Isaac Vail Brokaw Residence ca. 1901 This little castle on its corner site was one of the few remaining town houses which could boast such splendid isolation. Romanesque in many of its details, this mansion was basically of French Renaissance inspiration in its fenestration and roof lines. The marble interiors clove to the Romanesque Revival and were some of the finest and most original work of the style.

Couple on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, ca. 1974.

James B. and Nanaline Duke House ARCHITECT: Horace Trumbauer DATE: 1909-12 STYLE: French Classical The impressive splendor of’ the Duke mansion is achieved through the simple grandeur of’ the French Classical style of’ Louis XY. It was designed in 1909 by the well-known architect, Horace Trumbauer of Philadelphia. He modeled it after the Labottiere mansion in Bordeaux, which had been designed by Laclotte in the 18th century.

Ukrainian Institute of America, ca. 1975. The Fletcher-Sinclair mansion (now the Ukrainian Institute of America) was built in 1897 and designed by the well-known architect Charles Pierrepont Henry Gilbert. The French Gothic mansion was constructed as a single family home for Isaac D. Fletcher, a banker and railroad investor. The building is elaborately designed with drip moldings, gargoyles, and a high mansard slate roof, though the narrow side (5th Avenue) facade is a bit plainer to blend in better with the neighboring buildings. The home, along with Fletcher's extensive art collection, was donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art after his death in 1917. The museum turned around and sold the home to endow the prints and drawing collections. The buyer of the home was Harry Ford Sinclair, founder of the country's largest independent oil company. He would end up in jail for jury tampering related to the Teapot Dome scandal and sold the home in 1930. After one more private owner (supposed descendants of Peter Stuyvesant), the house was purchased in 1955 by The Ukrainian Institute of America, a new non-profit (started as a small organization on Long Island in 1948). The Institute is dedicated to promoting the art, music and literature of Ukraine and the Ukrainian diaspora. Since 1955, they have thoughtfully and professionally maintained and preserved both the interior and exterior of the building

Mrs. James B. Duke Residence ca. 1979 When Horace Trumbauer, the Philadelphia architect, was asked to design a town house for the Duke family, his firm chose as the model a house in Bordeaux, modifying its proportions to suit the site. Some of the handsomest buildings ever erected in New York were designed by his firm. They included Eleanor Widener's house, now razed, at 901 Fifth Avenue; the Herbert N. Straus house at 9 East 71st Street; the Wildenstein Galleries at 19 East 64th Street; and the old Duveen Galleries, which once stood at the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and West 56th Street. Many of his designs were directly inspired by those of the French architect Jacques Ange Gabriel.

The Brokaw Mansion, ca. 1900. Constructed between 1887 and 1890 for the millionaire clothing manufacturer Issac Vail Brokaw, the opulent mansion was modeled on the 16th century Chateau Chenonceaux in France’s Loire Valley. Built along "Millionaire's Row" on the east side of Fifth Avenue, the mansion lavishly designed inside and out, with a marble entrance, stained glass, carved wood decoration, mosaics, murals, and even a moat! Brokaw also had constructed on the property a number of homes for his children, including 7 East 79th Street and the 1905-built Gothic twin buildings at 984 and 985 Fifth Avenue. The main house remained in the family until Brokaw's son George sold it in 1946 to the Institute of Radio Engineers (they would later also purchase two of the other Brokaw residences). In 1963 the organization, now called the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, sold the buildings to Campagna Construction Corporation, who announced in the fall of 1964 that they planned to demolish the buildings. This announcement, paired with interest from the press public, and citywide organization, caught the city's attention and resulted in ardent calls for landmarks legislation. Nonetheless, despite the articles and rallies, the buildings were quickly and somewhat stealthily demolished in February in 1965. A year later, a 26-story cooperative apartment building was erected on the site. The events surrounding the end of the Brokaw Mansion were a warning shot. The threat to the mansions moved the landmarks legislation off the Mayor's desk and into the City Council committee. It was the loss of the buildings that then pushed the legislation to a vote and the eventual signing into law on April 19, 1965.

Girard Residence ca 1910 Row houses were generally two to four stories and were usually built in groups, of identical design, often covering an entire block or more. The upscale version of the row house- the townhouse- was custom designed and sometimes as tall as six stories (servants occupied the higher floors), but still filled the entire width of the lot. Alexander McMillan Welch was known for his townhouse commissions on Fifth Avenue and along the fashionable side streets of the Upper East Side of Manhattan. This townhouse, at 1014 Fifth Avenue, across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was one of many elegant mansions and townhouses built by wealthy New Yorkers on the Upper East Side. One of few survivors of a rash of demolition to accommodate apartment house construction in the 1960s and 1970s, the townhouse remains protected by the Metropolitan Museum Historic District. The building served as the Goethe House, headquarters of the American Center for Cultural Relations with Germany for many years.

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

In 1977, the City created a new agency to manage its water supply and wastewater treatment and to regulate air quality, noise, and hazardous materials: the Department of Environmental Protection. DEP inherited the infrastructure, responsibilities, and documentation of many predecessor agencies dating back to the 1840s. That documentation comprises the bulk of the DEP archives and is still used in planning capital construction and rehabilitation projects, as well as watershed land management, facilities maintenance, and other operations.

990 Fifth Avenue ca. 1927 Built on the site of the grand Woolworth Mansion in 1927, 990 Fifth Avenue, designed by Rosario Candela, is only slightly less luxurious. 14 stories high, Candela designed the building to have only six apartments (5 duplex, and 1 triplex.) With a limestone facade and elegant detailing in a neo-Italian Renaissance design, 990 Fifth Avenue served as the epitome of how in the 21st century lavish homes were moving skyward.

Temple Beth-El, ca. 1901. Congregation Beth-El was a wealthy community of Jewish New Yorkers established in the mid 19th century. In 1873 they moved into a new synagogue on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 63rd Street. In the ensuing years, the community merged with another congregation, sold their home to Congregation Rodeph Sholom, and built an impressive new structure at 76th Street and Fifth Avenue (seen here). The new Romanesque synagogue with Moorish influences was designed by Arnold Brunner and completed in 1891. The facade was constructed of rough cut Indiana limestone and topped with a soaring ribbed dome. The interior was equally impressive, a massive space that could seat nearly 3000 worshipers, dramatically illuminated by 1000 incandescent lamps (likely a spectacle given the era of its construction). The building housed the congregation's services until 1930 when the community, recently merged with Congregation Emanu-El, moved into a new synagogue. This space was used only sporadically for the next 15 years, largely as overflow seating during the high holy days. By the time of demolition in 1947, the once grand synagogue was gutted and looked like a "bombed-out building." In 1949 an 18-story Emery Roth-designed apartment house rose on the former synagogue site.

Louis Stern Mansion, 1884-1929 Louis Stern was the president of the Stern Brothers Department Store. He opened the successful retail company with his brothers, Isaac and Benjamin. The brothers were an important merchandising family who were born to German Jewish immigrants in New York City. In 1884, Louis Stern purchased a 27-foot wide lot between 80th and 81st street on Fifth Avenue. This lot was opposite Central Park. His palace was designed by German architect William Schickel in a French-Gothic inspired fashion. The mansion's ornate facade rose four stories, complete with a stone oriel that supported a stone-balustraded balcony. The doors of the home were clad in bronze and glass. The house quickly became a social hub, hosting parties and social gatherings that brought prominent New York society members to the home. The house was sold to an Adolphus Busch, of St. Louis, in 1911. The mansion was a gift for his daughter Edmee who married art collector Hugo Reisinger. When the couple moved in, Hugo's collection filled the many rooms of the mansion. Paintings of Childe Hassam, Whistler, Carl Melchers, Menzel, Zuegel, and Boecklin lined the walls. The United States entry into World War I prompted suspicion of the Busch's and Reisingers, two wealthy German families. In 1917, an illegal radio receiving station was found on the roof of the mansion. According to a mortified Edmee, their servant Alexander Hugo installed this powerful radio equipment in secrecy under the instruction of her father. The station included a De Forest audion detector, which allowed for the receiving of long-distance messages - likely from Germany's capital in Nauen. Edmee sold the house to a realty company after the war ended. A sixteen-story apartment was constructed a decade later.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the great landmarks, and the great institutions, of New York City, the nation, and the world. With more than two million objects in its collection, it is by far the largest museum in both New York and the country. Covering what would be several city blocks, stretching nearly a quarter-mile long, and housing over 2,000,000 square feet of space, it’s roughly the size of the Empire State Building. This story is adapted from a Village Preservation blog, which can be viewed here.

Replacing the William A. Clark Mansion, 960 Fifth Avenue is one of Candela's most complex projects-"literally," according to The New York Times, "12 mansions built one on top another." Although the corner building appears to be one large volume, it actually comprises two sections, each defined by subtle variations in decorative details. One section, with the Fifth Avenue address, features a mixture of duplex and simplex units sold as co-operatives. The most expensive apartment, a duplex that contained a double-height, 58-foot living room, sold for the then-record price of $450,000, or about $6.5 million today. The building's second section, with a separate entrance at 3 East 77th Street, was made up of smaller apartments, intially rental but now a co-op.

Henry H. Cook Mansion, ca. 1900. In 1883, Henry Cook, a railroad millionaire, purchased the entire block between Fifth and Madison Avenues and 78th to 79th Streets. His plan was to preserve a particular type of neighborhood (read: not stables, tenements or the wrong type of people). He divided the block into single-family lots and wrote in deed restrictions that were severely limiting. In the 1890s, slowly and with purpose–to create a block of homes occupied only by the types of families he would want to be surrounded by– he sold the lots. Before selling the surrounding lots, he had built for himself a massive mansion on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 78th Street. The mansion was extravagant, with a $15,000 Italian fireplace and mantel and oak paneling that cost $55 a section. The exterior was a layered pile of white, blue and red granite. Cook would die in 1905 and in 1909 his estate sold the building to James Duke. It was a wedding present to his new wife. Duke considered renovating the mansion, but ultimately decided to demolish it and built a new house. Supposedly the contractor hired for the demolition called the mansion “the best-built house ever torn down in New York City.” (Though it is unlikely the contractor survived to mid century to see the wave of grand homes razed prior to the Landmarks Law.)

The Swedish style building seen here in Central Park arrived from Scandinavia in 1876 as Sweden’s exhibit for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Following the close of the fair, Central Park planner Frederick Law Olmsted brought the structure, which was modeled on a schoolhouse, to the park. Similar to often structures in Central Park, the Swedish Cottage has hosted a number of tenants and functions. In its first 75 years, it was home to a tool house, a library, and Central Park's entomological laboratory, as well as headquarters for the Civil Defense during World War II. In 1947, the quaint building became the home of the Marionette Theater. From that time to the present day the marionette performances both here and in schools around the city have delighted generations of New York children.

17 East 79th Street (at right), ca. 1917.

"It took New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met), founded in 1870, a remarkable twenty-one years to convince its board of trustees to open the museum to the public on Sunday… On May 19, 1891, the issue was finally addressed during a three-hour meeting of the Met’s board. At this boisterous gathering, described as a 'series of cloudbursts,' a sharply divided board passed the following resolution: 'Resolved, that… the museum be opened free to the public every Sunday from 1 P.M. till half an hour before sunset.' A gentleman representing the World attended the meeting with a check in hand to help offset the additional costs of opening on the extra day. Later the World’s headline proclaimed, 'THE PEOPLE TRIUMPH.' The New York Times trumpeted, 'VICTORY IS WON AT LAST.' …More than a century later, in 2007 the Met’s Visitor’s Service Department reported an average Sunday attendance of between 16,000 and 18,000, with a peak of 40,000 visitors on one Sunday during the Christmas holidays. Whatever may be said about the individual motives of the Met’s founders, it is clear that they did the right thing." For more on the history of the Met, check out this article by Jerri Sherman in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History.

While now replaced by an apartment building, 960 Fifth Avenue used to be the lavish home of Montana Senator and copper magnate William S. Clark Sr.

Central Park Obelisk, 1899. The obelisk, affectionately known as “Cleopatra’s Needle” (though its construction was not related to the historical Cleopatra), was a gift to the United States in recognition of friendly relations. The obelisk was installed in February 1881.

Cleopatra’s Needle, as it has long been known, stands approximately 70 feet high on the east side of Central Park, behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art near 83rd Street. It is the city’s oldest man-made public sculpture. Cleopatra’s Needle is one of a pair of granite obelisks (the other today sits on the banks of the Thames in London) from the Temple of the Sun in Heliopolis (modern-day Cairo) built to commemorate the 40th year of the reign of Thothmes III (1476-1425 BCE). In 12 BCE, Roman Emperor Augustus moved the obelisks to Alexandria. In 1869, the Khedive of Egypt gave Cleopatra’s Needle to the United States after the opening of the Suez Canal. Because of the challenging logistics, it took over a decade to arrange its transport, which was overseen by Lieutenant Commander Henry Honneychurch Gorringe (1841-1885). The project included the construction of a specially-designed railroad track, for which William H. Vanderbilt donated over $100,000, for transport up the Hudson River. When the obelisk was officially installed in New York City in January of 1881, tens of thousands of people turned up to see it in person, and manufacturers and retailers responded to this enthusiasm by producing souvenirs and memorabilia related to the event. One such example, a bronze model of the obelisk, is included in the Museum of the City of New York’s collection. The model was designed by Gorringe and cast and retailed by Tiffany & Company. Its lengthy inscription honors Henry George Stebbins (1811-1881), president of the Central Park Commission in 1880-1881 and a founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Vanderbilt’s donation, and Gorringe’s leadership in engineering its transport and erection. Since the obelisk’s installation, the City of New York, its caretaker, has made efforts to preserve its structure and make its history accessible to the public. In 1940, then-Parks Commissioner Robert Moses commissioned The New~York Historical Society to create a permanent plaque commemorating the monument’s history. Throughout the twentieth century, the surface of the obelisk degraded. In early 2011, Egypt’s then-Minister of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, wrote to the Parks department imploring it to take measures to protect the obelisk from environmental factors that he believed were contributing to its degradation. He went as far as to imply that Egypt’s government would move to have the obelisk returned to Egypt if no action was taken. In 2014 the Central Park Conservancy worked on a half-million dollar conservation program for the monument which cleaned and stabilized its structure so it may “endure as a testament to the genius of a vanished civilization, an awe-inspiring tower holding its own on an island of modern skyscrapers.”

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

There is no place in the world quite like New York City. While this collection might not represent the best and the brightest of history or architecture, it captures some uniquely New York moments.

960 Fifth Avenue, the home of Montana Senator and copper magnate William S. Clark Sr. ca. 1933 Clark, who was originally born in Pennsylvania, moved out west with his family to study law, then eventually found his way to financial success in the Montana Gold Rush of the early 1860s. It was through copper that Clark truly made his fortune, though, and became known as one of the three “Copper Kings” of Butte Montana, along with Marcus Daly and F. Augustus Heinze. His 34-room mansion in Butte, Montana, still stands today as the “Copper King Bed and Breakfast.” However, the 34-room home in Butte was clearly just a practice run for the mansion he commissioned in 1897 at 960 Fifth Avenue, here in New York. The house, which included 121 rooms, 31 baths, four art galleries, a swimming pool, a concealed garage, and underground rail line to bring in heating coal was completed in 1911. Also known as “Clark’s Folly,” the home was considered among the more egregious examples of Gilded Age excess. The original plans, drafted by the French architect Henri Deglane initially outlined a home that would cost approximately $415,000 to build. In 1901, Clark deemed these insufficient, especially in regards to the provisions for his art gallery. As he had contracted with the New York firm of Lord, Hewllet & Hull to execute the work, he engaged the partners to acquire additional land and revise the plans, bringing the new designs to $2,500,000. Upon completion, the house was estimated to have actually cost $6 million dollars to construct (over $150 million in 2018), with several lawsuits thrown in the mix along the way In addition to the cost of the house, in support of the effort to build it, Clark also acquired a quarry in New Hampshire for $50,000, and built a railroad to transport the stone out of it; a bronze foundry in which to fabricate the fittings; and imported marble from Italy, oak from Sherwood Forrest in England, and parts of a Chateau from France for the interior. Senator Clark’s New York mansion took 14 years to build, and a mere 14 years after completion, on March of 1925, Clark succumbed to pneumonia and died at age 86. Interestingly enough, Clark’s art collection, which prompted the aforementioned expansion of his home before it was even built, sparked yet another controversy. In his will, Clark left the majority of the collection, valued at nearly $3 million in 1925 (just under $44 million today), to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “conditional on providing and maintenance of the museum of a well-lighted gallery or galleries for the exclusive occupancy of these works of art, to be designated the William A. Clark collection.” The Metropolitan Museum in turn declined the bequest, on the grounds that they did not feel they could commit to fulfilling the conditional terms in perpetuity. The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, was quick to step in and accept the collection, which they held until their dissolution in 2014, and then was subsumed by the National Gallery of Art. The mansion went on the market not long after Clark’s death, as well, but few bidders stepped forward. The substance of the mansion – a hulking mass of marble and steel – was actually considered an encumbrance to potential buyers. In a time when more and more Gilded Ages mansions along upper Fifth Avenue, or “Millionaires’ Row,” were sold and demolished to make way for apartments, Clark’s mansion was deemed especially burdensome to dismantle and cart away. Finally, in February 1927, the property sold for under $3 million which was less than half that the cost of construction early in the 20th century. The majority of the selling price was attributed to the land itself. As noted earlier, this property was to become 960 Fifth Avenue, the 12 story luxury cooperative apartment house designed by Rosario Candela, which at the time was already advertising suites for sale up to $350,000 (over $5 million in 2018). Thus, the single mansion was demolished, and the many – or shall we say “mini” – mansions were built in its place.

995 Fifth Avenue ca. 1928 Though now a residential cooperative, 995 Fifth Avenue began its life as the Stanhope Apartment Hotel. Its architect, Rosario Candela crafted an elegant Georgian facade for the building and laid out the graceful apartments that would ensure the Stanhope's success. Though the ownership of the building was transferred multiple times, The Stanhope quickly acquired a reputation of luxury that remains to this day.

Alice in Wonderland Sculpture, Central Park, ca. 1976.

1009 Fifth Avenue ARCHITECT: Welch, Smith & Provot DATE: 1899-1901 STYLE: Beaux-Arts This handsome Fifth Avenue mansion, prominently located at the southeast corner of Eighty-second Street, was built during the years 1899 to 1901. It is one of the few surviving houses which once formed part of an almost uninterrupted series of palatial residences facing Central Park. In recent years the majority of these grand townhouses have fallen victim to rising property values, and have been replaced by apartment buildings. No. 1009 is exceptional, as it remains in the possession of the family of the original owner, and today provides us with a fine example of turn-of-the-century architectural opulence.

Belvedere Castle Belvedere Castle is one of Central Park's five visitor centers. Calvert Vaux, co-designer of the Park, created the miniature castle in 1869 as a whimsical structure looking out on the reservoir to the north (now the Great Lawn) and the Ramble to the south. Belvedere provides the highest and best views of the Park and the adjacent cityscape. The castle's name is fitting, because it translates to "beautiful view" in Italian. "Right now, the temperature in Central Park is...." That information, heard frequently on radio and TV, originates here at Belvedere Castle. Since 1919, the National Weather Service has taken measurements of New York's weather from the castle's tower with the aid of scientific instruments that measure wind speed and direction. In a fenced-in compound just south of the castle, other weather data such as rainfall are recorded and sent to the weather service's forecast office at Brookhaven National Library on Long Island. After decades of deterioration, Central Park Conservancy renovated and reopened the castle in 1983 as a visitor center and gift shop.

This mansion at 972 Fifth Avenue was designed by Stanford White in 1902 and was completed in 1906 shortly after White's murder. The house was built for the Payne Whitney family as a wedding gift from Payne Whitney's uncle, Oliver H. Payne. White drew inspiration from High Renaissance Italian palaces when designing the interior and exterior of this opulent home, which featured a Venetian themed reception, and a marble-clad rotunda with a Renaissance statue in the middle. In the 1990s, it was discovered that the statue was in fact a Michelangelo, unknowingly purchased by White in Italy. In 1952, the building was acquired by the French Embassy to host their cultural services.

Looking over Turtle Pond to Belvedere Castle and Vista Rock, c. 1976. Vista Rock is a 130 feet high formation of Manhattan schist. It is the second highest outcrop in Central Park. The massive rock formation sits in the path of the 79th Street Traverse, one of the four roads that Olmsted and Vaux designed for the Park. To complete the planned roadway, gunpowder was used to blow out the path for a tunnel. The Vista Rock Tunnel is 146 feet long, 40 feet wide, and just under 18 feet at the center.

King Jagiello monument, Central Park, ca. 1976. Created for the Polish pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair, the monument is a replica of a statue which stood in Warsaw, before being melted down for bullets during the Nazi occupation. It depicts Władysław II Jagiełło, the 14th and 15th century Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland.

West Drive, Central Park, ca. 1910.

By Jerri Sherman It took New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met), founded in 1870, a remarkable 21 years to convince its board of trustees to open the museum to the public on Sunday. In the post-Civil War years, during what was called the Gilded Age, America’s greatest city experienced momentous social, cultural, and economic change, which led to an increasingly unrestrained environment. New ideas from many sources jeopardized traditional values, and the business and political frenzy acted as a magnet for masses of immigrants who came to America and settled in New York, hoping for a new and better life. By the 1880s, the city was both reeling from the onslaught of violent labor unrest and financial depression and struggling to accommodate a million people, fully two-thirds of whom lived in 32,000 overcrowded tenement buildings. Native-born New Yorkers felt their way of life threatened by the influx of these newcomers and their “foreign” ways. With a worsening urban crisis, it became clear that many aspects of social behavior required change. The development of rival doctrines also brought serious challenges to Christian religious conservatism. Sabbatarianism, one of Protestantism’s traditional moral crusades, found that it had lost touch with the labor movement, whose members chose in increasing numbers to avoid church attendance. The idea of a day exclusively for religious dedication was supplanted by the need for a secular day of rest. Thus the old boundary of the Sunday Sabbath needed to be broken. Read this in its original format here.

Duke Town House ca. 1979 Originally the location of a mansion built in the mid 1880s for the railroad magnate, Henry H. Cook, James Buchanan Duke replaced that hulking mansion with one of his own in 1912. Duke, a tobacco and electric power industrialist, purchased the plot at the corner of 78th Street in 1909 and considered renovating the earlier building but decided against it. Completed in 1912 the new mansion, seen here, was designed by Philadelphia architect Horace Trumbauer. Trumbaur created for his client a near replica of the Hotel Lobottiere in Bordeaux, France. Interestingly it is believed by architectural historians that Trumbaur did not design this building solo, as had been previous suggested, but that Julian Abele, his African American lead designer, was highly involved. Duke died in 1925 and left the home to his wife and daughter. (He also left $40 million to Trinity College in North Carolina, under the direction that it be renamed Duke University.) Doris Duke, James' daughter, would go on to make a name for herself as an art collector, historic preservationist, and pioneer of the wildlife and environmental conservation movement. (She was also the first female competitive surfer!) In 1958 the home was donated to NYU's Institute of Fine Arts for its graduate programs and it remains in this function today. It has been been completed and sensitively restored by the University.

Metropolitan Museum of Art ca. 1908 The enormous scale of this facade is reminiscent of the main hall of a Roman public bath and forms a dramatic setting for the entrance to this great museum. The huge blocks of stone above the columns were intended for sculpture which was never executed. Richard Morris Hunt, dean of New York architects, designed it and once remarked that he would wish to have it considered his monument.

By Cynthia Brenwall The collection of Parks Drawings at the Municipal Archives are often called the “jewel in the crown” within the holdings. It includes hundreds of exquisite plans and designs of parks throughout the city and in particular, Central Park. Originally created to illustrate the park designers’ intentions and to guide those who built the parks, many of these drawings are now considered works of art. Some are again being utilized as “working” drawings, providing essential information for on-going restoration projects in the parks. One of the most visible of the recent projects is the Belvedere Castle. The original format of this story can be found with other excellent blogs: here.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1903. When the Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870, New York had no major art museum. In the mid-19th century, the city's biggest cultural destination was PT Barnum's American Museum, where up to 15,000 people per day flocked to see attractions ranging from Siamese twins and live whales to performances of Shakespeare and opera by the singer Jenny Lind. The founders of the MET wanted to create something entirely different-an encyclopedic collection of high art that would ultimately compete with Europe's greatest museums. The city's industrialists joined the board, along with esteemed painters and architects. They also gave the Museum its foundational collections. In less than 20 years, by the late 1880s, the Museum was earning widespread attention. Works by Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, Rembrandt, Leonardo and Vermeer hung on its walls. And gifts from the city's rich-many from the individuals whose homes you stop at on this tour- would keep flowing in for decades. There were drawings by Albrecht Durer from Felix Warburg, Marie Antoinette's furniture from William K. Vanderbilt and Italian lace from Mrs. John Jacob Astor. Then there were the thousands of medieval and Egyptian objects from the collection of J.P. Morgan, who served as a trustee and then president. The Museum intended not only to build a world class collection of art, but also to teach visitors how to appreciate it. At first, it excluded the working class by closing on Sunday, the day they had off. Once the MET decided to stay open that day, curators, and directors stood watch in the galleries. Director Louis di Cesnola boasted of the results: "There is no more spitting tobacco juice on the gallery floors...no more whistling, singing or calling aloud to people from one gallery to another." One story circulated about Mark Twain's protests when asked to leave his belongings in the cloak room: "Leave my cane! Leave my can!" he purportedly exclaimed. "How do you expect me to poke holes through the oil paintings?"

When the Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870, New York had no major art museum. In the mid-19th century, the city's biggest cultural destination was PT Barnum's American Museum, where up to 15,000 people per day flocked to see attractions ranging from Siamese twins and live whales to performances of Shakespeare and opera by the singer Jenny Lind.

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.

Duke Town House, January 20, 1938 In the 1870s, upper Fifth Avenue opposite Central Park was a shanty town, but by World War I it had become “millionaire’s row,” lined with the mansions of the captions of industry. Constructed to last for centuries, these urban villas soon gave way to apartment buildings, as the wealthy chose the ease of apartment living over the costs and constraints of palace life. Abbott’s photograph of the mansion of tobacco king James B. Duke contrasted these two ways of life. Built in 1912 to resemble a French chateau, the house was occupied in 1938 by Duke’s widow. Across 78th Street was 969 Fifth Avenue, a new 15-story luxury apartment building. In 1958, the Duke house became New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts.