128 East 93rd Street, 1932. Just after the Civil War, Henry W. Shaw, a manufacturer of artificial limbs who dabbled in real estate, hired architect Edmund Waring to design a simple wood-frame home. The resulting home was rendered in the Italianate stye, with the Second Empire mansard roof with three dormers and the bracketed cornice, added later in the 19th century. Created as a speculative development, it was soon purchased by a series of owners, as the city, once decidedly to the south of this area, crept north and surrounded the once sparse neighborhood. In 1920 the home was purchased by wealthy Yorkville brewer George Ehret and operated as a rental property. The original configuration of the home included steep stoop, creating the entrance at a parlor level. Alas, in 1922, the widening of 93rd Street necessitated the removal of the stoop. In 1966, just after the passage of the Landmarks Law, the home was considered for landmark status. At the time the owner was opposed the designation and the process never moved forward. This house was later included in the Carnegie Hill Historic District Extension, designated in 1993. (The original Carnegie Hill Historic District was so named in 1974.)

Storefronts at The Marion, a Lexington Avenue Apartment building. November 8, 1911.

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.”

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum ARCHITECT: Frank Lloyd Wright DATE: 1956-59 STYLE: Museum Among its important qualities, the Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, America’s preeminent architect, is internationally recognized as an important example of twentieth-century architecture. It is Wright’s most visited building and his only major commission in New York City. In many critics’ eyes the museum is the crowning achievement of the architect’s later career and he himself called it “My Pantheon.” The design, in its prominent spiraling form, synthesizes Wright’s philosophy of an “organic” architecture, that is, buildings conceived and built according to the principles found in nature. Wright unified the building’s construction method, its appearance, and its use, in accordance with his design philosophy. The museum appropriately fulfills his goal of promoting a democratic society through its didactic and inspirational purposes. The building contrasts boldly with its urban environment on Fifth Avenue. The Guggenheim Museum Interior is internationally recognized as a seminal example of a twentieth-century interior space. The design, in its prominent spiraling form and its dramatic spatial qualities, manifests Frank Lloyd Wright’s philosophy of an “organic” architecture, that is, buildings conceived and built according to the principles found in nature. The design of the interior of the museum demonstrates the inherent unity of its construction method, spatial character, and use. Unified through ivory-colored walls and ceilings and a circular patterned terrazzo floor, this monumental skylight space is enlivened by the ever-changing quality of light and by the contrast between illumination levels in the central atrium and in the adjacent exhibition alcoves.

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.

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.

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.

Former George F. Baker 69-75 East 93rd Street Designed by Delano & Aldrich 1917-18 and 1928-29 NYC ILs, NYC HD, NR-P, NR-D This L-shaped, red brick and limestone complex was built in two phases by two different owners. The three-story building that abuts Park Avenue was built for banker Francis F. Palmer. In 1928, banker and philanthropist George F. Baker, Jr. purchased the house and added the L-shaped ballroom wing, set back from the street by a courtyard. On the other end, a garage with apartments above was also constructed. The Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia purchased the house and ballroom wing in 1958. The garage wing remains a private residence.

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.

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.

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.

ARCHITECTS: Pennington & Lewis DATE: 1929-30 The workday water tank soars to architectural heights when enclosed by inventive designers like Pennington and Lewis. Atop this Moderne apartment house, several enormous stone heads on tall brick piers gaze serenely at Central Park and Carnegie Hill. The architects may have taken their inspiration from depictions of Greek kourioi (freestanding figures of young men) or from the goddess-like caryatids supporting the Erectheion on Athens's Acropolis. The effect here is one of the most striking in New York City.

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.

Grafton W. and Anne Minot House ARCHITECT: A. Wallace McCrea DATE: 1929 STYLE: Beaux-Arts This elegant residence, built in 1902-03 for M. Louise McAlpin, was designed by the New York City architectural firm of Barney & Chapman. In keeping with their training at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, the architects’ design was inspired by the classical traditions of the 18th-century French Hotel particular.

120 East 92nd Street ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1871 STYLE: Italianate This house has a front yard with iron railing and stands three stories above a high brick basement. A steep flight of wood steps leads to a porch with open-work columns. The handsome paneled double front door with rope moldings is at the right and a pair of French doors at the left. The shuttered windows at all floors have handsome wood frames surmounted by cornices with modillions and this theme is repeated at the prominent cornice of the porch roof. The clapboard front wall is surmounted by an Italianate cornice carried on evenly spaced brackets with panels in between.

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, ca. 1905.

John B. and Caroline Trevor House ARCHITECT: Trowbridge & Livingston DATE: 1909-11 STYLE: French Smoothly finished limestone faces the handsome five-story house which is crowned by a mansard roof. The rusticated ground story acts as a base to set off the upper stories. A cornice slab supported on brackets crowns the entranceway with its dignified carved door. When open it reveals an elegant vestibule with classical details and a glass and wrought-iron inner door. Three deeply recessed high round-arched windows set with radial voussoirs and keystones emphasize the second floor and add to the elegance of the facade. The French casement windows open onto a ledge protected by delicate wrought-iron grilles.

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.

Congregation Orach Chaim at 1461 Lexington Avenue, 1927. Founded in 1879, the Orthodox congregation’s synagogue opened in its present location in 1907.

Northeast corner of 87th Street and Lexington Avenue, October 13, 1911.

160 East 92nd Street ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1852-53 STYLE: Greek Revival, Italianate A rare surviving remnant of the early years of the village of Yorkville, the 160 East 92nd street House (1852-53) is a two-and-a-half story vernacular clapboard dwelling which displays elements of the Greek Revival and Italianate styles. One of the oldest of the few intact nineteenth-century wooden houses which remain in Manhattan north of Greenwich Village, it dates from a period in which many of the houses on the outskirts of the city were of frame construction (prior to the implementation of an overall ban in Manhattan, due to fire hazards). It was probably built by Albro Howell, a carpenter and builder who lived next door and was active in developing the block.

1071 (second from the corner) In 1943, the Museum of Non-Objective Painting commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design its new home. Three years later the museum purchased a townhouse at 1071 Fifth Avenue. With the new building delayed by 1948, the museum moved into the Beaux-Arts former residence. While here in 1952 the museum was renamed after its founder, Solomon R. Guggenheim. The collections were moved out of the building (the Guggenheim archive has a great short clip of the move) in 1956. Soon after the townhouse and its neighbors were razed and ground was broken in August of the same year for the new building. The iconic museum finally opened to the public in October 1959, after more than 15 years of planning and the death of its architect only a few months before.

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, 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.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, ca. 1978. The history of the Guggenheim Museum begins more than 20 years before Frank Lloyd Wright's iconic museum building opened. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation was established in 1937 and had its first New York venue, called the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, open two years later in a space on East 54th Street that had previously been an automobile showroom. By the early 1940s, the museum's founder and director believed that the collection required a permanent home. Famed American architect Frank Lloyd Wright was hired for the commission in 1943. The Non-Objective Museum moved into a townhouse at 1071 Fifth Avenue in 1947 and was renamed for its founder in 1952. The new museum building would take more than 16 years, 700 sketches, and six sets of working drawings to complete. Wright's creation was, by his own words, an "inverted ziggurat" with an interior continuous spiral ramp. Though he preferred that audiences might take a glass elevator to the top and view the art as they descended, negotiations over costs and safety-code stipulations prolonged the design and construction process and forced Wright to compromise on his original intentions. Today the art is generally viewed as visitors ascend the ramp. The exterior of the building also suffered, in Wright's opinion, from compromise. He wished for a stone exterior, but it was rendered in the more cost-effective concrete. He wanted the building to be red, it was completed with a white facade. His planned skylight was not included in the original construction, though it was opened up, as Wright intended, during the 1992 renovations. The museum opened in October of 1959, six months after Wright's death and was met with contradictory reviews. Critic Ada Louise Huxtable sang the building praises, describing the visitor's experience: "As he enters the building, he experiences what Wright promised him — a luminous, soaring, unified space, the circling ramp leading his eye to the delicately detailed, handsome skylit dome ninety-five feet above the terrazzo floor on which he stands. Concrete ribs descending from the dome divide the circular wall into bays; two pylons containing utilities and exits interrupt the smooth spiral rhythm with punctuating sculpturesque shapes. The warm ivory color of the court and the ramp frame the sharp white inner wall on which the paintings "hang," for actually they do not "hang" at all. Nor do they rest casually, at a romantic easel-angel specified by Wright." In the 60 plus years since the museum opened, the Guggenheim had become one of the most recognizable museum buildings in the world and an icon of modernist architecture.

Emily Trevor House ARCHITECT: Mott B. Schmidt DATE: 1927-28 STYLE: Neo-Federal This charming neo-Federal house was built in 1927-28 and designed by architect Mott B. Schmidt. Schmidt had also used this popular style several years earlier in the Sutton Place development. The area in which the house is located acquired the name “Carnegie Hill” soon after Andrew Carnegie erected his mansion at Fifth Avenue and 91st Street at the turn of the century. Although middle-class residences had been built in the area in the 1880s and 1890s, Carnegie’s move uptown inspired other well-to-do business and professional people to build here. Emily Trevor ‘s brother, John B. Trevor, built a house at 11 East 91st Street in 1909-11. Miss Trevor acquired the 90th Street property in 1926 and had an earlier house-dating from the 1880s on the site demolished. She moved into her new house in 1929 and lived there until her death in 1943 at the age of 70. The house is presently occupied by her nephew, John B. Trevor, Jr.

Night Presence IV, 1972. Night Presence IV is a 22.5-foot tall free-standing sculpture by Louise Nevelson. The sculpture was originally located at the southeast corner of Central Park but was moved after the original location was decided as "a showcase in which sculptures were changed from time to time," according to an article of the New York Times in 1973. This entrance would later be dedicated to Doris C. Freedman for rotating works of public art. Nevelson's piece now sits at the intersection of 92nd Street and Park Avenue on part of the Park Avenue Mall. Nevelson was a Russian-born New Yorker who gifted this sculpture to the city in her 50th year living in New York. Of the gesture, she said: "New York represents the whole of my conscious life and I thought it fitting that I should give it something of myself."

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 (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.

Emily Trevor House, May 20, 1930. A stately neo-Georgian townhouse by architect Mott B. Schmidt, built between 1927-8 for Emily Trevor.

Spence School ca. 1931 The Spence School, an 8 story independent college-preparatory day school for girls kindergarten through 12th, located on East 91st street, was designed by John Russell Pope in 1929. It was founded by Clara B. Spence in 1892 to “educate girls and young women to the highest academic and personal standards necessary for responsible, effective citizenship and for the successful pursuit of higher education. " More like a club than a house or apartment block, Pope’s elegant but restrained Georgian design took advantage of the adjacent gardens of the Andrew Carnegie mansion to permit windows on the inventively composed west façade of his mid-block building.

1850s wood-frame house on East 92nd Street. 1932. This pre-Civil War wood frame house was built between 1852-3, probably by Albro Howell, a carpenter who owned property owner who was likely the builder of a number of similar frame houses nearby. It is one of seven surviving frame houses on the Upper East Side, as noted by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in its 1988 designation report for No. 160. In 1914, the house was purchased by Fifth Avenue residents Willard D. Straight and his wife Dorothy Payne Whitney, as living quarters for their household’s staff (they also built the adjacent garage). Straight, a diplomat, and Whitney, a philanthropist and member of the prominent Whitney family, founded The New Republic in 1914. After Straight’s death in 1918, Whitney remarried and relocated to England. The house remained a staff residence for the Straight estate until 1942.

Brick Presbyterian Church 1140-1144 Park Avenue Designed by York & Sawyer, 1938-40 parish house: 1948-49 – NYC HD, NR-D The congregation of Brick Presbyterian Church dates back to 1767. Its original home was the “old Brick Church” at the corner of Beekman and Nassau Streets. After a stay in midtown, the church merged with the Park Avenue Presbyterian Church in the 1930s and constructed this lovely building. In reference to the congregation’s roots, the church was designed in the neo-Georgian style popular during the Colonial period. It features a temple front and a polygonal tower topped by a ball finial. There is a chapel extension on the north façade, and the parish house is around the corner at 62 East 92nd Street. The church interior was fashioned after St. Paul’s Chapel, a contemporary of the original Brick Church.

1770 Second Avenue, June 7, 1940. The small two-story building has hosted a number of divergent tenants. In 1904 a Henry D. Hoppe sold milk (and likely other items) here. In the 1920s it was the home of the Lexington Cigar Company. In the mid century, a firm of plumbing and heating contractors worked from here. Since 1990 the building has cycled through a series of restaurant, with its most recent tenant, Manny's (a sports bar) closing in 2017. A fun fact about this building. In 2007 the lot was considered by the MTA as a possible location for a vent plant at the southern end of the planned 96th Street Station on the Second Avenue line. The fact that the building only had a single commercial tenant made the impact of demolition much lower than other options in the neighborhood. In the end, concerns about the structural stability of the neighboring buildings (had this one been razed) caused the MTA to look elsewhere for the vent plant. And this tiny two-story survivor remains!

Church of the Heavenly Rest, December 14, 1929. When Andrew Carnegie decided to build his Fifth Avenue estate at 91st Street, he purchased adjoining parcels of land in order to secure his role in the neighborhoods development. In 1926, seven years after Carnegie’s death, his widow Louise Whitfield Carnegie sold the site south of 90th Street to the Church of the Heavenly Rest, an Episcopal congregation founded by Civil War veterans in 1865. The neo-Gothic church, designed by Hardie Phillip, opened on Easter Sunday, 1929. Phillip’s design incorporated Arte Moderne elements and was to include significant architectural sculpture, before the turmoil of the 1929 market crash imperiled funding. A 1993 fire badly damaged the church organ and parts of the sanctuary, but fast-acting firefighters were able to salvage the original stained glass.

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).

1185 Park Avenue Designed by Schwartz & Gross, 1928-29 – NYC HD, NR-D Occupying the entire blockfront, this enormous Gothic Revival style apartment building is accessed through a grand triple-arched doorway leading into a landscaped interior courtyard and to the building’s six lobbies. The five bays on either end of the building resemble bookends, as their windows are surrounded by cream-colored, ornamental terra-cotta. Across the street, 1192 Park Avenue now stands where the home of prominent brewer George Ehret once stood. The brownstone mansion was built in 1878 (demolished 1928) when the area was largely unoccupied, but its location was convenient to Ehret’s Hell Gate Brewery on the East River. As one of the first “fine” residences on upper Park Avenue, the mansion inspired other prominent families to move here.

Brick Presbyterian Church, ca. 1939. The Brick Church on Park Avenue is the third location of a congregation founded in 1768. The first and second Brick Churches were located on Beekman Street and East 37th Street, respectively. By the mid-1930s, the congregation had shifted further uptown, and church leadership acted to meet the community’s needs by merging with the Park Avenue Presbyterian Church, and building a new structure (brick, of course) at 91st Street.

“View from the roof of George Ehret's home at Park Avenue and 94th Street. Looking northwest, showing High Bridge and water tower in the distance.” At right, the Park Avenue Tunnel at 97th Street. The New York Central and Hudson River Railroad lowered the tracks into what was originally called the Yorkville Tunnel from 59th Street to 96th Street between 1872-1876, at the same time that the final destination of the trains —the original Grand Central Depot— was being built.

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.

“George Ehret residence and garden, 1197 Park Avenue at S.E. corner of 94th Street. The house, which is at least fifty years old, has just been sold for demolition. 1928.” A German immigrant, Ehret established the Hell Gate Brewery in 1866, overlooking the Hell Gate strait of the East River from a large facility occupying an area bounded by 91-94th Streets and Second-Third Avenues. Built in 1878, Ehret’s Park Avenue mansion was sold in 1928, one year after his death. In 1929, a fifteen-story apartment building was built on its site.

William Goadby and Florence Baker House ARCHITECT: Walker & Gillette DATE: 1930-31 STYLE: English ENGLISH MANHATTAN UPPER EAST SIDE This large, modern townhouse is framed in steel. It has a handsome smooth ashlar masonry facade with rusticated English basement. As it stands, it is a remarkably free interpretation of the style in which it was designed, utilizing 19th-century elements in a facade which belongs to the 20th century. It is three stories high and crowned by a roof with dormer windows set behind a parapet. This symmetrical building is set back from the street and has two-story wings, one at each end, extending forward to create a shallowly recessed forecourt at the center. These wings are joined to the house, on the court side by concavely curved walls with square-headed windows in them, further enhancing the gracious porticoed entry.

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.

Pair of mid-19th century frame houses, East 92nd Street. 1932. No. 120 (right) was built first, in 1859, likely by Albro Howell, the carpenter-builder also responsible for the frame house at No. 160 East 92nd Street, and a number of since-demolished homes from the same period. No. 122 was built twelve years later, in 1871, six years before the construction of wooden homes was banned in Manhattan. Both houses are among the seven surviving wood-frame homes on the Upper East Side.

Park Avenue and 95th Street, Looking South, 1936. The fifteen-story apartment building, built in 1929, occupies the former site of the George Ehret mansion.

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

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.

John Henry and Emily Vanderbilt Sloane Hammond House ARCHITECT: Carrère & Hasting DATE: 1902-03 John Henry Hammond, a New York lawyer, banker and corporation director, married Emily Vanderbilt Sloane; in 1901 her father, William D. Sloane of W. & J. Sloane, purchased the 91st Street property from Andrew Carnegie and then transferred the property to Emily as a wedding present. Mrs. Hammond, an heiress to the Sloane and Vanderbilt fortunes, devoted much of her time to philanthropic activities including the restoration of the Theodore Roosevelt House at 28 East 20th Street. The Hammond house is now occupied by the 9 East 91st Street Hospital. The five-story house with its impressive limestone facade harmonizes extremely well with the distinguished Landmarks buildings immediately to the west, the Otto Kahn and James Burden Houses. The boldly rusticated base is pierced by a high round-arched central entrance, flanked by arched windows. The entrance doors are fine examples of wrought iron. Rising above the base are three floors faced with smooth limestone, clearly defined at the edges by exceptionally wide quoins.

The Cutting Houses, East 89th Street, ca. 1920. This row of three neo-Georgian townhouses was built in 1919-20 for Charles Suydam Cutting, a naturalist, and photographer who accompanied his friend Teddy Roosevelt on his expedition to Southeast Asia, where he became the first Westerner to enter the city of Lhasa, in Tibet. A seven-bay arcade at street-level creates the impression that the adjacent townhouses are part of the same structure, though, at the time of this photograph, the buildings had not been connected. Between 1950-52, No. 12 was converted to St. David’s School. By 1964, all three Cutting townhouses had been absorbed and renovated for classroom use.

“View from the roof of George Ehret's home at Park Avenue and 94th Street. Looking west. Shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art (and Cleopatra's Needle) and the 86th Street Station \[on Park Avenue].” Designed by Calvert Vaux, the Met’s original red-brick Victorian Gothic building (center-right) was completed in 1880.

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

“View from the roof of George Ehret's home at Park Avenue and 94th Street. Looking east by south. Looking east on 94th Street showing 2nd and 3rd Avenue Els. Also Hell Rock. On the right is Ehret's brewery.”

John Henry Hammond House, ca. 1910. When Andrew Carnegie built his Fifth Avenue residence at 91st Street, he also purchased several adjoining lots in order to ensure that new neighbors would meet his standards. Hammond, a banker, and his wife Emily Vanderbilt Sloane, received the 91st Street plot as a wedding gift, and enlisted the firm Carrère & Hastings to build a Renaissance Revival palazzo. The Italian palazzo style was very popular in the opening decade of the 20th century. Indeed, several Carnegie libraries in Upper Manhattan were built in a similar style by McKim, Mead & White. (Perhaps the philanthropist next door was an admirer of the Hammond residence? Within the decade, Carrère & Hastings would be enlisted to build the New York Public Library’s main branch). In 1975, the Soviet Union purchased the Hammond mansion and renovated the building for use as its sole American consulate. The consulate opened in 1978, but closed abruptly in 1980 after President Carter ordered the expulsion of Soviet diplomats in response to the invasion of Afghanistan. Thereafter, the consulate fell into disrepair. Between 1992-1994, the Russian Federation restored the building, officially reopening it as the Consulate-General of New York City in January 1995.

“E. 94th Street, north side, east from Third Avenue, as viewed across a clearance at the S.E. corner of this point, September 13, 1938." The Third Avenue El was the last elevated line to operate in Manhattan (apart from sections of the 1 train in Upper Manhattan).

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.”

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 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, 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 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.

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 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