Sailors in front of the College of Pharmacy, July 1917.

55 Central Park West, entrance detail, ca. 1980-2000.

115 West 68th Street, January 9, 1931.

St. Nicholas Rink, 1898. Designed by the architectural firm of Flagg and Chambers, the St. Nicholas Rink was an indoor ice rink, one of the first to use a mechanical method to freeze ice. Opened in 1896 (and funded by Cornelius Vanderbilt and John Jacob Astor among others) the venue hosted ice sports exclusively until 1906. Later presented boxing and wrestling matches. When it ceased operation in 1962, it was reported that more than 30,000 bouts had taken place at St. Nicks. Closed in the 60s, the large industrial neo-Classical building was not demolished until the 1980s, replaced by ABC television offices.

Sheep Meadow ca 1910 Sheep Meadow is the best example in today’s Park of the pastoral vision that Olmsted and Vaux intended for Central Park’s meadows. Their design called for peaceful expanses of green that inspired calm and refreshing thoughts just by looking at them, not necessarily walking upon them. The fifteen-acre meadow holds true to this intention today as Central Park’s largest lawn without ballfields and as a designated quiet zone. No organized sports or gatherings are allowed on Sheep Meadow to preserve the space for quiet picnicking and relaxation. Originally a rocky and swampy terrain, Sheep Meadow was the most expensive landscape in the Park to construct. Its transformation to a pastoral meadow required the blasting of rock outcrops and the installation of four feet of soil. The landscape was first known as “the Green” or “the Commons,” but became known as “Sheep Meadow” in the early twentieth century due to the ever-present flock of pedigree sheep that grazed the meadow. For nearly fifty years, the sheep spent their days on the meadow and their evenings in the nearby Sheepfold, which is now the landmark Tavern on the Green restaurant. In the 1960s, Sheep Meadow became the iconic gathering spot for New York’s counterculture, including anti-War protests, peace rallies, love-ins, be-ins, draft card burnings, Earth Day celebrations, and popular concerts. These events, and the lack of management and proper maintenance led to severe damage and erosion on the lawn. By the late 1970s, it was a virtual dustbowl. The restoration of Sheep Meadow was one of the first projects undertaken by the Central Park Conservancy in 1980. The newly lush and well-managed lawn was the first green space that many New Yorkers had ever seen in Central Park. Public excitement over the newly opened lawn inspired and an outpouring of support for the nascent Conservancy that empowered its first decade of success. -Central Park Conservancy

Camera Club New York, ca. 1896-1919. As one of the oldest art institutions in New York, the Camera Club New York was the result of the merger of two other photography institutions. The New York Society of Amateur Photographers, which provided more accessibility to the medium by providing shared darkrooms, materials, and space to work was joined by the Camera Club New York in 1896. The merger was negotiated by Alfred Stieglitz, who became the organization's vice-president. Stieglitz changed Camera Club's newsletter into a magazine, entitled "Camera Notes." The publication sought to elevate photography to a form of fine art. Stieglitz published articles on art and aesthetics side-by-side with the work of American and European photographers. The New York Camera Club was not only a venue for photographers to work, but it also became a space of lectures on new advancements in the field. X-ray photography, the Autochrome Lumiere process, and first Leica camera were demonstrated at the club. Notable lectures include Aero Photography by Edward Steichen, Bernice Abbott's lecture on Eugéne Atget, and Richard Avedon on fashion photography.

Century Theatre, 1930. A grand (and hulking) presence on the corner of 63rd Street, the Beaux-Arts theatre and opera house, designed by Carrère and Hastings, opened in 1909 as the New Theatre. The New Theatre produced shows for only two seasons before leasing the space to other theatre managers. The venue reopened as the Century in 1911 and by 1915 was under the management of Florenz Ziegfeld. Buoyed by the success of his roof garden venue and nightclub at the New Amsterdam in Times Square, Ziegfeld opened the Cocoanut Grove on the rooftop here. Unfortunately the theatre had too many strikes against it. And the WPA Guide to NYC was there to call it out as, describing the venue as "New York's most spectacularly unsuccessful theater" and a "Shrine of Snobbism." The locations was too far from the theatre district, the large and ornate building was expensive to maintain, and the acoustics were poor, despite efforts to improve them. In 1931 the theatre was demolished and replaced by the Art Deco Century Apartments, designed by the firm of Irwin Chanin.

55 Central Park West, ca. 1970-1990. Designed by Schwartz & Gross and completed in 1930, this apartment building is perhaps best known for it cinematic history. A location in the film Ghostbusters, the building is portrayed as a super-conductive antenna and portal to the earthly realm for Gozer (an ancient, ultra-powerful, malignant being from another dimension who was summoned to New York City to destroy the world).

Majestic Apartment ARCHITECT: Irwin S. Chanin DATE: 1930-31 STYLE: Art Deco The Majestic is one of five-towered skyscraper apartment buildings which define the impressive skyline of Central Park West. Erected in 1930-31 by the Chanin Construction Company, headed by architect and developer Irwin S. Chanin, it is an excellent example of the Art Deco style in its streamlined later phase. Chanin had attended the highly influential 1925 Paris exposition of decorative arts, and returned a convert to the “modernistic” style. The Majestic was the Chanin organization’s first “experiment” in applying the Art Deco style to residential building. The Majestic successfully adjusts the city’s housing laws to the new style; its soaring twin towers are a response to new regulations enacted in 1929. Although built during the Depression, it belongs to the luxury apartment building genre of the 1920s. While the Majestic’s sparing use of ornament and simple materials reflect its date of construction, the resulting austerity is an integral part of the building’s stylistic imagery

Shearith Israel Synagogue ARCHITECT: Brunner & Tyron DATE: 1896-97 STYLE: Neo-Classical This synagogue is a striking example of the monumental neo-Classical style, popular at the turn of the century for public and ecclesiastical architecture. The imposing front facade facing Central Parle West is composed of four large, engaged Composite columns that embrace three round-arched openings, enclosed by elaborate bronze gates, and three round-arched windows with balustrades. The openings, which produce the effect of a loggia, lead into a porch containing the two primary entrances which are located at either side. The front columns are surmounted by an entablature with a modillioned cornice, which is also found above the two smooth ashlar surfaces flanking this central area. Above the entablature is a high attic with smooth-faced pilasters, positioned to correspond with the columns. They enframe panels with classical wreath motifs.

The young men's club opened in March of 1930, costing a grand 3,250,000 dollars. According to a New York Times article from March 30th, 1930, "the boys' department contains several novel rooms including a forge and workroom and a "Totem Room," which will house a large original Alaskan totem pole." The log cabin was part of this set of novelties, which also included a "Pirate Ship's Cabin," of which we can only imagine. Of the more typical fixtures of a recreational facility, the building also housed three gymnasiums, two swimming pools, twenty large entertainment and activities rooms, a technical school, theater, and dormitory of 600 rooms. The branch reportedly had around 14,000 members.

The Century apartment building, 1936. The Century towers, which take their name from the theater which previously occupied the site, are an Art Deco apartment complex designed by architect Irwin S. Chanin and completed in 1931.

Century Theatre, ca. 1912. The elegant Beaux Arts structure opened as the New Theatre in November 1909, but immediately encountered challenges: while the building was acclaimed for its architecture, the cost of maintenance was high and the acoustics of the performance space were poor. Combined with a location some distance from Manhattan’s established Theater District, the New Theatre closed after just two seasons. The space was reopened as the Century Theatre in 1911 and continued to cycle through new management regimes — including the Cocoanut Grove, a rooftop nightclub — until its demolition in 1931. The Century, a 29-story apartment building now occupies the site.

The Mall is a quarter-mile stretch in Central Park, capped off on the south end by the famous Literary Walk. The only deliberate straight line in the park, it contains a quadruple row of American Elm trees, an important feature as the location is one of the few remaining stands of the trees in North America. As one of the most photographed and visited sections of the park, it has been nicknamed the "Promenade."

My Archive Summer 2019

The Daniel Webster Monument was commissioned when Gordon W. Burnham came upon Sculptor Thomas Bell's statuette of Webster. Bell had made a bust of the famed Massachusetts Senator and used that for the basis of a extremely popular and mass produced statuette. Burnham commissioned Bell to make a much larger version for the Central Park Mall to commemorate the Senator's commitment to American unity. Cast at the von Miller Foundry in Munich, the statue ended up being initially much larger than expected and couldn't be placed on the Mall. This resulted in its place on the West Drive where it was dedicated in 1872.

The Century Apartments ARCHITECT: Irwin S. Chanin DATE: 1931 STYLE: Art Deco The Century Apartments, built in 1931, is one of the major Art Deco style apartment buildings in America. It stands today as a testament to the vision of its architect and builder Irwin S. Chanin and is one of his finest works. With its twin-towered form, enabled by the 1929 multiple dwelling law, it is one of a small group of related structures that help give Central Park West its distinctive silhouette. The Century is a sophisticated essay in Art Deco design, exhibiting a complex balance of horizontal and vertical elements that creates a dynamic design tension. This is expressed in the manipulation of such structural features as brickwork, windows, bays, and balconies. The towers with their crowns are one of New York City’s major architectural adornments. The Century Apartments continue to symbolize the high quality of residential design on New York’s Upper West Side.

John Quincy Adams Ward's bronze work titled the "Indian Hunter Monument" was the first statue created by an American artist in Central Park-- and is one of the oldest statues in the park. Lauded for its realism, the original plaster work was so popular that a committee of New Yorkers raised funds in 1869 for a bronze cast.

Liberty Storage Company, 1938. In 1902 the Liberty Storage Company had placed on the roof of its 8-story building a 47-foot-tall replica of the Statue of Liberty. Cast in Ohio, the statue was moved to New York in two on a flatbed train. It must have been quite a sight for a neighborhood that did not have that much height in its architecture in 1902. Originally there was a spiral staircase to the top but it closed in 1912. The mini lady liberty survived here until 2002 when the building's owners wanted to add four floors to the structure. After 100 years the statue was removed from the building and in 2005 it was installed in parking lot of the Brooklyn Museum.

Congregation Shearith Israel, ca, 1980. Congregation Shearith Israel is the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States, established in 1654 by newly arrived Spanish and Portuguese Jewish. Between 1654 and 1825 all Jews in New York City belonged to this community, as it was the only one. Before 1730 the community was not allowed to built a structure for worship, and as such, leased rented space on Beaver and Mills (now South William) Street in lower Manhattan. The first purpose-built synagogue was on Mills Street, where the community remained until 1834; the original synagogue was rebuilt and expanded in 1818. They then moved to 60 Crosby Street and a location on 19th Street, before building their now 120-year-old building (seen here) on West 70th Street. Designed by the firm of Brunner and Tryon, the neo-Classical limestone temple held to a traditional architectural style, eschewing the Moorish, Romanesque, and Gothic designs of other contemporary synagogues. The interior spaces were designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany, whose stained glass windows complete the facade.

My Archive Spring 2019 "This is a photo of my mother that was taken in Central Park in 1974. My parents had just begun dating." —Melissa D'Lando

West side Y.M.C.A. South exterior. June 1, 1930. Architect Dwight James Baum’s West Side YMCA more resembles a Medieval Italian fortress than a recreational facility completed in 1930. Baum’s 14-story structure was designed to accommodate the needs of 10,000 members and was at the time of its construction the largest YMCA facility in the world.

Harperly Hall, 1925. This twelve-story Arts & Crafts building, designed by architect Henry Wilhelm Wilkinson, was the first Central Park West housing cooperative when it opened in 1911.

Majestic Apartments, 1932. The 29-story Art Deco apartment building was constructed in 1930-31. Designed by Irwin S. Chanin, the futuristic sculptures on the facade were created by Rene Paul Chambellan (who also created some of the sculptural art at Rockefeller Center). It is one of the four two-towered apartment houses that line Central Park West. The Majestic was once the home to members of the Genovese crime family, including Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello, and Meyer Lansky. It was also the venue for an attempted mafia hit when Vincent "The Chin" Gigante shot Frank Costello in the lobby.

West Side YMCA The YMCA on 63rd street just west of Central Park, popularly known as the “Westside Y,” was designed by Dwight James Baum in 1930. This 16 story building, the largest of 20 YMCAs in greater New York, houses a school for 300 boys and a dormitory for 600 men looking for “leisure, hospitality, and job training” through programs that “build spirit, mind and body.” The exterior is a light South Carolina pastel brick with Romanesque and Gothic detailing, the mass is set back for an intimately scaled entrance despite the grand metropolitan scale reminiscent of the popular commercial clubs of the era.

St. Nicholas Rink was an indoor ice-rink that was of the first to use mechanically frozen ice in North America. However, seasonal affairs like skating and hockey proved to be less popular than sports like boxing and wrestling. By the 1920s, St. Nicholas was exclusively a venue for fighting.

Evangelical Lutheran Church of Holy Trinity, ca. 1910. The 1904 Gothic Revival Church, designed by the Schickel & Ditmars firm, is known for its Sunday night Bach Vespers series: recitals of Bach cantatas performed according to the Lutheran liturgical calendar.

Lovera Cigar Shop, 1913.

It’s no secret that New York is one of the Jewish capitals of the world. The city alone is home to 1.1 million Jews. That makes the city the largest Jewish community outside of Israel - larger than Tel Aviv and Jerusalem combined! The city's Jewish communities are not only multiple but diverse – they are Ashkenazic and Sephardic, Hasidic, and secular. The city owes this diversity to various waves of Jewish immigration over time, but did you know that Jewish geography today still in many ways reflects these immigration eras? Indeed, when and from where your Jewish ancestors immigrated may actually inform where you live in NYC today!

On October 25th, 1917, New York City celebrated "Liberty Day," a massive attempt to raise funds for the United States entry into World War I. The campaign drew a crowd of thousands to watch a parade of military vehicles fill the streets of Fifth Avenue. Bomber planes flew low over the city, dropping a message in paper pamphlets: "A Liberty Bond in your home will keep German Bombs out of your home." But the real sight to see was the German captured submarine, renamed "U-Buy-A-Bond" in honor of the occasion.

Congregation Shearith Israel, now located at 2 West 70th Street, takes pride in being the very first Jewish congregation in North America, where something like half the world’s Jewish population now lives. It was founded in 1654 by 23 Jews of Spanish and Portuguese descent who had been living in a Dutch colony in Brazil. When the colony changed hands and the Portuguese took over, the Jewish community fled to avoid the imposition of Inquisition policies, which had previously pushed their families out of Portugal and Spain in the late 15th and early 16th centuries

The Prasada ca. 1913 Just after the turn of the century as Central Park West was flush with new apartment house development, builders commissioned architects Charles W. Romeyn and Henry R. Wynne to design them an apartment house. The appropriately ornate Beaux-Arts building with a two-story-high mansard roof was opened as a luxury apartment house in 1907, marketed to high-class tenants. Each floor had three apartments with 8 to 12 rooms and rented for $190 to $300 a month. Within the building's first decade two of its tenents were killed in famous disasters. Henry B. Harris, a prominent theater producer, died on the Titanic after pushing his wife to take a seat on one of the last lifeboats to depart the ship. Three years Charles Fowles, an art dealer, who had just moved out of the Prasada died in the sinking of the Lusitania. In the mid-1910s the building was bought by new owners who had the mansard replaced and renovated the building so that it was "practically a combination of club, hotel, and apartment evolved to meet modern conditions." Each apartment had an electric dumbwaiter installed which connected to a large, staffed kitchen. Also, butler and housekeeping services could be rented by the hour. (For those wealthy enough to live there but who perhaps kept only one servant! The horror!) Over the few decades, the facade lost some features including the stone balustrades on the fourth and tenth floors and the iron railings on the window. The building turned coop in 1988 and remains a well-respected address on CPW.

Bronze statue of Robert Burns, Central Park, ca. 1976. The Central Park monument to Burns, the Bard of Ayrshire, was cast by the poet's countryman, sculptor John Steell and dedicated on October 2, 1880. It is one of four casts, with its siblings located in London; Dundee, Scotland; and Dunedin, New Zealand.

While New York is the setting of an enormous amount of films, some scenes define a space and some spaces define a scene. Either way, they happened in New York. 🎬

Sculptor George Blackall Simonds (1844-1929) created The Falconer, which is located to the south of Cherry Hill at Terrace Drive.

Durland’s Riding Academy, 1903. Long before carriage rides were a maligned Central Park tourist trap, riding was a common Central Park leisure activity. The Durland Riding Academy was established in 1887, with stables at Columbus Circle. In 1900, that structure was condemned, and a new, massive riding facility was built on 67th Street, off of Central Park West. The central building (at left, with multi-story arched windows) included a 600-spectator riding ring, club rooms and boarding facilities for the horses belonging to the city’s elite families. In 1949, the former riding club was purchased by ABC and converted into television studios. The buildings have been significantly modified, but the distinctive arched windows of the Durland Club are still visible.

Sailors in front of the College of Pharmacy, July 1917. The College of Pharmacy was an independent educational institution founded in 1829 and chartered in 1831 by a group of New York City chemists. Early on the school graduated six to twelve new pharmacists a year, but, by the turn of the century, more than 100 men graduated every year. In 1879 the institution became a branch of the University of the State of New York, and in 1904 it was annexed by Columbia College (later University). This process created academic ties, but retained the College of Pharmacy's financial independence. During most of the 19th century, classes met in a variety of locations including classrooms at Columbia College and within City Hall. In 1895 the College moved into the ornate building on 68th Street. In the 1960s, the college proposed a move to a new building on the Morningside Heights campus, but the plan was never realized. In 1976 the school closed under severe financial burden (despite, or perhaps because of, their purchase in 1967 of the lot massive lot to the west, which ran all the way to to Broadway). The College of Pharmacy building was demolished sometime in the decade after closing, as the building that now occupies this lot (2000 Broadway) was constructed in 1986. There is no reason presented as to why the sailors would pose in front of this building.

Broadway, west side, north from 61st Street, ca. 1895. Broadway, north of Columbus Circle, was called the "Boulevard" during the second half of the 19th century. It was a favorite street for cyclists. The Boulevard was "opened" in 1869 after being specifically designed. Modeled after the Champs Elysées in Paris, the thoroughfare was a 60 foot-wide right-of-way, with double rows of elm trees on each broad sidewalk, and 30 foot-wide landscaped medians with pedestrian walkways in the middle. The Empire Hotel (visible at center), was on the southwest corner of 63rd Street. It was replaced in 1923 by a larger (15-story) hotel, topped by the now iconic 'Hotel Empire' red neon sign.

Mineral Springs Pavilion ca. 1880 The Mineral Springs Pavilion was constructed due to the popularity of a health craze that was sweeping 19th-century New York. It was thought at the time that mineral water was essential to a healthy constitution (which at a time before the Croton Aqueduct supplied fresh water to most New York households it may have been.) Drinking mineral water was thought to be the cure for a number of ailments. Thus, Carl Schultz, the owner of a mineral water company successfully petitioned the Board of Health to have a pavilion, designed by Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wray Mould, that would sell mineral water in the park. It was for a time quite popular, serving as a spot for socialization, however, the supply of readily available clean water meant that the Mineral Springs Pavilion lost its uniqueness and by the 1960s the pavilion was torn down.

Brooklyn-born Aaron Copland (1900-1990), known as the “Dean of American Music,” was one of the most influential and popular figures of 20th-century classical music. He grew up in an apartment at 628 Washington Avenue (demolished) in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn and heard his first symphony at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) when he was 16. In between extensive travels abroad, Copland lived in a number of Manhattan apartments, including his first at 135 West 74th Street from 1924 to 1926. His most significant city residence was a modest tenth-floor studio – furnished with a piano – at the Hotel Empire from 1936 to 1947. He also rented and worked in a nearby loft at 113 West 63rd Street (demolished for Lincoln Center). During this incredibly prolific period, Copland completed a number of important works, some of which are among the cornerstones of 20th-century American music. A selection of compositions completed while in residence at the Hotel Empire include Billy the Kid (1938), Fanfare for the Common Man (1942), Lincoln Portrait (1942), Rodeo (1942), Appalachian Spring (1944), and Symphony No. 3 (1944-46). Copland was given New York Music Critics Circle Awards for the latter two works; Appalachian Spring, composed for choreographer Martha Graham’s ballet in 1944, also earned him a Pulitzer Prize in Music.