to reflect the playful work of its occupants. Henson passed away in 1990 and the Henson business moved out of the building in 2003.

Tiffany House, ca. 1900. This stunning house on the northwest corner of East 72nd Street and Madison Avenue was commission by Charles Lewis Tiffany, the founder and owner of jewelry store,Tiffany & Co. in 1882. Tiffany hired the firm of McKim, Mead and White, who ended up working closely with Tiffany's son, Louis Comfort Tiffany (LCT) on the design and logistics of the massive 57-room home. Designed in a number of styles, the largely Romanesque and Queen Anne architecture suggested it was one single structure, when it was, in fact, four buildings stacked on top of each other around a courtyard. Different family members, such as LCT, his sisters and their families resided in the different "apartments" within the complex. Unsurprisingly the home was extravagantly decorated with stained glass, antique lacquerware, collections of porcelain, decorative metalwork, and exotic ornamentation. The home featured decoration created and designed by not only Tiffany, but his associates: Lockwood de Forest, who directed the production of architectural woodwork; glass worker John La Farge; and the sculptor, Augustus Saint-Gaudens. The same group had recently finished work on the interiors of the Seventh Regiment Armory on Park Avenue. By the 1890s financial issues resulted in a number of the "apartments" being rented out by non-Tiffany family (though still upper class family friends). Louis Comfort Tiffany died in this home in 1933 and the house was demolished in 1936.

720 Park Avenue, ca. 1928. Park Avenue at its N. W. corner of 70th Street, long before the Upper East Side became a desirable neighborhood. Pictured in the foreground is the old 1872 Presbyterian Church before it was torn down and replaced by apartments.

820 Park Avenue, ca. 1922. This Park Avenue building is a glorious reminder of New York's past. It was built in 1927 for the flamboyant publisher of the Hearst organization, Albert J. Kobler, who got his start in the business selling newspaper ads around 1910. Kobler hired Harry Allan, the architect behind the Friars Club and many lavish residential projects, to erect what was then a "modern concept" in apartment living: multiple mansions stacked one upon another. With time, the duplex and penthouse triplex house that Allan constructed for Kobler has come to represent the last gasp of the old, extravagant ways of Manhattan living. The duplexes, however, have since been divided into single floor-throughs with only a few today that have returned to their initial grandeur.

55-57 East 75th Street, ca. 1911. Nos. 55 and 57 were both constructed in 1881-82 by architect John Prague. Both building have been renovated in the 20th century. In the late 1930s, the building on the left (no. 55) was renovated into brick front neo-Federalist style building that can be seen today. No. 57 had a much more dramatic facelift later in the century. In 1979 architect William Glickman completed a new Brutalist facade for the building, with angled concrete and projecting balconies on the second and third floors. The now nine-story building towers over its neighbors. The writers of the AIA Guide to NYC say this, " a curious former row house transformed into an early "sliver building. As an object it is abstractly handsome. As a citizen of the block it's inciting a riot."

St. Jean Baptiste Church, 1913. The parish of St. Jean Baptiste dates to 1882 when it was founded to serve the long -established French Canadian immigrant population of the Yorkville section of the Upper East Side. The community first worshiped in the hall above a stable on East 77th Street, referred to as the “Crib of Bethlehem.” A purpose-built church was erected between 1883 and 1884 in a simple Gothic style. The church became both popular among the larger Catholic New York community and the home of eucharistic worship in the decades surrounding the turn of the century. The community recognized the need (and desire) for a larger and more "worthy" (in pomp and decoration) structure and their prayers were answered with the entrance of a benefactor in 1910. Financed by American tobacco, insurance and transportation tycoon, Thomas Fortune Ryan, the present church building was designed by Nicholas Serracino, an Italian architect, and completed in 1913. The domed church (one of only a few Catholic churches in the city that feature a dome) was rendered in a combination of Italian Renaissance Revival and Classical Revival architectural styles. The main dome reaches a height of 172 feet. The interior is richly decorated with stained glass windows brought in from the glass studios of Chartres, Frances.

Architect Robert AM Stern designed this townhouse from an existing 1897 carriage house in 1975, when he was just starting his career as an architect. What began as one of three private stables was converted into a 10,000-square-foot townhouse. Unfortunately, a fire destroyed the 70’s interior in 1992. Of the design, Stern told Metropolis magazine: “The design has what I thought were pretty daring \[features] in those days— classically derived pilasters and proportions with ornaments…all of which I think fall into the Postmodern sensibility that was emerging at the time.”

Vincent and Helen Astor House ARCHITECT: Mott B. Schmidt DATE: 1927-28 STYLE: Neo-Classical Reflecting the neo-Classical style of Robert Adam, one of the foremost English architects of the eighteenth century, this formal residence of austere elegance is five stories high with basement and sub-basement. It is one of the most successful houses designed by a very gifted architect. Constructed of ashlar masonry of Roche limestone imported from France, the facade has a flat, low relief quality resulting from the slight variation in depth between the surface of the wall and projecting planes of the decorative elements. There is an absence of deep shadows, and the architect has deliberately used understatement in expressing the true refinement to be found here.

“The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.” 🏙️

55 East 72nd Street, 1943.

On June 30th, 1836, invitations were sent to various gentlemen of good social standing – Astors, Van Cortlandts, Stuyvesants, van Rensselaers, basically a roll call of every influential Dutch New York family – to join the newly founded Union Club, the first club devoted to wealth and social standing in New York. For decades it set the tone for every other club. As you can probably guess, the Union Club became very popular, very quickly and there was soon a waitlist to join. Their current clubhouse on Park and 69th, designed by William Adams Delano and Chester Holmes Aldrich and pictured below, was described by Christopher Gray as, “chunky with rusticated limestone and a huge angled mansard roof so big it looks like a Fifth Avenue mansion gone wild.” With five dining rooms and humidors stocked with cigars, it’s clear that the Union Club is still catering to the wealthy and connected of New York.

My Archive Spring 2019

151 East 74th Street, 1943. The brownstone rowhouse at no. 151 was constructed between 1877 and 1878 by architect John B. Snook for speculative developer W.H.Browning. Between 1919 and 1922, the home was owned by Captain Kermit (!) Roosevelt, son of TR. While a fourth story (not visible on the front facade) was added in 1906, the building underwent a drastic facelift in 1923. Then owned by New Yorker Magazine co-founder and publisher Raoul H. Fleischmann, the facade was updated to a sleek Colonial Revival style by architect Henry Lion. This move was in line with the popular practice in the 1910s and 1920s of updating New York's aging rowhouses. While some respected the styles and ornamentation of the decades old homes, many other drastically altered the look of the facades (and the interiors as well). The most common changes included removing the now passè stoops in exchange for ground floor entrances, discarding the window and door surrounds, and striping the facades of any Victorian adornments in favor of Colonial Revival or Mediterranean styles. (For more on this trend check out Andrew Dolkart's “The Row-House Reborn: Architecture and Neighborhoods in New York City, 1908-1929.”) The home had one more well-known resident. In 1955, actor Henry Fonda purchased no. 151 from Fleischmann. Two years later he wed a 23-year-old Italian countess Afdera Franchetti in a ceremony in the home. Although that marriage only lasted four years, Fonda resided in the nearly 6,000-square-foot house until his death in 1982.

John Sherman Hoyt House, Park Avenue, 1923. The Tudor-style fieldstone mansion at the northwest corner of Park Avenue and East 79th Street was designed by architect I.N. Phelps Stokes for his brother-in-law, the philanthropist John Sherman Hoyt. Upon its completion, the January 1917 edition of Architectural Review noted that though its design (which was termed "Stuart," rather than Tudor) "should have grounds around it. It is, however, very well done." Hoyt sold the mansion to James A. Stillman in 1926. Some 43 years later, after the building had passed from Stillman to his wife, and later became the consulate of the short-lived United Arab Republic, the John Sherman Hoyt House was razed for the construction of 900 Park Avenue, a 28-story tower set back from the street. Christopher Gray, the architectural historian and longtime New York Times columnist, cited this demolition as a sort of preservationist awakening: "When I encountered scaffolding and guys with crowbars around the house, I was aghast. Here was a certifiable Neat Old Thing — how could someone tear it down? A mansion, on Park Avenue — what millionaire wouldn’t want to live there? It had seemed so permanent. I was shaken. That the co-op had received a decadelong tax exemption only rubbed salt in the wound."

Thomas Hunter Hall, Hunter College, ca. 1978. The Female Normal and High School was founded in 1870 by Thomas Hunter, who served as its first president and, eventually, its namesake. “Normal” schools were predecessors of teacher’s colleges, where instruction prepared students — almost exclusively women — for careers as teachers. In 1873, the school moved to its present Lenox Hill location. This building, Thomas Hunter Hall, was designed by C.B.J. Snyder to replace the school’s previous Gothic main hall. Snyder’s neo-Gothic structure was completed in 1914, the same year the school adopted the name Hunter College, in honor of its founder. Today’s Hunter College High School was separated from the collegiate-level school in 1903, though both continued to share the same campus. The high school occupied several campus buildings, including Thomas Hunter Hall, before moving to a new campus on the former site of the Squadron A Armory in 1977. The school started admitting male students in 1974. Hunter College High School alumni/ae include a broad array of distinguished figures, from Supreme Court Justice Elana Kagan (‘77) to Lin-Manuel Miranda (‘98).

829 and 823 Park Avenue, date unknown. The three tall gleaming white residential towers (no. 829 has two towers, while no.813 has only one) were constructed in 1911 and designed by Pickering and Walker. Currently no. 823 (the mid block building) had only 11 apartments: ten full floor residences and a duplex penthouse.

19 East 72nd Street, 1937. The subtle Art Moderne apartment house that now stands on the lot of the former Tiffany mansion was designed by Mott B. Schmidt and Rosario Candela. Built immediately upon the razing of the old mansion (1936-1937) in the middle of the Great Depression, the limestone upper facade of the apartment house creates simple, clean lines, described by the AIA Guide to New York City as "succulent." The only highly decorative feature is the sculptural stonework around the main entrance, designed and carved by C. P. Jennewien and featuring classical figures and animals.

Thatcher and Frances Adams House ARCHITECT: Adams & Warren DATE: 1902-03 STYLE: Neo-English Classic The impressive neo-English Classic style townhouse at 63 East 79th Street was designed in 1902 by architects Adams & Warren for Thatcher M. Adams. The building is representative of the large houses erected on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in the early 20th century as this area became the most fashionable residential quarter of the city.

Clarence Whitman Mansion, 7 East 76th Street. This Renaissance Revival-style mansion was built in 1898 and designed by architects Parish and Schroeder. Originally, the address consisted of two neighboring facades until wealthy importer Clarence Whitman purchased the two houses and combined them in 1899, according to Daytonian in Manhattan. The mansion has since been home to a succession of notable owners, including art dealer Sam Salz, who displayed works by Cézanne, Monet, Renoir, and others inside.

George and Martha Whitney House ARCHITECT: Cross & Cross DATE: 1929-30 This facade of this house is divided horizontally into a base of one story, the shaft, consisting of two floors placed between a string course at second-floor level and a cornice at the fourth floor. The crowning feature is a mansard roof with an attic story above it. The square-headed windows are double hung and have stone keystones and splayed brick lintels. Three dormers in the slate mansard are covered with segmental arched roofs.

The French flag flying from 9 East 72nd Street looks right at home on this exuberant Beaux-Arts French Renaissance facade. But, this building was not built for French patrons. Though it housed the Lycee Francais from 1964-2002, this structure on 72nd was actually designed by Carrere and Hastings (who designed the New York Public Library), and completed in 1896, for Henry T. Sloane, a carpet magnate, and his wife Jessie.

109 and 111 East 79th Street, date unknown. An interesting mix of architectural styles, these mirror image mansions were commissioned by a set of sisters. Alice Martin McCoon and Edith Martin hired the firm of Foster, Gade & Graham to design the French Renaissance style homes. The sisters would live in the homes, while also leasing them out while they were traveling abroad. In 1920 Alice leased no. 109 to jeweler Pierre Cartier. In the 1950s, long after the sisters had passed away and the buildings had changed hands a number of time, they were converted into large apartments. During these alterations, the shared stoop was removed and the entrances were moved below the sidewalk level. Today the original doors have been converted to large, historically anachronistic windows.

Construction on East 78th Street, February 2, 1928. At left is the entrance to No. 163-165 East 78th, the easternmost of five landmarked 1861 row houses. At right is the excavation site for No. 169 East 78th, a ten story apartment building completed in 1928.

Edward S. Harkness Residence ca. 1910 The latter-day town house on Fifth Avenue was indeed a splendid affair, complete with elevators, imported rooms, basements, subbasements, and quarters for legions of servants. This stone palazzo was built for the ages; one of the few Fifth Avenue mansions remaining.

Empty lot at the northwest corner of Madison Avenue and East 72nd Street, 1936. The Tiffany mansion had recently been demolished.

Parke-Bernet Galleries, ca. 1975. Designed by Walker & Poor in 1949, this simple limestone facade modern building was originally the home of the Parke-Bernet Galleries. For many years Parke-Bernet was the largest auctioneer of fine art in the United States. They were purchased by Sotheby's in 1964. The aluminum sculpture of two figures above the entrance is called "Venus Bringing the Arts to Manhattan," an appropriate depiction for a fine arts auction house. Designed by Wheeler Williams, the chest of the female figure extends into what is considered public space by 18 inches. Because of this intrusion, the building owner was originally forced to pay a $25 a year "rental" fee. (According to a 2006 New York Time article the cost of the rental that year had grown to $3,251.) Considered largely unremarkable architecturally by commenters on the city's built environment, the building had an additional (set back) story added in 1957, and Sotheby's moved out by the mid-1980s. In 2006, the owner considered a full renovation of the building and the addition of two oval-shaped glass towers for apartments. Being within the Upper East Side Historic District, this plan was weighed by the LPC and found wanting. The towers were never built.

720 Park Avenue ca. 1938 Completed one month before the stock market crash of 1929, 720 Park Avenue represented the opulent excesses of the Jazz Age's giddy conclusion. Disparagingly dubbed "a disturbing pile" by the New Yorker magazine, the building featured asymmetrical massing of bay windows, terraces, and chimneys, among other architectural motifs. Jesse Isidor Straus, of the family that led R.H. Macy's department store, owned a duplex with a 40-foot entrance gallery and a large library. He had bought the land on which the structure sat and built the building because other high-end properties restricted Jews from living there.

My Archive Spring 2019 "A photo of my father in front of the building we lived in—242 East 72nd Street in Manhattan, taken by my brother for a class assignment." —Jill Melamed

1 East 75th Street ARCHITECT: Hale & Rogers DATE: 1907-08 STYLE: Italian Renaissance This imposing residence in the style of an Italian Renaissance palazzo is outstanding not only for the excellence of design and beauty of execution but also for a subtle richness of detail. Five stories high with basement and sub-basement, its dignity and quiet elegance are due in part to the large plain wall areas of Tennessee marble and the sparing but effective use of ornament.

17 East 70th Street ARCHITECT: Arthur C. Jackson DATE: 1909-11 STYLE: French Classical This house at 17 East 70th Street was built in 1909-11 and designed in the French Classical manner, one of the prominent styles during this period. The architect, Arthur C. Jackson was with the prominent New York City architectural firm of Heins and LaFarge when he designed this building. He was later noted for his public and commercial buildings in New York City

177-179 East 73rd Street CLIENT: Automobile Realty Co. ARCHITECT: Charles F. Hoppe DATE: 1906 The 177-179 East 73rd Street Building is a fine example of the type of commercial garage built in New York City during the early years of the 20th century, at a time when automobiles were beginning to supplant horses and carriages as the primary mode of private urban transportation. The garage was designed in 1906 in the fashionable Beaux-Arts style by Charles F. Hoppe for the Automobile Realty Co. With its bold massing and detailing, the building reflects a sophistication of design unusual for a utilitarian structure.

Gertrude Rhinelander Waldo House ca. 1912 The Gertrude Rhinelander Waldo House was constructed for its eponymous creator in 1898. The heiress had bought the property in 1882, with the idea that she would create a mansion for herself there. However, she moved into a row house with her sister across the street from the Rhinelander house and lived there for many years. Indeed, construction wouldn't start until 1894 when Gertrude had moved to the Savoy. She sold some other properties she had inherited and used the proceeds to begin construction. The architecture firm Kimball & Thompson designed the homes based on a French chateau in the Loire Valley, and upon its completion, Gertrude filled it with antiquities and expensive furniture. However, she never moved in herself, and most of the furniture and material was never unpacked. She would never move into the homes, nor did she want to sell. Rhinelander would even go as far as backing out of a possible sale in 1910, and, when debts forced the property to go to auction in 1911, repurchasing it. Eventually, she was forced to sell one of the homes in 1912 and gave the other to her sister. She would die in debt in 1914 (partially due to the costs of building the home) and the Rhinelander properties would remain empty until 1920.

Yorkville Public Library, date unknown. The Yorkville branch of the New York Public Library was the very first Carnegie library to be constructed in New York City. It opened to the public in December of 1902. The grant of just over $5 million by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, for the construction of these civic institutions, was gifted to the city only three years earlier in 1899. The Carnegie funds would assist in the creation of 67 libraries in the five boroughs. This three-story structure, designed in a classically-inspired style, is notable as a fine example of Palladian architecture. Inspired by Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580), who himself was inspired by the temple architecture of the ancient Greeks and Romans, the architect created a library with strict symmetrical design, minimal ornamentation, and four tall Ionic columns that frame the upper floors. The large, arched windows on first floor allowed for plenty of natural light, especially important as the library sits mid block. While some of the other firms (Carrère & Hastings and McKim, Mead & White) designed a number of Carnegie libraries, this was the only library designed by James Brown Lord, who passed away at the young age of 43, just before the library opened.

19 East 70th Street ARCHITECT: Thornton Chard DATE: 1909-10 STYLE: Italian Renaissance This extremely elegant and architecturally distinguished residence was designed by Thornton Chard (1873-1951), a New York architect, in a simplified but sophisticated version of early Italian Renaissance style. Chard had attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1901 and, upon his return from Europe, opened an architectural office in the city. His small but selective practice in this city and state spanned some three decades. His client, for whom the house was built in 1909-10, was Dave Hennen Morris and his wife Alice. Mr. Morris later served as United States Ambassador to Belgium during President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first term.

Oliver Gould Jennings Residence (at left), ca. 1975. The Oliver Gould Jennings residence was built in 1898 by Paris-trained architects Ernest Flagg and Walter B. Chambers. Like his father, a founder of the Standard Oil Company, Oliver ranked among New York's wealthiest citizens. He served as the director of several companies, including the National Fuel Gas Company and Bethlehem Steel, and was a former member of the Connecticut House of Representatives. Oliver and his wife Mary lived in the Beaux-Arts townhouse until 1914, when they sold the house and relocated to their new home on Fifth Avenue between 69th and 70th Street. In August of 1960, the Lycée Français, a French high school, leased the mansion as additional space to its main campus on East 95th Street. The school occupied the building for several years before also purchasing the former Sloane mansion next door, combining the two units. In 2010, the school sold the former Oliver Gould Jennings residence and the Sloane mansion for $26 million. The buyer, an Emir of Qatar, has since commissioned architect Thornton Tomasetti to return it to a private residence.

10 East 76th Street, ca. 1910. No. 10, at center, is the James Brady house, the last in a row of ten four-story brownstone-fronted houses just off Central Park. Constructed in 1881 by speculative developer William Noble, and designed by architect John G. Prague, the facade seen here was a Beaux-Arts redesign by Schwartz & Gross completed in 1908. (Its original look can be seen in its neighbors at left.) The building at right (nos. 6 and 8) is the Ludlow-Parish Houses, a pair of separate mansions designed to look like one wide home. Completed in 1896, the the large shared drawing rooms of the homes served as the venue for the small 1905 wedding of F.D.R. and Eleanor Roosevelt, in which President Teddy Roosevelt (the bride's uncle) walked her down the aisle.

The Holy Trinity Cathedral, at 319 East 74th Street, was constructed in 1932 in the Neo-Byzantine style. Eleanor Roosevelt laid the cornerstone of the cathedral in 1931, and today the church serves as the National Cathedral of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in America. Originally established in 1891 on the West Side, Holy Trinity was the first Greek Orthodox church in New York City. But that’s not the only first on the block. The Upper East Side is so dense with extraordinary ecclesiastical structures that this stretch of East 74th Street is also home to Jan Hus Presbyterian Church, (visible further up the street in this photograph) at 351 East 74th Street. Jan Hus is the oldest Czech Presbyterian Congregation in the United States. Originally founded in 1877 to serve a variety of small Czech communities worshiping around the city, the parish grew to become the First Evangelical Bohemian Presbyterian Church. The building at East 74th Street was constructed in 1888 by renowned architect R.H. Robertson in a Bohemian Gothic Revival Style with features “that harks back to Prague,” embracing the cultural roots of its congregation. The church went on to build an even greater sense of community around Czech identity when it constructed the Neighborhood House next door in 1915. The house became a center for Czech music, art, and dance, and offered social services like job training, athletic clubs, and language classes. Later it also offered a number of theatrical shows that would serve as early training grounds for Barbra Streisand, Robin Williams, and Jerry Seinfeld. Most recently the Neighborhood House has provided outreach and advocacy for the homeless In 2019 the congregation sold its East 74th Street building and purchased a new property on First Avenue where they hope to create an Urban Outreach Center comprised of a pantry, showers, charging stations, and more to serve the community. The building at East 74th Street was acquired by the Church of Epiphany, which is adapting the sanctuary and community house for continuing us

Row houses on East 78th Street, August 2, 1930. The row of five houses starting at center-left with No. 157 East 78th Street share party walls with their immediate neighbors, and were as a group designated a New York City Landmark in April, 1968. The row was built in 1861 for John Turner, a painter, who sold the residences to four separate buyers, with Mary Jane Maguaran purchasing the two easternmost structures, nos. 161 and 163-165 (both with window awnings). According to photographer P.L. Sperr, a "Mrs. Anna Drewnick in 1929 combined these buildings into a single spacious dwelling with a garden at the rear, at a cost of $175,000." However, this renovation is absent from the LPC designation report.

24 East 72nd Street, 1895. This five-story brownstone was designed by McKim, Mead & White for Mrs. Ruth Brown. The home was complete in 1895 but Brown sold the house to Alva Vanderbilt before ever even moved in. The freshly (and scandalously) divorced Alva was forced to leave her Fifth Avenue 'Petit Chateau' following the end of her marriage. Despite an initial shunning by the moneyed society after the divorce, Alva was welcomed back into the fold soon when she married her daughter to the Duke of Marlborough. The reception was held at Alva's new brownstone, a brunch for 115 guests. Alva herself also married at this house, a quiet wedding in January 1896 to a friend of her ex-husband, Oliver Belmont. Alva sold the house a few years later. It remained a private residence until 1949. Razed two years later for a simple, boxy two-story building, but the corner lot has recently had a facelift. Between 2008 and 2010 Ralph Lauren erected a new building to house his second flagship store. The Beaux Arts-inspired building was an homage to grand Gilded Age mansions such as Mrs. Brown's House and the James Duke House.

770 Park Avenue ca. 1930 Primarily made up of duplexes, this apartment building matched the exuberant asymmetrical massing of its Candela-designed neighbor across 73rd Street. Together, they demonstrate architect Rosario Candela's capacity to use similar materials, window treatments, and ornamentation to create buildings that synchronize with each other to create a harmonious urbanism, without being monotonous.

Gertrude Rhinelander Waldo House ARCHITECT: Kimball & Thompson DATE: 1895-98 Gertrude Rhinelander Waldo was a member of one of New York’s old and established families. She was a descendant of Bernard Rhinelander who in the 1840s was described as “among the richest of the rich” in the city. At the age of thirty-four, Gertrude married Francis William Waldo. The couple had one son, Rhinelander Waldo, who served in the Philippine campaign of the Spanish American War, and was later a controversial figure in New York City government, first as Fire Commissioner and then as Police commissioner under Tammany administrations.

820 Park Avenue, ca. 1942.

Architect Rosario Candela designed 780 Park Avenue before the stock market crash of 1929, but construction came to a halt in the summer of 1930 due to the worsening depression. When construction resumed in 1931, its new developers changed the address to 778 Park Avenue to eliminate the odor of its former failure.

Saint Jean Baptiste Church ARCHITECT: Nicholas Siracino DATE: 1910-13 STYLE: Church The principal facade on Lexington Avenue is a masterpiece of lively symmetry with a tasteful and intelligent statement and restatement of architectural motifs. A temple-front portico screens the central door of the three that gives access to the Church. Four free-standing Corinthian columns, on a high plinth, support a full entablature and pediment.

Lot on East 79th Street being prepared for the construction of No. 229; February 2, 1928.

Stuyvesant Fish House, 25 East 78th Street; ca. 1900. Stuyvesant Fish was born in 1851, the son of prominent New York politician Hamilton Fish, who was then a US Senator from New York and would later be appointed Secretary of State under President Ulysses S. Grant. Rather than politics, the junior Fish took to business: he became a director of the Illinois Central Railroad at age 26, and was later appointed its President. While Fish's tenure was immensely profitable and secured his family's fortune, it was his wife Mamie's knack for entertaining that earned their place at the apex of New York society. Mamie (Marion Graves Anthon Fish) was known for hosting over-the-top dinners and balls in New York and Newport, which were known to include vaudeville entertainment and appearances by rented live animals. (One notable event was given in honor of "Prince Del Drago of Corsica," who turned out to be a monkey. Another featured an elephant. You had to be there.) By the 1890s, the Fishes were ready to upgrade their Gramercy Park townhouse to a fashionable uptown address, and commissioned leading firm McKim, Mead & White to design a new mansion, fit for entertaining. The five-story Italian Renaissance-style palazzo was completed in 1898, and features intricate brickwork and carved limestone ornamentation. After Stuyvesant Fish died 1923, the 78th Street mansion passed to a series of owners: a French magazine, a private school, and, from 1952, the Atran Center for Jewish Culture of the Jewish Labor Committee. Since 2006, it has been owned by Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Blumenthal House, ca. 1915. George Blumenthal was a German-born financier, philanthropist, and art collector who made the bulk of his fortune in foreign exchange on Wall Street. Blumenthal built two homes in New York City. The first was a 1903 midblock mansion on West 53rd Street. The second was this four-story limestone mansion designed by Trowbridge & Livingston on the former site of the Union Theological Seminary. The large home was laid out to house Blumenthal's large collection of art, including an interior patio complex originally produced for the castle of Vélex Blanco in Spain (and a working fountain from Florence). Blumenthal died in 1941 bequeathing the home and much of his collection to the Metropolitan Museum, of which he was President of the Board at his death. Today the museum has the interior patio on display, while the home itself was demolished in 1943 for a 20-story apartment building.

775 Park Avenue ca. Built in 1927, 775 Park Avenue served to cement architect Rosario Candela's reputation for creating ultra luxury apartment buildings. Containing no less than 4 maisonettes (each with their own street level entrance), this limestone and brick structure's Italian Renaissance design falls in line with Rosario Candela's style of a restrained exterior hiding the vast apartments and homes within.

Replacing the ornate home of Charles Lewis Tiffany at the corner of Madison Avenue and 72nd Street, 19 East 72nd Street was one of the few apartment buildings Candela completed during the Great Depression. Stripped down to simple, stone surfaces with minimal ornamentation, the structure showed the rising influence of Modernism on American architecture and design. The curved profile of the building's lower three floors copied the Austrian Pavilion that Viennese architect and designer Josef Hoffmann had designed for the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris.