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.

Zion St. Marks, at 339 East 84th Street, was built in 1889 for The German Evangelical Church of Yorkville and designed by Michael J. Fitz Mahoney. The church, a stunning example of neo-Gothic architecture, has been a community space since the 19th century. When the Zion Evangelical Lutheran congregation moved into the building in 1892, it began offering German language mass, religious education, and social events. The congregation became a vital part of the Yorkville German community, and also provided a heaven for members of the Lower East Side’s St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, after that congregation was decimated by the 1904 General Slocum disaster when an excursion steamboat caught fire and sank during a chartered trip for the congregation. The two congregations merged in 1946 to create today’s Zion-St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church. Just as the congregation proudly proclaimed its German heritage in the 19th century with an inscription in German on the facade, the church maintains that identity today, and continues to support Yorkville’s German community, with bi-lingual Mass in German and English, as well as with German language classes, and German film programs.

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.

"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.

German Delicatessen, ca. 1930. A German deli when pictured in 1930, this storefront was later the home of the Old Dutch Delicatessen, whose specialty was smoked eel. The building was razed sometime at the start of the 21st century and a new glassy structure completed in 2009.

St. Stephen’s parish was founded in 1902 to serve the Hungarian immigrant population of the Lower East Side. With the upward migration of the Hungarian population to Yorkville, in 1928 the congregation constructed a new church, parochial school, community center, and adjoining rectory on 408 East 82nd Street. The Romanesque Revival-style building was designed by Hungarian architect Emil Szendy. The building’s inventive design combines the school and church into one structure. The church was an important and central place for the Hungarian community, and after World War II it became the center for actions directed against the Soviet Union’s occupation of Hungary. Today, the parish of St. Stephen’s has been relocated to St. Monica’s on East 79th Street, but the School is still active and popular for families in Yorkville.

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.

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

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.

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

This beautifully detailed Romanesque Revival structure was designed in 1893 by the architects Fowler and Hough, whose other Romanesque Revival work includes the 23rd Regiment Armory on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn. The First Hungarian Baptist Church was a community space even before it was a church. The building at 255 East 80th Street was originally home to an Industrial School for the American Female Guardian Society, an organization founded in 1849 to assist working women by offering necessities like food and clothing, as well as vocational and educational training. When the New York City Baptist Mission Society purchased the building in 1918, with the vision to spread Christianity throughout the city, it focused on the Hungarian immigrant population in the area. That year, First Hungarian Baptist Church opened on the building’s first floor, and accommodations for the pastor were made on the second floor. At the time, many of the Hungarian immigrants in Yorkville were young working women. In an effort to provide safe lodging for those women, and a link to the community for those who had come to the United States alone, the Baptist Mission Society transformed the Industrial School’s third-floor classrooms into bedrooms for girls and created the Hungarian Girls Club. In 1957, the ownership of the building was transferred to the First Hungarian Baptist Church, which retains ownership of the building today. The community spirit still survives at First Hungarian Baptist, where services and events are still offered in Hungarian.

Greek Orthodox Church of St. John the Baptist, 1930. This church building, which according to the photographer's notes was once a synagogue, has had some major facade alteration since this image was taken. The circular windows have been made rectangular, the stairs now sit snug up against the building and flat roofline cornice has been removed.

Musical Protective Union Building, Yorkville Casino, ca. 1912. The Yorkville Casino was a social club and community gathering space for the German community on the Upper East Side. The building was constructed in 1904 by the Musician’s Mutual Protective Union (the precursor organization to the American Federation of Musicians). One of the two large ballrooms in the Casino had a 15,000 square foot floor and was a popular nightclub. The building also functioned as a catering hall for personal and political events. The in house caterers were known for their excellent German fare and, of course, authentic German beer. The Casino, being so connected with the German-American community, was supposedly watched closely by the government during the Second World War. In the years after the war, as the neighborhood diversified ethnically, the Casino floundered and eventually closed in 1965.

Yorkville Sidewalk Clock (at far left), 1932. The Yorkville Clock, formerly in the shadow of the Third Avenue Elevated Railroad, was a community favorite from the day in 1898 when Adolph Stern had it set up in front of his jewelry story at 1508 Third Avenue, the northwest corner of 85th Street. In 1923, Stern’s store, having added a pawn shop, moved across the street to 1501 Third Avenue, between 84th and 85th Streets. The 17-foot cast-iron clock, simulating a giant two-faced pocket watch, was designated an official New York City landmark on August 25, 1981, along with the few other remaining sidewalk clocks in the five boroughs. It was produced by the E. Howard Clock Co., a Massachusetts firm with a New York office at 532 Broadway. The company had manufactured sidewalk clocks since 1870. In the second half of the 19th century similar tall sidewalk clocks became very popular throughout the United States. Merchants used them for advertising, and they served the public by telling the correct time for the many people who could not afford pocket watches. About ninety years after it first appeared on Third Avenue, the Yorkville Clock, by this time owned by Reimann and Bresse Furniture Store, had a quixotic experience. In 1985 a city employee mistakenly sold it as surplus property to a clock devotee named Frank Dorsa, who planned to display it in his family’s collection in Muttontown, Long Island. When Dorsa went to Reimann and Bresse hoping to locate missing clock pieces, he was almost arrested as a thief. Only his bill of sale saved him. Apprised of the unfortunate sale, Herbert Rickman, who was a special assistant to Mayor Edward Koch, arranged for the clock’s return and for reimbursement to the Dorsa family. After these peregrinations, the clock needed significant repair, which was provided by antiques dealer Louis Agrusa. Reerected on the sidewalk in front of the furniture store (next to McDonalds) the clock was ceremoniously unveiled in February, 1989. By early 1998, the need for a complete restoration was evident. The connections between the clock face and its stand were alarmingly weak. It ran sporadically. Often one face told one time, and the other another. The glass on one face was cracked and taped. Its iron pedestal, defaced by graffiti, showed patches of rust where paint had peeled off. FRIENDS worked in collaboration with the Friends of Cast Iron Architecture and Neighbors Restoring the Historic Yorkville Clock to raise $20,000 for the repair. Following an extensive restoration the Yorkville Clock was rededicated on September 14, 1999.

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.

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.

East 82nd Street and Lexington Avenue, view of the northwest corner, October 29, 1912. Joseph Richardson was a wealthy contractor who had constructed portions of the Union Pacific Railroad. Despite work and wealth, he is best known as the builder of one of New York's only spite houses. In 1882 the small sliver of land at the northwest corner of 82nd Street and Lexington Avenue (102 feet long and 5 feet wide) was owned by Richardson's wife. Patrick McQuade and Hyman Sarner purchased the adjacent lots for the construction of apartment houses. They offered Richardson $1,000 for the small lot, which he felt was too low, and countered with an ask of $5,000. The developers refused and proceeded to break ground on their structure without the corner lot. During construction they approached Richardson again, offering the $5,000 he had originally desired. This time he declined. He stated that," he never gave a man more than one opportunity to buy anything from him, and that the strip was no longer for sale." Instead, a few weeks later, Richardson himself broke ground on a narrow structure on his lot, built with the express purpose of blocking the windows of McQuade and Sarnar's apartments. The resulting building (which gave the impression of being a single resident, but was actually a few tall houses) was completed five months before its neighbors. Richardson even moved into one. According to the New York Times: "Every room is less than five feet wide, and the dining table is only eighteen inches wide. Gas is unknown above the first floor, and water has to be carried by hand all over the building.” The bay windows, which were allowed on corner buildings, added for a slightly wider portion of the home. Richardson died in 1897. In 1905, C.A. Stein, then-owner of the corner structures, requested permission to fill in the area between the bay windows to widen the structure to nine feet for ground-floor retail. His request must have been approved, as this 1912 photograph depicts a tailoring business in a commercial space. The building caused some consternation in the planning for the IRT Lexington Avenue Line, as contractors worried about the cost and safety of shoring up the narrow buildings during the cut and cover street excavations. They needn't worry. Stein sold the lot to real estate developers Bing & Bing in 1915 and the structures were soon demolished. In 1915 an 11-story apartment building designed by Emery Roth replaced both the spite house and the apartments it was built to spite.

St. Monica Roman Catholic Church, ca. 1905. Founded in 1879, St. Monica's was the fourth Catholic parish established on the Upper East Side. While the first services were conducted in a small second-story store space, the church moved into its first new church building in 1883. In 1906 the firm of Schickel & Ditmars, well known for their Catholic church architecture completed the current church. The Gothic Revival building opened for services on Thanksgiving Day.

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.

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

Eberhardt's House of Vienna, date unknown. In the 1960s this spot at 320 East 79th Street was bar and restaurant called Eberhardt's House of Vienna. Then it became Ma Pomme, a French restaurant. By 1972, it was the Neopolitan Noodle which was the scene of a mistaken mob hit on August 11, 1972. Here is the story: To avenge the death of Joseph “Crazy Joe” Gallo, a member of the Colombo crime family, a hitman was hired to kill four men who had supposedly set up Gallo's murder. They were Colombo family acting boss "Little Allie" Persico and three mob lieutenants. (This was an intra-family crime wave.) The man arrived and sat at the bar, where his marks were supposed to be sitting as well. Instead, they had moved to a table, and the hitman mistook four kosher meat sellers for his targets. He pulled out two long-barreled pistols and began shooting. Two of the meat sellers died while the others were seriously injured. The gunman was never found. Today, the building that housed these restaurants as well the others that followed (Chez Z and Vienna ‘79) is the Albanian Consulate. Thanks to UA user Anne Raso for this tip about this spot's interesting history.

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.

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.

The Church of St. Monica was founded in 1879 by the same pastor that had founded St. Joseph’s. St. Monica’s grew out of humble beginnings, with the mission to serve the expanding Irish Catholic population of the neighborhood. The current building at 413 East 79th Street, shown here at the year of its completion, 1905, was designed in a Gothic Revival style by the firm Schickel & Ditmars. Its facade on East 79th Street remains nearly unchanged since construction.

133 East 80th Street ca. 1944 Though its Lexington home perhaps isn't as glamorous as Park or Fifth, 133 East 80th Street remains as lovely as any of architect Rosario Candela's buildings. Designed in 1929 for the developer Moses Ginsburg, 133 East 80th was built out of a varied series of limestone blocks that follows the building up its set backs to the top. A change in zoning laws allowed Candela to build a romantic, castle-like tower atop 133 with crenellations, spires, and the like. Catering as always to luxury, Candela designed the building for 20 families, with apartments ranging from the spacious to the palatial. However by its completion in 1930, only 60% of apartments had been sold.