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 It was superceded by the Beresford Apartments, built 1928-29.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.

12-16 West 86th Street, ca. 1913. Designed by Alexander Welch, for speculative developers William and Thomas Hall, the row mansions were constructed in 1910. No. 14 (at center) was designed in the neo-Renaissance style, while no. 16 (at right) is neo-Georgian.

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

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.

West Park Presbyterian Church ARCHITECT: Henry Kilburn DATE: 1889-1890 STYLE: Romanesque Revival The West Park Presbyterian Church is considered to be one of the best examples of a Romanesque Revival style religious structure in New York City. The extraordinarily deep color of its red sandstone cladding and the church’s bold forms with broad, round-arched openings and a soaring tower at the corner of West 86th Street and Amsterdam Avenue produce a monumental and distinguished presence along those streets.

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.

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

West Drive, Central Park, ca. 1910.

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.

39-35 West 89th Street, ca.1915. This series of Renaissance Revival rowhouses was constructed in 1894-1895. The row, from nos.19-39, were designed by Gilbert Schellenger, who designed homes all over the city, including many in the proposed Bedford-Stuyvesant historic district.

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.

Jewish Center, ca. 1918. While the Upper West Side boasted a number of Jewish congregations in the early decades of the 20th century, most observed a casual prayer environment, or in the case of Congregation Shearith Israel, offered more formal, but foreign services. Two successful clothing manufacturers who moved to the neighborhood, Joseph H. Cohen and William Fischman, looked for but did not find a traditional Orthodox Synagogue. With the religious leadership of Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan, the two men founded the Jewish Center in 1918. The new synagogue building, designed by Louis Abramson in a Neo-Classical style, housed not only a main sanctuary. The tall building was an extensive facility that sought to serve not only as a spiritual home, but also a cultural, social, and recreational home for its members.

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.

40 West 86th Street, ca. 1980.

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.

32 West 88th Street, 1911. Built as a series of buildings on the south side of 88th Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue in 1887-1889, no. 32 is one of a few of the buildings to retain the majority of its original features. Designed by Thom and Wilson, the rowhouses here are of a Renaissance Revival style with Romanesque and Gothic Revival features. A number of these buildings were altered in the 1910s and 1920s. They had their stoops removed, new basement entrances created, and some even had their cornices removed as well. No. 32 retains its prominent dogleg front staircase.

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.