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229 East 79th Street image

229 East 79th Street
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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.
Beacons of Light: An Origin Story of the Lighthouse Guild image

Beacons of Light: An Origin Story of the Lighthouse Guild
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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.
Carlyle Hotel image

Carlyle Hotel
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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.
Yorkville Branch, NYPL image

Yorkville Branch, NYPL
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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.
200 East 74th Street image

200 East 74th Street
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"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.
820 Park Avenue image

820 Park Avenue
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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.
57 East 75th Street image

57 East 75th Street
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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."
Church of St. Ignatius Loyola image

Church of St. Ignatius Loyola
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St. Ignatius of Loyola, 1929. The Church of St. Ignatius was dedicated on December 11, 1898 (and completed two years later). The new Schickel & Ditmar-designed edifice replaced the modest brick structure of the former St. Lawrence O’Toole Church. The parish dates from 1851, and in 1898 the congregation sought permission to change the patron saint of the parish from St. Lawrence to St. Ignatius. The Italian-Renaissance edifice, rendered in limestone, is monumental in scale while austere in character. The plans for the church originally included a pair of towers that would rise 210 feet above the street. Alas, that feature was abandoned early in the process, but the resulting copper-capped tower bases on either side of the central pediment hint at the original intent.
St. Jean Baptiste Church image

St. Jean Baptiste Church
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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.
870 Park Ave image

870 Park Ave
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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.”
130 East 80th Street image

130 East 80th Street
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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.
First Hungarian Baptist Church image

First Hungarian Baptist Church
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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.
151 East 74th Street image

151 East 74th Street
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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.
Holy Cross the Byzantine Rite image

Holy Cross the Byzantine Rite
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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.
John Sherman Hoyt House image

John Sherman Hoyt House
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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."
Yorkville Sidewalk Clock image

Yorkville Sidewalk Clock
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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.
823-829 Park Avenue image

823-829 Park Avenue
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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.
970 Park Avenue image

970 Park Avenue
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Park Avenue, south from East 84th Street, ca. 1910. At center-right is No. 970 Park Avenue, with signs advertising 8 and 10 room apartments (two apartments per floor). The building went up in 1912 at the southwest corner of 83rd Street. The Georgian Revival apartment building, originally twelve stories, was designed by Schwartz & Gross for the developer Bing & Bing. Today, it is part of the Park Avenue Historic District, created in 2014. St. Ignatius Loyola Church is visible at right.
Thatcher M. Adams Mansion image

Thatcher M. Adams Mansion
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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.
120 East 80th Street image

120 East 80th Street
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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 East 79th Street image

109 East 79th Street
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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.
157-165 East 78th Street image

157-165 East 78th Street
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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.
Cultural Medallion: Manhattan image

Cultural Medallion: Manhattan
Story

Cultural Medallions are porcelainized enamel plaques affixed to the exterior of buildings, in order to commemorate an individual (or occurrence) that has made a significant contribution to New York City’s rich cultural heritage. These are the Cultural Medallions in Manhattan. See more from the Historic Landmarks Preservation Center here.
1218 Lexington Avenue image

1218 Lexington Avenue
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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.
177-179 East 73rd Street image

177-179 East 73rd Street
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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.
Yorkville Branch, NYPL image

Yorkville Branch, NYPL
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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.
969 Park Avenue image

969 Park Avenue
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\*Ada Louise Huxtable (1921-2013), a native New Yorker, was a pioneer in architectural criticism, and a champion of livable cities. As the first full-time architecture critic at a major American newspaper (The New York Times created the position specifically for her in 1963), she won the first Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism in 1970, and helped redefine architecture in the public consciousness as “a very real and important art \[because] it affects us all so directly.” Her writing on architecture, urban design, and planning helped bring those topics into the popular consciousness, and encouraged New Yorkers to see the buildings around them as part of their lives. She championed “humanity of scale,” and buildings that were “integrated into life and use,” writing: “what counts more than style is whether architecture improves our experience of the built world; whether it makes us wonder why we never noticed places in quite this way before.” Huxtable helped us do exactly that. On this virtual tour of her New York, we will learn about her life, see buildings she praised and those she decried, and consider her legacy as a writer, an urbanist, and a champion of the collective work of city-making. \*Lucie Levine
320 East 79th Street image

320 East 79th Street
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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.
157-165 East 78th Street image

157-165 East 78th Street
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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.
51 East 78th Street image

51 East 78th Street
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820 Park Avenue image

820 Park Avenue
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820 Park Avenue, ca. 1942.
Church of St. Ignatius Loyola image

Church of St. Ignatius Loyola
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Church of St. Ignatius Loyola 980 Park Avenue parish hall/rectory: Patrick C. Keely, 1881-83 church: Schickel & Ditmars, 1895-1900, NYC IL school: Schickel & Ditmars, 1899-1900 – NYC HD, NR-P, NR-D One of the first institutions on Fourth Avenue was the parish of St. Lawrence O’Toole, which initially acquired property on both sides of the railroad tracks at East 84th Street. Its first building was erected in 1854. The parish, later incorporated as St. Ignatius Loyola (founder of the Jesuits in 1541), expanded in the 1880s, beginning with the construction of a four-story parish house and residence hall. The church itself was designed in the Italian Renaissance Revival, in homage to the architecture that was popular during St. Ignatius’ lifetime. It was one of the first houses of worship in the city to use steel roof beams and trusses for fireproofing. Its two upper towers were never realized. In 1899, the Loyola School was established to educate the sons of wealthy Catholics (it became co-educational in 1973), for which the limestone building at the corner of East 83rd Street was built.
St. Jean Baptiste Church image

St. Jean Baptiste Church
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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.
229 East 79th Street image

229 East 79th Street
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Lot on East 79th Street being prepared for the construction of No. 229; February 2, 1928.
25 East 78th Street image

25 East 78th Street
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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.
Church of St. Ignatius Loyola image

Church of St. Ignatius Loyola
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Church of St. Ignatius Loyola ARCHITECT: Schikel & Ditmars DATE: 1895-1900 STYLE: Seventeenth-Century Rome Monumental in scale and impressive in appearance, the Park Avenue facade of this dignified Twentieth Century Church reflects the classical style of Seventeenth-Century Rome. The symmetrical masonry exterior of Limestone, severely austere In character, is generously enriched by the carved decoration of the highest quality.
133 East 80th Street  image

133 East 80th Street
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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.

Photos(845)

189 East 79th Street image

189 East 79th Street

Manhattan: 3rd Avenue - 79th Street N.W. corner of Third Avenue and 79th Streets, across clearing. September 3, 1929. P.L. Sperr, Photographer.
179 East 79th Street image

179 East 79th Street

Manhattan: 79th Street (East) - 3rd Avenue 179-183 East 79th Street, north side, west of Third Ave. These buildings are being demolished. October 11, 1927. P. L. Sperr.
179 East 79th Street image

179 East 79th Street

Manhattan: 79th Street - 3rd Avenue 79th Street, at, adjoining and west of the N.W. corner of Third Avenue, seen across the excavation at 78th Street. September 3, 1929. P. L. Sperr.
177 East 79th Street image

177 East 79th Street

177 East 79th Street. Looking north at stucco front to 177 East 79th Street.
1398 Third Avenue image

1398 Third Avenue

Manhattan: 3rd Avenue - 79th Street Third Avenue, west side, between 79th and 80th Streets, showing in the centre 1398 Third Avenue, a three-story frame house with a stucco front. J. Clarence Davies Collection, Tuseum of the City of New York, Negative No. 245
161 East 79th Street image

161 East 79th Street

161 East 79th Street. Apartment house.
Public School 53 image

Public School 53

Manhattan: 79th Street (East) - 2nd Avenue 211 East 79th Street, between 3rd and 2nd Avenues showing P.S. 53. Board of Education, N.Y.C.
169 East 78th Street image

169 East 78th Street

169 East 78th Street. Apartments.
155 East 79th Street image

155 East 79th Street

155 East 79th Street. Schrafft's.
205 East 78th Street image

205 East 78th Street

Manhattan: 78th Street (East) - 2nd Avenue East 78th Street, north side, west from (No. 247), but not including Second Ave. Prominent building shown, is No. 205 East 78th Street, an apartment house at the N.E. corner of Third Ave. March 29, 1937.
163 E 78th Street image

163 E 78th Street

East 78th Street and Third Avenue image

East 78th Street and Third Avenue

Manhattan: 78th Street (East) - 3rd Avenue East 78th Street, south side, west from Third to and including Lexington Aves. Note demolition at the S.W. corner of Third Ave. September 8, 1936. P. L. Sperr.
1157 Lexington Avenue image

1157 Lexington Avenue

East 80th Street and Lexington Avenue. All Souls Unitarian Church
1157 Lexington Avenue image

1157 Lexington Avenue

East 80th Street and Lexington Avenue. All Souls Unitarian Church
151 East 79th Street image

151 East 79th Street

151 East 79th Street at Lexington Avenue. Apartment building, general exterior view.
1411 Third Avenue image

1411 Third Avenue

Manhattan Storage Warehouse Building, 3 Av. & 80 St.
1411 Third Avenue image

1411 Third Avenue

80th Street and 3rd Avenue, N.E. corner. Manhattan Storage Warehouse.
1411 Third Avenue image

1411 Third Avenue

80th Street at the N.E. corner of 3rd Avenue. Manhattan Storage Warehouse.
1411 Third Avenue image

1411 Third Avenue

80th Street at N.E. corner of 3rd Avenue. Manhattan Storage Warehouse.
1411 Third Avenue image

1411 Third Avenue

Third Avenue #1411 - 80th Street
1411 Third Avenue image

1411 Third Avenue

80th Street and 3rd Avenue, N.E. corner. Manhattan Storage Warehouse.
215 East 79th Street image

215 East 79th Street

215 East 79th Street. Copy drawing of sixteen story plus penthouse apartment by Burt Sullivan.
215 East 79th Street image

215 East 79th Street

215 East 79th Street. Apartment building, exterior.
215 East 79th Street image

215 East 79th Street

215 East 79th Street. Apartment building, elevator lobby.
221 East 79th Street image

221 East 79th Street

Manhattan: 79th Street (East) - 2nd Avenue 221-245 East 79th Street, west of adjoining and at the N.W. corner of Second Avenue. 1930\. Peyser & Patzig. NEG: 2940
New York Public Library, Upper East Side image

New York Public Library, Upper East Side

219 East 79th Street. New York Public Library.
157-165 East 78th Street image

157-165 East 78th Street

157 E 78th Street image

157 E 78th Street

157-165 East 78th Street image

157-165 East 78th Street

157-165 East 78th Street image

157-165 East 78th Street

Manhattan: 78th Street (East) - Lexington Avenue East 78th Street. north side, east from Lexington Avenue. Note the row of private residences bearing No's. 153 to 163 (Shown in View 2). That, adjoining the apartment house (No. 169 E. 78th Street) and bearing awnings is referred to in an article by Lee. E. Cooper in the N.Y.Times of April 26, 1939. Mrs. Anna Drewnick in 1929 combined these buildings into a single spacious dwelling with a garden at the rear, at a cost of $175,O00. A deal recently consummated by Warren L. Marks, Daniel Brener Inc. will result in further changes by an undisclosed purchaser. This sale was subject to a lease expiring Sept.30, 1939 and held by the tenant, Alfred H. Schoellkopf, president of the Niagara Hudson Power Corp. June 28, 1935 August 2, 1930 P.L.Sperr
176 East 78th Street image

176 East 78th Street

176 E. 78th Street, New York City, April 23, 1918.
1129 Lexington Avenue image

1129 Lexington Avenue

Manhattan: Lexington Avenue - 78th Street (East) Lexington Ave., north from East 78th Street, showing W.P.A. employees removing street car tracks. November 6, 1936. W.P.A. Photo. Federal Art Project.
155 E 78 Street image

155 E 78 Street

222 E 79th Street image

222 E 79th Street

Yorkville Branch, NYPL image

Yorkville Branch, NYPL

Yorkville Branch, NYPL image

Yorkville Branch, NYPL

Manhattan 169, Yorkville Library, 222-24 E. 79th St; Jerry Spearman, Photographer
Yorkville Branch, NYPL image

Yorkville Branch, NYPL

222 East 79th Street. New York Public Library, Carnegie Branch.
222 E 79th Street image

222 E 79th Street

Yorkville Branch, NYPL image

Yorkville Branch, NYPL

79th Street (East) #222 - Third Avenue - Second Avenue, south side
Yorkville Branch, NYPL image

Yorkville Branch, NYPL

1356 Third Avenue image

1356 Third Avenue

Manhattan: 77th Street (East) - 3rd Avenue East 77th Street, west from Third Ave. Note demolition at the N.W. corner. September 8, 1936. P. L. Sperr.
1356 Third Avenue image

1356 Third Avenue

Manhattan: 3rd Avenue - 77th Street Third Ave., west side, north from and including East 77th Street. September 8, 1936. P. L. Sperr.
1125 Lexington Avenue image

1125 Lexington Avenue

\[IRT East Side - Lexington Avenue Line: Sidewalk Between 77th and 78th Streets] Camera on north building line of # 1108 Lexington Avenue in center of west sidewalk looking north to E. 78th Street.
139 East 79th Street image

139 East 79th Street

Manhattan: Lexington Avenue - 79th Street Lexington Avenue at N.W. corner of 79th Street, showing demolition of houses where a fourteen-story co-operative apantment building is to be erected. 137-139 East 79th Street, the corner buildings, used to house the Villa-Marie Academy. October 11, 1927. L. Sperr.
1140 Lexington Avenue image

1140 Lexington Avenue

Manhattan: Lexington Avenue - 78th Street Lexington Avenue, west side, from 79th to 78th Streets. October 11, 1927. P. L. Sperr.
208 E 78th Street image

208 E 78th Street

156 East 78th Street image

156 East 78th Street

156 East 78th Street. Mrs. Hoffman Miller residence, hallway.
156 East 78th Street image

156 East 78th Street

\[156 East 78th Street.]
156 East 78th Street image

156 East 78th Street

156 East 78th Street. Mrs. Hoffman Miller residence, living room.
156 East 78th Street image

156 East 78th Street

156 East 78th Street. Mrs. Hoffman Miller residence. Entrance
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