Van den Heuvel Mansion, ca 1900. In 1792 a Dutch merchant who was becoming wealthy in the trade and finance markets of New York purchased a plot of land on what is now the Upper West Side. The large plot and small complex of buildings had earlier belonged to Charles Apthorp, whose land still abutted this property to the north. Jan Cornelius Van den Heuvel was long credited with building the mansion on the land, though it was likely there in some form since the mid 18th century. The home was a grand house two stories tall with a steep gabled roof. Van den Heuvel, despite his recent immigrant status, was named director of a U.S. Branch Bank in 1801 and his family moved to a lower Manhattan home as their "city dwelling" while the uptown manse remained their "summer house." The family sold the plot following Jan's death in 1822 and the land was divided. The plot that included the large house was leased to a William Burnham in 1839 who converted the building into a respectable hotel known variously as Burnham’s Mansion House, Burnham’s Hotel, and Burnham’s Tavern. The house was purchased by John Jacob Astor (whose wife was a Van den Heuvel) in 1879 and it was occupied by a floral business in the late 19th century. It is unknown when the full third floor was added. The home was demolished in 1902, though some of its interiors and furnishings were saved. On the now empty land, William Waldorf Astor had built a massive apartment building constructed called the Apthorp.

Arthorpe Apartments ca. 1905 Following the lead of the Dakota on Central Park West, many of the new apartment houses were built with large central courtyards. This one, which occupies an entire city block, was remodeled several years ago, splitting each apartment into two. The division of rooms was balanced by using the living room and bedroom for one new apartment and the dining room, kitchen, and maids' room for the other. This ingenious scheme produced two fully remodeled apartments where only one existed formerly.

The Beresford, ca. 1913. The Beresford was an apartment hotel built from 1889-1892 on the northwest corner of 81st Street and and Central Park West. It was superceded by the Beresford Apartments, built 1928-29.

Tanner's Spring, 1897. Tanner's Spring is one of two still-active springs in Central Park. Today it doesn't look like much more than a murky pond or large puddle, but the spring has an interesting 19th-century history. In 1825 free African Americans began buying land in an area between 82nd and 89th Streets and Seventh and Eighth Avenues. The community grew to become Seneca Village and this spring provided the residents with water. The community was evicted in 1857 in preparation for the construction of Central Park. In 1880 the spring got its name when Dr. Henry S. Tanner, a proponent of therapeutic fasting, began a 40-day fast (under observation) with his only nourishment coming from the water at this spring. Local lore then developed that this water source contained some magically concentrated nutrients.

25-23 West 83rd Street, ca. 1911.

Broadway, west side, north from West 77th (left) to 79th Streets, 1908.

In 1891, the First Baptist Church on 79th Street and Broadway was designed by George M. Keister, the architect of the Apollo theater. The exterior of the church was designed with symbolism from the bible. The original structure had a rather peculiar roof of stained glass. While beautiful, constant leaks proved that this was not sustainable. The roof was eventually replaced with tiles. The towers, notable asymmetrical, represent the Christ and the Church. The taller tower, symbolic of Christ, emits light while the lower tower, meant to symbolize the Church, appears incomplete to await the return of Christ. The location of this church was the fourth for this congregation. It sits near where its founder, pastor John Gano, escaped an ambush en route to joining George Washington's army.

New-York Historical Society STATUS Designated Individual Landmark ARCHITECT: York & Sawyer DATE: 1903-08 The facade is divided into very severe end pavilions bounding and containing a colonnaded central section which, though treated with great discipline, is nobly ornamental. At the second floor level, a wide horizontal band course runs around the entire building, creating a ledge in the slightly recessed central portion of the structure. Resting on this ledge, and of great compositional importance, are the eight three-quarter engaged Ionic columns of the colonnade. These support a cornice which, apart from the handsome bronze grille-work of the large side windows, is the only element of the building which may be said to be richly ornamented. The pedimented heroic size main portal on Central Park West makes a very grand entrance to the building.

All Angels Episcopal Church was established as a parish in the 1830s as a mission-focused church serving the community of Seneca Village, a free black neighborhood that once stood in what is now Central Park (that also included poor Irish and German immigrants as well). In the late 1850s, the church moved to West End Avenue and 80th street after their former location was condemned by the city for the creation of Central Park. The grand church seen in this interior image was completed in 1890. In 1896 Karl Bitter, the Austrian-born American sculptor, renovated the church's interior. The church featured a two-and-a-half-story Tiffany window and a pulpit ringed with limestone angels. The congregation occupied the late 19th-century church until 1979 when it was demolished for an apartment building. Today the community worships in what was the parish house at 251 West 80th Street. The Bitter-designed pulpit was saved from demolition and is now in the collection at the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Hotel Belleclaire, built in 1902, is an individual landmark building located at the corner of Broadway and West 77th Street. Designed by the famous architect Emery Roth, it is unique because it is one of very few art nouveau style buildings in the city and was one of Emery Roth’s first designs. This elaborate style gives the building a grand, luxurious look. Like rowhouses, apartment buildings, and tenements, apartment hotels were another common building type on the Upper West Side and in New York City. Wealthier people often lived in them for a long time because they provided the comforts of a hotel, with the privacy of separate apartments.

161-165 West 83rd Street, 1912. As per the notes on the photograph, these wood-frame homes were demolished in the 1910s to make way for a large apartment building.

The Apthrop, ca. 1905. Designed by architects Clinton & Russell for William Waldorf Astor, the Apthorp is a full-block apartment building. Named for Charles Ward Apthorp, who once owned the land, the Italian Renaissance Revival structure was completed in 1908. The large central barrel-vaulted entrance leads to a well-appointed interior courtyard and the building has four lobbies. The massive building originally had only 10 apartment to each floor. The floors were further divided in the 1930s and 1940s. Long a rental building, the Apthorp underwent a condo conversion in 2008, when the average price of apartments was offered at $6.5 million. Famous residents have included Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Nora Ephron, Joseph Heller, George Balanchine, Al Pacino, and Conan O'Brien.

Holy Trinity Church ca. 1931 Designed in the neo-Byzantine style popular at the time, the Holy Trinity Church exhibits the rich visual effects the Guastavinos could achieve even when using a relatively narrow color range. Panels of pale, herringbone-patterned tiles in the dome are framed by “ribs” of slightly darker tiles. As in many Guastavino projects, the company applied the exposed layer of tiles last, with protruding mortar joints that emphasize the intricate pattern when seen from a distance.

St. Agnes Branch, NYPL, June 10, 1928. Completed in 1906 to plans by Babb, Cook & Willard, the St. Agnes Library is designated a landmark as a part of the Upper West Side-Central Park West Historic District. The history of this library dates to 1893 when St. Agnes Chapel on West 91st Street opened a small parish library, which housed a small section for the Library for the Blind. The rapidly growing community prompted the chapel's pastor to expand the audience of the library to the entire neighborhood. St. Agnes Free Library was chartered by the University of the State of New York and merged with the New York Public Library in 1901. Five years later this structure would be built using funds from the 1901 Carnegie bequest.

American Museum of Natural History, late 1970s.

The Beresford ARCHITECT: Emery Roth DATE: 1928-29 STYLE: Renaissance The Beresford Apartments, completed in 1929 and designed by Emery Roth, then at the pinnacle of his career as a specialist in apartment house design, is one of the largest and grandest of the apartment buildings along Central Park West. Prominently located at the corner of 81st Street across from the American Museum of Natural History, it takes full advantage of its site, with two monumental facades crowned by corner towers. Executed in brick with limestone and terra-cotta detailing, the Beresford is distinctively ornamented with a sculptural program of late Renaissance inspiration which features winged cherubs, angels, dolphins and rams’ heads, along with elaborate cartouches, festoons, rosettes and finials. Its vast scale and dramatic profile make the Beresford one of the most important elements on the Central Park West skyline, as well as a reminder of the heyday of luxury apartment building in New York.

Engine Company 74, ca. 1915. The ornate red brick and limestone facade of the Engine Co. 74 firehouse was a product of its time and its proponents. Completed in 1901, the building was designed by the largely heretofore unknown firm of Arthur Horgan and Vincent Slattery. In 1897 a new Tammany Hall-backed mayor was elected for the soon-to-be consolidated city and the look of municipal buildings became considerably more flamboyant. In fact, Horgan & Slattery, in an unprecedented move, were hired to both design new buildings and review plans for those already in the construction process. The firm lost most of their shady city commissions in 1901 after the election of a progressive mayor. And while they were often regarded as forgettable architects (particularly by their contemporaries in the architecture field), today their police stations and firehouses (including this one) are praised for the richness of style.

By Justin Martin Once Frederick Law Olmsted and his mentor, the British-American architect and landscape designer Calvert Vaux received the nod to proceed with their design for Central Park, the commissioners pressed them to move quickly. By 1858, the issue of a large park in New York had dragged on for many years. Millions had been spent obtaining the land; thousands more had been spent clearing it. To justify all this expenditure, some progress needed to be shown. The plan was to open the park to the public in stages. The board asked Olmsted and Vaux to have certain sections ready by winter so the park could receive its very first visitors, ice skaters. Read this in its original format here

15 West 81st Street, formerly the American Geographical Society Building. The American Geographical Society Building was designed by Howells & Stokes in 1901. For whatever reason the society never seemed able to settle on a location, constantly moving around the city until 1911 when they moved to Audubon Terrace. Today, they are located in Brooklyn. The building pictured in the foreground was demolished in the late 1920s and replaced with an Emery Roth designed apartment building.

The Beresford, 1931 The Beresford was designed by famed architect Emery Roth, who also created the plans for numerous other CPW apartment houses including The El Dorado, The San Remo, and The Ardsley. It was named for the Hotel Beresford, which had previously occupied the lot. Completed in 1929, the building was one of the most prestigious addresses for much of the 20th century. Helen Gurley Brown and her husband lived for three decades in the four-story penthouse that topped one of the three corner towers. She once said," I’m slightly prejudiced, but I think it’s the best apartment in New York." The building has been called home by a number of other famous and infamous New Yorkers, including Jerry Seinfeld, Diana Ross, and mobster Meyer Lansky.

Belleclaire Hotel ARCHITECT: Emery Roth; Stein Cohen & Roth DATE: 1901-03 The Hotel Belleclaire, one of a number of luxury apartment hotels constructed on the Upper West Side at the turn of the century, was the first major commission awarded to Emery Roth, at the time a struggling young architect. Roth went on to specialize in apartment house design, and during a career spanning more than forty years and well over two hundred projects, was to play an important role in the shaping of the Manhattan skyline. Best known for his towered apartment buildings on Central Park West, Roth’s early work has gone largely unrecognized.

44 West 77th Street, ca. 1909. The building at 44 West 77th Street was conceived as a cooperative studio apartment building with generous double height windows, making for excellent artist studios. The highly ornate neo-Gothic building was designed by the firm of Herbert S. Harde and R. Thomas Short and completed in 1909. The structure was awe-inspiring, with rich terra cotta decoration described as "appear\[ing] to have been squeezed out of a pastry tube." By 1911, only two years after completion, pieces of terra cotta had started to fall off and the entire front facade was scaffolded for repair and replacement. The safety issues never truly ceased and the removal of the projecting details in 1944 points to that continued danger. Today the building remains ornate, though lacking the breathtaking meringue of its early decades.

American Museum of Natural History The huge triumphal-arch motif is the work of John Russell Pope, designed par excellence of classical monuments. The sweeping wing-walls in front of the building with their charming bas-reliefs, and the powerful equestrian statue of Theodore Roosevelt by James Earle Fraser, lend great dignity to the ensemble, making one immediately aware of the colossal scale of the main entrance.

247-249 Central Park West, ca. 1975. Constructed between 1889 and 1890, developer William Noble and architect Edward Angell created a row of nine Queen Anne style homes. The buildings which ran from nos. 241 to 249, were speculatively built, intended for wealthy families. These grand homes facing Central Park spared no expense; they included stained glass, gargoyles, angled staircases, turrets, and balconies. The Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide described the row as perhaps too whimsical, taking offense at their “giddiness.” Being the corner building, no. 249 (at right) was perhaps the most fanciful of the homes, with a faceted tower topped by a conical tiled cap and false balconies. It was first purchased by by wallpaper manufacturer Frederick Beck and hosted his daughter's extravagant society wedding in 1890. In 1914 it was owned by clergyman Luther Albert Swope and his wife, who came from a wealthy New York family. The home passed to a Swope nephew in 1930 and was sold in 1974. By that time some of the facade had been stripped of its ornamentation, it had been painted (!) white, the interior had been converted to apartments, and all of its neighbors (save no. 247 next door) had been demolished. Around 1990 the paint was striped to work on the facade which had begun to crumble. In 2006 the home was sold for $14.4 million and a conversion back to a single family house was undertaken. Amazingly, though the upper floors have been gutted, much of the original interiors of the lower floors remain intact, including an entirely oak-paneled dining room.

Apthorp Apartments ARCHITECT: Clinton & Russell DATE: 1906-08 STYLE: Italian Renaissance This handsome apartment house built around a large central courtyard fills a short city block between Broadway and West End Avenue. Designed in the Italian Renaissance style by Clinton & Russell for the Astor Estate, it remains today much as it was when originally built with the exception that stores have been added at street level on the Broadway side. The most conspicuous feature of this handsome apartment house is the use of rustication as contrasted with the smooth ashlar masonry of the wall planes. Notable also is the adaptation of the Renaissance vocabulary from the scale of a single palazzo, perhaps three stories in height, to a block-long, twelve-story edifice.

The New-York Historical Society was established in 1804 as New York’s first museum. Its eleven founders all lived through the turbulent years of the American Revolution and the British occupation of New York. These men believed that New York’s citizens needed to take decisive action to preserve eyewitness evidence of their own historical moment, which they recognized as important, fearing “dust and obscurity” would be the inevitable fate of accounts and artifacts if left in the hands of private individuals. “Without the aid of original records and authentic documents,” they declared, “history will be nothing more than a well-combined series of ingenious conjectures and amusing fables.” It is in this tradition that New-York Historical has moved forward into the 21st century, offering to visitors on-site and online a vast collection of art, objects, artifacts and documents and an ongoing collecting program that aims to facilitate a broad grasp of history’s enduring importance and its usefulness in finding explanations, causes, and insights.

25 to 5 West 76th Street, 1936. W.P.A work being done on the street.

241 Central Park West, date unknown. Built between 1930-31 and designed by Schwartz & Gross, the 19-story Art Deco building is clad in brick and cast stone. The architecture firm was well-known for their apartment houses, particularly in Morningside Heights.