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The Marion
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Storefronts at The Marion, a Lexington Avenue Apartment building. November 8, 1911.
Zion Lutheran Church
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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.
Our Lady of Good Counsel
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Our Lady of Good Counsel, ca. 1975. This late 19th century Roman Catholic Church stood across from the Ruppert & Company brewery in Yorkville for more than 70 years. Our Lady of Good Counsel was part of a wave of new churches built by the Archdiocese of New York to serve Yorkville’s growing population, including the German immigrant communities who made up Ruppert’s workforce. The brewery complex closed in 1965 and was later razed, opening new sightlines architect Thomas Poole’s Gothic facade — described in the AIA Guide to New York as “robust, undisciplined, deeply three-dimensional.”
1035 Park Avenue
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Park Avenue scene at 96th Street, March 22, 1927. Across Park Avenue is a large apartment building, completed in 1926, and the Park Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church. Note the diversity of vehicular traffic: bus, streetcar (blurred, at left), and horse-and-carriage vehicles are all pictured — and the New York and Harlem Railroad tracks run beneath the Park Avenue median.
Artists in Residence
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As every New Yorker who spots a celebrity at Duane Reade knows, thousands of art and pop culture luminaries have called the city home. From Whitman to Warhol, this is a quick guide to the places notable New Yorkers have lived and worked.
Immanuel Lutheran Church
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The Immanuel Lutheran Church was founded by German immigrants in Yorkville in 1863. The congregation initially settled on East 87th Street near Lexington Avenue. Its current building at 122 East 88th Street, seen in this 1937 photo, was designed in 1886 in a Gothic Revival style by Arthur Crooks. Its 200-foot granite tower houses bells given to the church as a gift from the Empress of Germany in the later nineteenth century. By the turn of the twentieth century, the church was one of the largest Lutheran churches in New York City and was devoted exclusively to German-language services.
Immanuel Lutheran Church
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Immanuel Lutheran Church, April, 1961. The Immanuel Lutheran Church, a Gothic edifice designed by Arthur Crooks, features a 200-foot bell tower at the corner of 88th Street and Lexington Avenue. The tower houses three bells, presented as a gift from Empress Auguste Victoria of Germany at the church’s 1886 dedication, in recognition of the German heritage of many Immanuel congregants. In June 1969, blasting for the construction of a new Gimbel’s department store one block south caused Immanuel’s vaulted plaster ceiling to collapse, damaging the church interior and stained glass windows. Luckily, the altar and hand-carved Black Forest reredos (the carved, wooden decoration behind the altar area) were unharmed.
1100 Madison Avenue
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1100 Madison Avenue, ca. 1911. Completed in 1911 by the firm of Schwartz & Gross, the Schermerhorn (now called Gerel) is a 12-story apartment building. It sits just outside the Metropolitan Museum Historic District. The land on which it was constructed was purchased from the prominent Schermerhorn family.
1080-1082 Park Avenue
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Park Avenue storefronts at East 88th Street, 1938. At left, businesses No. 1080 include Boghen Pharmacy and Park Avenue Jeweler. At right, at No. 1082 are an unlikely pair: The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., at street level; and the J.P. Linahan Casket Display showroom one store above.
1646 Second Avenue
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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.
92nd Street Y
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92nd Street Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association, June 3, 1928. Founded in 1874 as the Young Men's Hebrew Association, the 92nd Street Y (as it is more commonly known) is a social institution whose mission was originally, "to promote a better feeling and a higher culture among young men and to unite them into a liberal organization, which shall tend to their moral, intellectual, and social improvement.” First housed in a rented building on West 21st Street that included parlors, a reading and a gym, the Y moved to larger quarters on 42nd Street a few years later. During the 1880s and 1890s the Y slowly continued its move uptown at various location along Lexington Avenue. In 1899 Jewish-American banker, businessman, and philanthropist, Jacob H. Schiff donated $150,00 for the construction of a new building at 92nd Street. The new building (seen here) opens in 1900 and provides educational, religious, and recreational programs for young Jewish men. The building has an annex with pool and dormitories added in 1911. The first Jewish Boys Scout troop is organized at the Y in 1913. In the late 1920s, the original build is razed and by 1930 the new Art Deco building opens, with a dormitory for 235 men, two gymnasiums, a 25-yard pool, the wood-paneled, 917-seat auditorium, kosher cafeteria, billiard room, and Art Center facilities. The 1920s and 1930s marked a major expansion of the programming under visionary leadership. The Y's place as a hub of music, arts, and community service is solidified, as they also open their educational and arts programming to the general public. Today the 92nd Street Y remains a preeminent and busy New York cultural institution, nearly 150 years after its founding.
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. Ignatius Parochial School
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St. Ignatius Parochial School, ca. 1905.
1342 Lexington Avenue
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Northern Renaissance Revival row houses on Lexington Avenue, now part of the Hardenbergh/Rhinelander Historic District; August 13, 1937. In the late 19th century, the family of William C. Rhinelander set about developing their parcels of land on Manhattan's Upper East Side. The four row houses pictured, part of a set of six at the northwest corner of Lexington Avenue at East 89th Street, were designed by architect Henry J. Hardenbergh and completed in 1889. Andy Warhol purchased No. 1342 Lexington (second from left) in 1960. Warhol lived in the building, as did his mother, until her death in 1972, after which point it was leased to an associate.
15 East 84th Street
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Mansion at 15 East 84th Street, August 19, 1949. This extra-wide 84th Street mansion was constructed in 1899 for Adam Lanfear Norrie, a business executive and the son of Scottish-born high society financier Gordon Norrie. The original mansion, designed by architect and James Renwick protege J. Lawrence Aspinwall, was substantially altered in the late 1920s, after it was acquired by New York Herald Tribune editor Ogden Reid. The Italian Renaissance facade visible today dates to this renovation. The mansion was acquired by the Leon Levy Foundation in 2004. The property was included in a 2006 gift to New York University for the establishment of the Institute of the Study of the Ancient World.
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.
1293 Lexington Avenue
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Northeast corner of 87th Street and Lexington Avenue, October 13, 1911.
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.
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.
210 East 86th Street
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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.
1340 Lexington Avenue
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1340 Lexington Avenue, 1913. Nos. 1340 through 1350 Lexington Avenue are a row of three-story houses built in 1888 by Henry Hardenbergh. The architect created charming Renaissance Revival buildings of red brick, brownstone, and terra cotta. The LPC designation report for the Hardenbergh/Rhinelander Historic District describes them as "form\[ing] a picturesque yet symmetrical composition." They maintain their original "lively" roofline of alternating pointy pediments and flat, but detailed, cornices. Though they were built with stoops (as can be seen in this image), renovations over time have moved all of the entrances to the street level.
1021 Park Avenue
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1021 Park Avenue ca. 1942 The L shaped plan of 1021 Park Avenue stems from the days when the Upper East Side real estate was dominated by mansions. The Pinchot family, having built themselves a lavish abode, sold some of the lots surrounding their mansion to other families, requiring them to be used as private homes. Eventually, they sold their home to Edward Stettinus, who continued to purchase land, but (due to the Pinchot's earlier sales) had to wrap around some lots, creating the curious L shape. In 1928, the developer Anthony Campagna bought Stettinus' land and planned to erect an apartment tower, bringing in his frequent partner: Rosario Candela. Candela, created a neo-gothic design for the building's street faced that was atypical of his normal style, incorporating features like the shields and gargoyles. For the non street facing facades, he used light brick an irregular window pattern due to the interior combination of duplex and simplex apartments. The building was a massive success with the majority of the apartments selling in almost a month.
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.
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.
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.
Our Lady of Good Counsel
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Our Lady of Good Counsel, 1931. By the 1880 and 1890s, Yorkville was a booming area with a large influx of German and Irish immigrant families. During this time the only major Catholic church in the neighborhood was St. Lawrence O'Toole (now St. Ignatius Loyola) on 84th Street. To accommodate this growing community the diocese planned to built a few new churches. The Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel was one of these buildings. It was completed in 1892. The distinctive stone facade includes crenelated coping and turrets, and echos similar architectural details of the nearby Calvary Squadron A Armory (Madison between 94th and 95th Streets).
185 East 85th Street
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185 East 85th Street ca. 1967 Immortalized in the opening credits of the Jefferson's, 185 East 85th Street was once emblematic of the wave of new 1960s construction on Third Avenue. Erected in 1967, this 35-story apartment tower was striking among its lower-rise neighbors. Though perhaps not so eye-catching today, at the time it was a prime example of a "deluxe apartment in the sky." Designed by architect H. I. Feldman, The Park Lane was known for its rounded balconies and unobstructed views until later construction hemmed in its sightlines.
Cultural Medallion: Manhattan
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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.
1681 1st Avenue
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My Archive Summer 2019 “I took this picture in the late 1970s. I was fascinated by the woman leaning out the window and didn't notice the other person walking by until later when the roll of film was developed. It was a matter of luck. I was kicking through the neighborhood.” —Joe Raskin
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.
FDNY Hook & Ladder 13
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Hook & Ladder 13, October, 1960. In the 1860s, the cities of New York and Brooklyn moved to professionalize firefighting, combining the volunteer and independent firefighting companies into a single Metropolitan District. The newly-established Hook & Ladder Company No. 13 moved into its East 87th Street firehouse in January, 1868. In 1961, the company moved to a new firehouse on East 85th Street, leaving their former home vacant — but not for long. In 1962, a young, unknown artist named Andy Warhol rented the second floor studio for $150/month.
Church of the Holy Trinity
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Many houses of worship on the Upper East Side are devoted to a myriad of individual traditions, which contributed to our neighborhood’s multi-ethnic identity. The Church of the Holy Trinity, at 316 East 88th Street, is somewhat unique because it was not built to support just one of these traditions, but welcomed everyone. Holy Trinity was conceived as a “Settlement Church” by Serena Rhinelander, a member of the prominent Rhinelander family, which held vast land in Yorkville and was known for real estate and philanthropy in the neighborhood. Originally founded in midtown in 1864 as a Protestant Episcopal Church, Holy Trinity was designed as a community complex by the architectural firm Barney and Chapman. Their work on the Holy Trinity includes a French Gothic bell tower, which the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission calls an “outstanding example of the French Gothic spirit adapted to a late Nineteenth Century brick and terra-cotta religious structure,” and a French renaissance Parish house that has served as a community oasis since it opened in 1897. Then as now, the Parish House offers an auditorium, classrooms, and meeting rooms serving the needs of neighbors of all ages. Holy Trinity was designated a New York City landmark in 1966 (so one of the City’s first) and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979
50 East 87th Street
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Constructed for a German-Jewish Reform congregation, Park Avenue Synagogue, seen here in 1927, the year it was dedicated, was one of the last Moorish-Revival Jewish houses of worship built in the United States. The Moorish style offered an alternative to the Greco-Roman or Gothic-Revival silhouettes that were often used for churches. It was a style that had been used for synagogues in Germany as early as the 1830s and remained widely popular for Jewish sacred spaces until the First World War. With its mix of German language, Jewish religion, and Mediterranean accents, the Park Avenue Synagogue was a uniquely American place: when the Synagogue was dedicated in March 1927, Mayor Jimmy Walker, the Episcopal Bishop of New York City William T. Manning, and New York Supreme Court Justice Thomas C. T. Crain were all in attendance. Congregants, who had originally founded the Synagogue in 1882 in a converted church at 115 East 86th, now had created a dramatic new space for themselves in the city. The Upper East Side’s stunning array of ecclesiastical architecture offers many more instances of immigrant communities announcing their arrival in New York through beautiful houses of worship. In each of these spaces, congregants could come together not only to strengthen the bonds of their communities but also to assert their collective American ambition and success.
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
Our Lady of Good Counsel
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Our Lady of Good Counsel, at 230 East 90th Street, was built in 1892 as one of the first churches in Northern Yorkville. It was designed by architect Thomas H. Poole in a melange of styles including Gothic and Tudor elements. The church also features elaborate stained-glass windows by Franz Mayer and Co., a renowned German manufacturer. Our Lady originally served Yorkville’s Irish and German communities, comprised of workers from the nearby breweries and factories. Our Lady overlooked the looming bulk of the breweries that dominated the neighborhood’s streetscape. As the Parish grew, the church expanded in 1905 to include a school and convent, and in 1908 to offer a nursery and parish house. Today Our Lady still serves and reflects our community: In addition to Mass in English, the Church conducts Mass in Spanish and offers a Spanish Youth Group. With the breweries gone, the church now looks over Ruppert Park and its popular children’s playground
Lt. Abraham Quackenbush House
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Residence of Lieutenant Abraham Quackenbush, ca. 1885. “The house was built in 1851 and demolished in 1890; Lieutenant Quackenbush's great-grandchildren are pictured in the photograph.”
1720 Second Avenue
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This pair of stately Romanesque Revival style brick apartment buildings was constructed at a time when apartment-style living was becoming more socially acceptable for New York’s burgeoning middle class. They exemplified the use of distinctive architecture and evocative naming to elevate the image of the multiple-dwelling building type, which had long been associated with the cramped and squalid quarters of Manhattan’s worst tenement districts. In this case, the choice of the noble-sounding names “Kaiser” and “Rhine” signaled the overwhelmingly German heritage of their presumed occupants, as well as the prominent Rhinelander family’s involvement in their construction and in broader real estate development in Yorkville. Although built as two separate structures joined along a party wall with interior courtyards, the buildings’ Second Avenue façades present a unified, monumental appearance. The decorative iron balcony and pent eave roof anchor the façade’s center bay, while the round arches that are a hallmark of the Romanesque Revival style play across the façade at different scales. The red-orange brick façade is embellished by rich geometric patterning and detailing, including corbels, quoins and window spandrels featuring delicate cartouches with ribbons. The building was recently restored with the removal of white paint obscuring the building’s subtle texture and fine ornament. With luck, the cornices that flanked the pent eave roof in this once-picturesque roofline will also be restored.
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.
The Kaiser and the Rhine
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The Kaiser and the Rhine, August 13, 1941. In 1886 Gertrude Rhinelander, a scion of a well-established and wealthy New York family, purchased a series of lots on the corner of Second Avenue and 89th Street. She commissioned architects Lamb & Rich to design two matching apartment buildings with ground floor commercial spaces. Christened The Rhine (nos. 1716-18) and The Kaiser (nos. 1720-22) by Rhinelander, the buildings were completed in 1887. Rendered in a Romanesque Revival style to look as though a single structure, the building did feature some unexpected architectural details, including an almost Modern style maze-like pattern of brickwork on the second floor facade. A massive and devastating fire in 1904 gutted the building. Gertrude Rhinelander, who still collected the rents herself, rebuilt. It was likely at this time that the Tuscan Revival style roofs were added. In the late 20th century the buildings were painted in muted grey and white tones, but in 2016 the paint was striped off, revealing the rich tones of the original red brick.
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
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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.
Central Christian Church
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Park Avenue Christian Church Bertram Goodhue of Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson 1909-11–NYCHD, NR-D This magnificent French Gothic Revival style church is clad in grey Manhattan schist, and features a pointed arch stained glass window and a 70-foot lead fleche, cast in Birmingham, England, by Henry Hope & Sons to emulate the one at Sainte Chapelle in Paris. Goodhue also designed the adjacent rectory in the same style of the same grey schist. In 2014, the controversy over its demolition led to the designation of the Park Avenue Historic District.
1040 Park Avenue
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1040 Park Avenue Delano & Aldrich, 1923-25 – NYC HD, NR-D 1040 Park Avenue made distinctive with its eclectic ornament includes a frieze with sculpted tortoises and hares. Interestingly, the building does not have a cornice, which is unusual for a Renaissance Revival style building. It did, however, have one of the Avenue’s earliest penthouse apartments, which became fashionable in the 1920s. Though intended as servants’ quarters, the top floor was transformed by famed magazine publisher Condé Nast into a 5,000-square-foot duplex designed by actress and interior decorator Elsie de Wolfe. The building was also briefly home to Jacqueline Kennedy after she left the White House
Photos
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186 East 86th Street
East 86th Street. Manhattan Savings Bank, exterior view from N.E..
185 East 85th Street
East 86th Street and Third Avenue, southwest corner. Apartment building with Manhattan Savings Bank on ground floor
1520-1526 Third Avenue
1520-26 3rd Avenue and 164-166 East 86th Street. Buildings.
185 East 85th Street
East 86th Street and Third Avenue, southwest corner. Apartment building with Manhattan Savings Bank on ground floor. Street view
186 East 86th Street
East 86th Street. Manhattan Savings Bank, interior, bird's-eye looking south.
186 East 86th Street
East 86th Street. Manhattan Savings Bank, interior view looking N.E..
186 East 86th Street
East 86th Street. Manhattan Savings Bank, interior view looking N.E..
159 East 85th Street
Manhattan: 85th Street (East) - Lexington Avenue (1) 157-161 East 85th Street, north side, between Lexington and Third Aves. No. 159 is Fire Engine House, No. 22. Nos. 157 and 161 are both three-story frame houses. August 2, 1930. P. L. Sperr. Neg. #3622 (2) The same, from a different angle. May 12, 1936. P. L. Sperr. Neg. #3623
159 East 85th Street
Manhattan: 85th Street (East) - 3rd Avenue 159-161 East 85th Street, north side, between Third and Lexington Avenues. No. 161 is a three-story frame building. 1932\. J. Clarence Davies Collection, Museum of the City of New York. Negative No. 228.
157 East 85th Street
Manhattan: 85th Street (East) - 3rd Avenue 157-159 East 85th Street, north side, between Third and Lexington Avenues. No. 157 is a three-story frame house. 1932\. J. Clarence Davies Collection, Museum of the City of New York. Negative No. 229.
144 East 86th Street
144 East 86th Street. Chatham and Phenix National Bank.
1530 Third Avenue
Manhattan: 3rd Avenue - 86th Street Third Avenue, west side, north from 86th Street, showing 1530 Third Avenue, on the N.W. corner of 86th Street, a three-story frame house with a brick front. 1932\. J. Clarence Davies Collection, Museum of the City of New York, Negative No. 240
1500 Third Avenue
Manhattan: 3rd Avenue - 84th Street 1500 Third Avenue, west side, between 84th and 85th Streets, a three-story frame house. 1932\. J. Clarence Davies Collection,Museum of the City of New York. Negative No. 225.
165 East 86th Street
Manhattan: 86th Street (East) - Lexington Avenue 165-163 East 86th Street, north side, between Lexington and Third Avenues. No. 165 is the Horn & Hardart Company's Automat Cafeteria for which F. P. Platt Brothers were the architects. 1930\. Albert Rothschild.
206 East 86th Street
Manhattan: 86th Street (East) - 3rd Avenue 204-208 East 86th Street, east of, adjoining, and at the S.E. corner of Third Avenue. 1932\. J. Clarence Davies Collection, Museum of the City of New York. Negative No. 234.
Y.M.C.A., East 86th Street
Manhattan: 86th Street (East) - Lexington Avenue 153-151 East 38th Street, east of, addition, and at the N.E. corner of Lexington Ave. No. 153 is a branch of the Y, M. C. A. Augst 2, 1927. P. L. Sperr. This shows up on the E 86th st between Park & Lex set of photos.
Y.M.C.A., East 86th Street
153 East 86th Street. Y.M.C.A.
1505 Third Avenue
Manhattan: 3rd Avenue - 85th Street Third Avenue at S. E. corner of 85th Street, showing 1505 Third AVenue, and 200-204 East 85th Street, three frame houses. 1932\. J. Clarence Davies Collection,Museum of the City of New York, Negative No. 236,
147 East 86th Street
\[Looking east on East 86th Street from Lexington Avenue.]
151 East 86th Street
151 East 86th Street. New York Edison Company Branch.
Loew's Orpheum Theater
Manhattan: 86th Street (East) - 3rd Avenue (1) 165-171 East 86th Street, north side, west of Third Avenue. No. 167 is a three-story frame house with a brick front. No. 169 is the 86th Street entrance of Loew's Orpheum Theatre, which extends through to 87th Street. 1932\. J. Clarence Davies Collection, Museum of the City of New York. Negative No. 233. NEG #4437 (2) The same. August 17, 1936. P. L. Sperr. Nig w~S61
Loew's Orpheum Theater
Manhattan: 86th Street (East) - 3rd Avenue (1) 165-171 East 86th Street, north side, west of Third Avenue. No. 167 is a three-story frame house with a brick front. No. 169 is the 86th Street entrance of Loew's Orpheum Theatre, which extends through to 87th Street. 1932\. J. Clarence Davies Collection, Museum of the City of New York. Negative No. 233. NEG #4437 (2) The same. August 17, 1936. P. L. Sperr. Nig w~S61
Yorkville Sidewalk Clock
201 East 86th Street
Manhattan: 86th Street (East) - 3rd Avenue 201-209 East 86th Street, east of and adjoining the N.E. corner of Third Avenue. No. 205-209 will soon be torn down to make way for the National Bank of Yorkville. The Lyceum Theatre, No. 201 is the corner building. August 2, 1927. P. L. Sperr.
201 East 86th Street
Lithograph print depicting a brick building in center, with a tree in front. The house has shuttered windows and panned glass, as well as arched doorway above stairs. Trees are visible in background.
201 East 86th Street
Manhattan: 3rd Avenue - 86th Street Third Avenue, east side, from 86th to 87th Street; The Lyceum, 201 East 86th Street, is at the N.E. corner of 86th Street. March 29, 1929. P.L. Sperr.
147 East 84th Street
Manhattan: 84th Street (East) - Lexington Avenue 147-149 East 84th Street, adjoining and east of the N.E. corner of Lexington Avenue. No. 147 is a three-story frame house with a brick front. J. Clarence Davies Collection, Museum of the City of New York. Negative No. 289.
1241 Lexington Avenue
Manhattan: Lexington Avenue - 84th Street (East) 1241 to 1255 Lexington Ave., east side, north from East 84th to 85th Streets, showing at the S.E. corner of the latter the New York Turn Verein(No. 1251-55). August 13, 1937. George D. Chinn.
147 East 84th Street
Manhattan: 84th Street (East) - Lexington Avenue 147 East 84th Street, adjoining the N.E. corner of Lexington Avenue. March 29, 1929. P. L. Sperr.
1260 Lexington Avenue
Manhattan: Lexington Avenue - 84th Street Lexington Ave:; west side, south from East 85th to 84th Streets. August 13, 1937. George D. Chinn.
210 East 86th Street
Musical Mutual Protective Union Building, 210 East 86th Street, New York City
210 East 86th Street
East 86th Street and Lexington Avenue. Musical Protective Union Building, Yorkville Casino.
124 East 86th Street
\#124 East 86th St. N.Y.C. From S.E. Corner 86th St. and Lexington Ave. Looking N.W. at North Side of Block Between Lexington and Park Ave. 11:12 AM
1491 3 AVENUE
Doelger Building
152 East 84th Street
152 East 84th Street. Apartment building
152 East 84th Street
152 East 84th Street. Apartments, lobby.
152 East 84th Street
152 East 84th Street. Apartments, living room, corner window, fireplace, etc.
173-175 East 87th Street
\#169-171 East 87 St. New York City. Looking N.E. at Edge to S.W. Corner of Building at 175 East 87th St., Showing How Front Wall & West Gable Wall Are Not Tied Together 12:57 PM
173-175 East 87th Street
\#169-171 East 87th St. New York City. General View of Front Wall to #173-75 East 87 St. 11:38 AM
165 East 87th Street
87th Street (East) #165-67
165-167 East 87th Street
165-167 East 87th St. New York City. General View of Fronts to #165-167 East 87th Street. Shows Separation in Brickwork on 165 East 87 St. Also Window Sills Chipped Off on Both Buildings 12:18 PM
1235 Lexington Avenue
Manhattan: Lexington Avenue - 83rd Street (East) 1223 to 1235 Lexington Avenue, east side, north from E. 83rd to 84th Streets. August 13, 1937. Gift of Geo. D. Chinn.
FDNY Hook & Ladder 13
161 East 87th Street
Manhattan: 87th Street (East) - Lexington Avenue 159-161 East 87th Street, north side, east of Lexington Avenue. No. 159 is the Hook & Ladder Company, No. 13. March 29, 1929. P. L. Sperr. NVEG ~~ E629
125 E 84th Street
125 E 84th Street
125 E 84th Street
223 East 84th Street
Manhattan: 84th Street (East) - 2nd Avenue 233-241 East 84th Street, north side, west of Second Ave. No. 241 is the Headquarters of the Socialist Party in Yorkville. September 24, 1927. P. L. Sperr.
The Marion
The Marion
Manhattan: Lexington Avenue - 87th Street Lexington Ave., east side, north from East 87th Street. August 13, 1937. George D. Chinn.
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