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.

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

William Starr Miller House (Neue Galerie), ca. 1915. In 1912, the industrialist William Starr Miller commissioned Carrère & Hastings — then in great demand, having just completed the New York Public Library’s main branch — to design his Fifth Avenue residence. The firm produced a 64-room Louis XIII style mansion with a red brick and limestone facade recalling a pair of local landmarks: Andrew Carnegie’s mansion at 91st Street, and the original facade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, directly across Fifth Avenue. In 1994, the building was purchased by the art collector and philanthropist Ronald Lauder, who, with fellow collector Serge Sabarsky, founded the Neue Galerie for 20th century German and Austrian Art.

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.

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.

Phipps Mansion, 1905-1930. Wealthy entrepreneur Henry Phipps Jr. had this marble mansion built on the corner of 87th Street and 5th Avenue in 1905. It rubbed shoulders with the other mansions that lined Fifth Avenue until Henry died in 1930. At this time, Henry's wife sold the property to a developer and began stripping the building of the Vermont marble that was used extensively both inside and outside the house. In fact, the entirety of the building's marble facade was carefully removed to be sent to an empty field in Brookville, New York. This is where their daughter, Amy, meant to build her country estate known as the "Templeton." Little is known about what came of the Templeton, but the stone sat untouched in Brooksville for over 100 years. It eventually drifted around the shores of Long Island, where it then sat underneath the Roslyn viaduct for over 80 years. The Phipps lost the lease to their land after many years went by, and the stone went up "for sale" to anyone with the means to retrieve it. In an interesting case of restoration, the stone was collected by architect Ronnette Riley and repurposed to repair the balustrade of the de Seversky Mansion in Old Westbury.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Speyer Mansion, ca. 1929. Constructed by the wealthy banker, James Speyer, the large Louis the XVI style structure had more than 40 rooms. The home was often used in the early 20th century for gatherings and fundraisers for Mrs. Speyer's charity work in advocating for working children and animals. Mr. Speyer was a benefactor of the University Settlement and President of the Provident Loan Society. Speyer passed away in 1941 and left the house to the Museum of the City of New York. The museum removed the art and artifacts but later sold the home. It was eventually demolished and a 19-story apartment house was constructed in 1951 on the site.

Phipps Mansion, 1933. Henry Phipps was the partner of Andrew Carnegie in the Carnegie Steel Company. When the company sold in 1901 he made a profit of approximately $100 million. As generous as Carnegie, Phipps funded hospitals for TB patients and working-class housing. In 1901, Phipps purchased a number of lots on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 87th Street. He commissioned the firm of Trowbridge & Livingston to design a massive Italian Renaissance style mansion. Four stories (though it looked to be only three) and set far back from 87th Street, the home was reached via a semi-circular carriage drive. Largely complete after many years of work around 1909, the family then moved into the home that had cost Phipps $2.5 million. Less than 10 years later the mansion was sold to Daniel Guggenheim. In the 1920s apartment house development came to Fifth Avenue with gusto. Developers purchased the mansions of millionaires who had moved on or passed away and quickly replaced them. The Phipps Mansion was demolished in 1927 and replaced with a 13-story apartment house, completed in 1928.

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.

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.

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.

Carnegie Hill residents revere their neighborhood for its proximity to Central Park as well as for its architectural treasures. Residents and visitors alike also appreciate and enjoy the diversity of Carnegie Hill’s fine homes, apartment houses, and cultural attractions, many of which lie along the stretch of Fifth Avenue known as Museum Mile.

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.”

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.

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.

William Starr Miller Residence ca. 1920 One of the most attractive phases of French Classic architecture was that of the period of Louis XIII, which we see in the Place des Vosges in Paris. This style retained a quality of domestic warmth which disappeared with the frigid elegance of the all-limestone creations of late periods.

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.

James B. Clews Mansion, not dated. In the late 19th century this section of Fifth Avenue was lined with lovely (but conservatively sized) brownstones. But as the wealthiest of New York City society began moving uptown, the rowhouses (built on land owned by the New York and Harlem Railroad Company) were soon to be a thing of the past. In 1908 as the railroad company was liquidating its real estate assets, the plot here at the northeast corner of 85th Steet and Fifth Avenue was bought up by James Clews, a millionaire from a banking family. The planned house—a gift to his new bride— was to be designed by Philadelphia architect Horace Trumbauer at the cost of $200,000. According to contemporary sources, the architect planned to eschew traditional plans for these type of corner buildings and place the entrance on the shorter avenue facade, instead of the longer 85th Street facade. The resulting mansion (completed in 1911) had its door on the street side, so plans must have changed. The Clews family were well-known for their fancy society events. The home had two large halls, a grand staircase, eight family bedrooms, and accommodations for a staff of 12. Meta Clews died in 1919 and James remarried at age 62 in 1926. The new newlyweds lived in the home for only three more years and then sold the lavish home. It was demolished and replaced in 1930 by a large luxury apartment house by Rosario Candela.

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.

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.

Sandhogs are urban miners and underground construction workers who’ve been tunneling through sand, mud, and bedrock for well over a century. They dug New York’s subway, traffic, sewer, and water tunnels, as well as foundations for structures like the Woolworth Building. The term “sand hogs” originated with workers digging the sandy bottom of the East River inside caissons to build the Brooklyn Bridge. Over time, the term expanded to describe any laborer working underground in the City, and became specifically tied to the Local 147 Sandhogs Union. NYC built three deep pressure tunnels through bedrock to carry water throughout the five boroughs. Placing them hundreds of feet underground kept the water supply safely below any utility and subway tunnels, and the depth required laborers who could work under often grueling and dangerous conditions.

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.