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.)

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.

Central Park Reservoir ca. 1947 One of the Park's most picturesque landscapes, the reservoir is 40 feet deep and holds a billion gallons of water. It was built in the 1860s as a temporary water supply for New York City, while the Croton Water system was shut down for repairs two weeks each year. The reservoir was decommissioned in 1993, deemed obsolete because of the Third Water Tunnel. President Bill Clinton, Madonna, and Jackie Kennedy Onassis (for whom the reservoir was named in 1994) have all run on the 1.58-mile track.

Carnegie Mansion, ca. 1905. In 1898 Andrew Carnegie began purchasing lots that would result in his owning two full blockfronts on Fifth Avenue between 90th and 92nd Streets. His choice of this land so far uptown—and away from his society peers—was purposeful. Commissioning the firm of Babb, Cook & Willard, he had built a massive 64-room mansion in the style of a English Georgian country house. The property included 30,000 square feet of outdoor space. The house, constructed between 1899 and 1902, features a number of engineering and technological innovations. It was first private residence in the United States to have a structural steel frame and the first in the city to have a residential Otis passenger elevator. The huge house was warmed with central heating. Alas, most were not impressed, The New York Tribune noted that "many people are disappointed by the plainness of the house." (Actually, that is exactly what Carnegie wanted.) The house was occupied by Carnegie's wife until her death in 1946 (Carnegie had died in 1919). The surrounding neighborhood became known as Carnegie Hill. The home remained in the holdings of the Carnegie Corporation and served as Columbia University School of Social Work for a few decades in the mid century. Since 1976, when the Corporation donated it to the Smithsonian who opened the Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper-Hewitt Museum. After an extensive renovation that had the museum closed between 2011 to 2014, it was reopened as the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

Jewish Museum ca. 1978 When Jacob Schiff saw the design for this building, he told his daughter, Frieda, that it was "terribly conspicuous" and that it would "add to the social anti-Semitism" if she and her husband Felix Warburg, built "such an ornate house right on Fifth Avenue." Schiff was the longtime and exceedingly successful president of the German-Jewish investment banking firm Kuhn, Loeb, and Company, and his thoughts on the mansion spoke to the divide between elite Jews and Protestants in Gilded-era New York. The two groups had what was called "a nine-to-five relationship." They did business with one another because it was in their financial interest. But outside of office hours, and particularly between the 18880s and 1920s, they traveled in their own social circles. The Jewish elite formed their own social clubs, which didn't make it into the social register. And wealthy Jewish families took a vacation at the Jersey Shore while the non-Jewish elite vacationed in Newport. The separation was due in some part to choice. German Jews-mostly members of banking families- referred to themselves as "Unser Kreis," German for "Our Crowd." There was an interest in preserving cultural and religious values, and children often married within the circle. But prejudice was the greater cause. Anti-Semitism had increased with the influx of Eastern European Jews at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, and prejudiced remarks often referred to Jewish people not only as foreign but as non-white. In 1904, J.P. Morgan that he considered his firm and Barings (a British firm with a branch in New York) to be the only "white firms in New York." And Morgan's son, Jack, wrote to his relative- who was the president of the board of the American Museum of Natural History Museum- that he wouldn't go to any of the meetings if Felix Warburg was there. "I cannot stand the German Jews," he said. "In my opinion, they have made themselves impossible as associates for any white people for all time." Felix Warburg, however, was concerned neither with what his father-in-law, nor those outside the Jewish community might think of his new house. He proceeded with the design that you see in front of you, which was drafted by architect Charles P.H. Gilbert who had designed the Fletcher Mansion, just a few blocks down from the Metropolitan Museum of Art on 79th and Fifth.

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.

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.

The Willard D. Straight House was designed by the firm of Delano & Aldrich in the neo-Georgian style and completed in 1915. Straight, an American diplomat, and his wife, the philanthropist Dorothy Payne Whitney, founded the New Republic magazine in 1914. Whitney sold the house in 1927, nine years after her husband’s death. From 1973-1999, 1130 Fifth Avenue was the headquarters of the International Center of Photography.

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.

Ogden Codman House ARCHITECT: Ogden Codman DATE: 1912-13 STYLE: French The Parisian character of the house is most emphatically to be found in the street elevation, with its strong, rusticated first floor and high double carriage door entrance, which serves also as a vestibule. It is again expressed in the second floor stone balcony supported on carved brackets, with beautifully detailed wrought iron railing extending across the width of the entire front. The second floor windows are very high with arched heads indicating the importance of the drawing room behind them. The third-floor windows are square in shape with heavy molded stone frames with swags beneath the sills. All windows of this three-story section are shuttered in a typically French manner. Completing the composition of the facade is a well-proportioned stone cornice at the fourth floor level behind which rises a slate Mansard roof with three unusual dormer windows, distinguished by their handsome semicircular stone frames and arched roofs.

21 East 94th Street, north side, west of Madison Avenue, about 1912.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When Andrew Carnegie purchased the land for his new home in 1898, one magazine described the area as "only one remove from goatville"-with almost half the lots on the adjacent block still empty. Rather than continue the march of millionaires up Fifth, Carnegie decided to leap more than ten blocks past the northern most mansion to the avenue's highest point. The location made sense for a man who stood apart. In an era filled with big businessmen and philanthropists- he was bigger than them all. Born in 1835 in a one-room cottage in Scotland, Carnegie became the richest man in the world. He made his hundreds of millions through the steel industry- at one point his company, Carnegie Steel, produced more steel than all of Britain. Then later in life he decided to give most the money away. This philanthropic bent, as one historian notes, paradoxically made him a more ruthless boss. Though he had once supported unions, in the mid-1880s he cut wages and lengthened the eight-hour workday to 12. And in 1892, decisions by him and manager of his steel plant, Henry Clay Frick, led to one of the bloodiest labor battles the country had ever seen. The mansion's design-overseen by Carnegie's wife, Louise- reflected Carnegie's priorities in his retirement years: family, friends, and philanthropy. He and his wife loved nature and wanted a place for their five-year-old daughter Margaret to play. So they installed a garden more than half the size of the mansion and filled it with azaleas, rhododendrons, roses, and fully grown trees uprooted and transported from Connecticut and New York State. Louise sized the dining room to suite Carnegie's appetite for entertaining. His most frequent guests were writers, statesmen, and scientists and he asked them to sign the tablecloth, which servants then embroidered. Among them were several U.S. presidents, Madame Curie, Henry James, and Mark Twain, one of Carnegie's closest friends, who regularly received whiskey form the seventy-five gallon cask Carnegie kept in his basement. The greatest attention, however, was lavished on his libraries , where he indulged his lifelong love of books. A private elevator dropped him right in from of the family library on the second floor, also called the "teak room" for its intricately carved paneling from India. There, Carnegie enjoyed reading Shakespeare, Wordsworth, and the Bible and listening to Scottish ballads and American folksongs on the Victor Talking Machine.

By Margaret A. Brucia On March 10, 1921, Julia Gardiner Gayley, wrestling with seating plans for her upcoming parties, wrote to her daughter Mary from Washington Square. "I have two big lunch parties with which I am now struggling. Perhaps you would like to know who is coming. Friday I have both men and women as follows: Besides G\[ano] and myself there will be Mr. and Mrs. Billy Delano— both charming—Mr. and Mrs. Walter Maynard, Mr. and Mrs. Murray Young, Mr. and Mrs. Walter Rosen, an English painter, Mr. McEvoy coming with Rosens (she was one of the Bigelows), Mrs. Lucy Hewitt, Lucy \[Frelinghuysen], Edith Morgan, Frances Rumsey, Louise Sands, Paul Dana, Larry White, Archer Huntington, the man who gave all the Spanish museum, church, etc., to New York and whose wife ran away last year with the play writer Granville Barker. So everybody is trying to give him a nice time. I may add Frances Blodgett and Lord Carrington who she has in her train. Horne is attending to the luncheon for me with two extra men." And that was only the first of her two parties. Julie’s guests were a diverse group of architects, musicians, painters, authors and philanthropists; Protestants, Catholics and one Jew. The litany of names attests as much to the broad scope and range of Julie’s friends as to her ability to create a lively and interesting mix of people. Although each invitee had a notable backstory, Julie singled out just one for comment: the victim of a recent social scandal, around whom his friends loyally closed ranks. Who was Archer Huntington? What did “all the Spanish museum, church, etc.” mean? Why did his wife jilt him? And how was he handling the aftermath? Read this in its original format here.

Saint Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral ARCHITECT: John Bergesen DATE: 1901-02 STYLE: Church The St. Nicholas congregation, which was established in 1894, met in a rented house at 323 Second Avenue until a permanent building could be erected. The purchase of the 75-by-100-foot lot, on which the present church buildings stand, was undertaken by Dean Alexander Hotovitsky on behalf of the congregation in September 1899. The lot was smaller than what had initially been sought, and it was not a corner site, but the high cost of real estate in New York limited the selection. The New York City congregation was unable to fully finance the building, so the Synod of Russia was given Imperial permission to collect money throughout the Russian Empire.

Andrew Carnegie Mansion ca. 1901 The Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum at 2 East 91st Street is a renowned museum and institution, the only of its kind in the United States, born of a long history and connection between philanthropy and industry. The landmarked building is an exemplary bit of ornate, turn-of-the-20th-century architecture, and today we explore its history and ties to the Village. In 1898, Andrew Carnegie and his wife Louisa purchased land for their family’s home “far north” of the center of New York City and where they had previously been living. This new space would allow them a mansion of much greater size, along with a private garden. Designed by the firm Babb, Cook & Willard, the Carnegie family moved into their grand new home in 1902. The mansion put its neighborhood on the map — the lower 90s west of Lexington Avenue is still called Carnegie Hill to this day. The Georgian style Mansion boasted a modern steel-frame construction, the first private residence in the United States to use this method. It was technologically advanced, too: multiple electric Otis elevators, a fully electrified laundry, an extremely sophisticated air conditioning system capable of heating, cooling, and humidifying individual rooms, and a cellar coal car that traveled over a miniature train track to transfer fuel from a storage bin to enormous twin boilers were installed. The mansion had 64 rooms on five floors, the top of which was for servants’ quarters. There were multiple libraries, parlors, sitting rooms, bedrooms, halls, pantries, and skylights. The family library on the second floor, known also as the Teak Room, was made entirely of intricately carved Teak wood, from India or Myanmar. Andrew Carnegie spent 20 years in his mansion before he died in 1919. His wife, Louise Carnegie, remained in the mansion until she died in 1946. Louise left the mansion to the Carnegie Corporation, which leased the building to Columbia University’s School of Social Work in 1949. The school remained in its grand home until the mid-1960s. In 1966, the Carnegie Mansion was named a national historic landmark, bestowing upon it a great honor, but not protecting it from potential demolition. Like many great Historic New York City buildings in the 1960s, when tastes and uses were rapidly changing, the Carnegie Mansion’s fate was in doubt. Some worried it would go the way of Penn Station and other no-longer-used mansions, succumbing to the wrecking ball.

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.

Mayor John Purroy Mitchel Memorial, Central Park Reservoir, ca. 1975. This bronze bust was designed by the prominent German-born sculptor Adolph Alexander Weinman, honoring Mitchel, New York's 95th Mayor. The Bronx-born politician served a single term at City Hall, notable for police reforms and an assassination attempt in April 1914. Mitchel, viewed as too cozy with the city's upper crust, failed to win re-election, losing in the Republican primary. Out office, Mitchel enlisted in the Army's Air Guard but died in a training flight accident over Louisiana. The former mayor fell from his airplane when it entered a sudden tailspin; his seatbelt had not been fastened.

“1215 Park Avenue, adjoining the S.E. corner of 95th Street. This and its neighbors will be standing in 1935. About 1912.” Indeed, 1215 Park Avenue (once home to the writer Joan Didion) and its neighbors are still standing in 2016.

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.

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.

No. 1217 underwent extensive restoration and facade resurfacing in 2006 when it was converted back to a single-family dwelling. Except for the absence of carved panels, the upper two stories on Park Avenue are identical to those of No. 1213. Under the oriel, a corbeled brick facing was added. Round-arched windows on the parlor floor have hood moldings; a trio of whimsical creatures eye passersby. On either side are terra-cotta escutcheons, incised to suggest tiny bearded faces. The basement doors on Park Avenue are windows, restoring the original entrance to 95th Street. A wide three-step stoop is flanked with newel posts and iron railings. On either side of the door are gas-burning lanterns. Only the lowest portion on 95th Street is of brownstone; the top three stories are of red brick, with brownstone quoins defining the corners. Centered over the entrance, brick pilasters flank second and third-story windows, between which is a carved spandrel (including, perhaps, another face). The upper round-arched window has a hood molding. Narrow arched niches shelter foliate carvings.

96th Street Branch, NYPL, September 24, 1928. Constructed between 1904 and 1905 to the plans of architectural firm Babb, Cook & Willard, the 96th Street Library is a Italian Renaissance Revival building. Typical of other upper Manhattan Carnegie libraries, it is a mid block three-story, three-bay structure. The library closed for six months in 2012 for HVAC and additional infrastructure updates.

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."

The Lucy Drexel Dahlgren House is a historic home located at 15 East 96th Street. It was built in 1915-16, and was designed by Ogden Codman, Jr. in the French Renaissance Revival style. Codman, Jr, with the novelist Edith Wharton, authored The Decoration of Houses (1897), a well-respected manual on interior design that criticized Victorian interior design as heavy, poorly planned, and wasteful of space. The wealthy and socially prominent Lucy Drexel Dahlgren spent little time in her house at 15 East 96th Street. Apparently, Dahlgren rented the house to the French jeweler Pierre Cartier from 1922 until she sold it to him in 1927. In 1945, on his retirement, Cartier sold the house to the Roman Catholic Church of St. Francis de Sales (135 East 96th Street), which used it as a convent for the nuns who taught at the church's parochial school. In 1981 the church sold the house to a private owner, who restored it.

Otto Kahn Residence ca. 1917 One of the largest private houses ever built in Manhattan this Italian palazzo, including a drive-in for automobiles, has a modest self-effacing quality, due to the uniformity of its architectural effect, which makes it possible to pass and repass it many times without realizing what it is. In this respect it represents the epitome of restrained good taste.

Squadron A Armory 1339 Madison Avenue In 1884, a group of gentlemen horseback riders formed the “First New York Hussars” or “First Dragoons,” and by 1889, its 53 members became Troop “A.” By 1895, the group became Squadron “A,” and served in the Spanish American War and in World War I as the 105th Machine Gun Battalion. The Squadron A Armory was built for the group in 1895 and initially included roughly 100 horse stalls. Its Madison Avenue frontage was landmarked in 1966 as part of a dramatic, mid-demolition emergency action by the LPC. Based on what the Landmarks Preservation Commission calls, “twelfth-century French prototypes” and “American Inventiveness,” the Squadron A Armory was designed as “an excellent example of a medieval castle,” by John Rochester Thomas (who also designed New York’s Surrogates Courthouse – now home to the Municipal Archives).

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.

Central Park Reservoir ca. 1931 Built between 1858 and 1862, the 106-acre reservoir is 40 feet deep and holds over a billion gallons of water. Once a critical part of the city’s fresh water system, it received water from the Croton Aqueduct and distributed it throughout Manhattan. The reservoir was decommissioned in 1993, deemed obsolete due to the new water main under 79th Street that connected with the Third Water Tunnel, and because of growing concerns about contamination. In 1994, the reservoir was renamed for Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in recognition of her contributions to the New York City, and because she enjoyed jogging along the 1.58 mile running track that surrounds it. In 2003, an unsightly seven-foot chain link fence was replaced by a four foot tall steel fence with cast-iron ornamentation, based on the design of the fence that was installed when the reservoir was completed in 1862.

“3 East 95th Street, east of the N.E. corner of Fifth Avenue. This house was formerly the residence of Clarence Mackay. About 1922.” The Mrs. Amory S. Carhart mansion, designed in 1913 by prominent Philadelphia architect Horace Trumbauer, was completed in 1921, under the ownership of financier Clarence Mackay (Marion Carhart died in 1919 with the construction unfinished). The Lycée Français de New York acquired the building in 1935. Made a New York City Landmark in 1974, the Lycée Français sold the mansion in the early 2000s.

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.

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.

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.

Central Park is one of New York's beloved public spaces. Sculpted by Olmstead and Vaux, millions have sheltered under its trees and walked its roads. But in the creation of this magnificent park, a Black community was destroyed. The destruction of Seneca Village shows the complicated legacy of even our most treasured spaces.

“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.

St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral, ca. 1970. The congregation of St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church was founded in 1894. When fundraising for a church building was undertaken in 1900 the Synod of Russian was given permission to ask for donations within the Russian Empire. One of the earliest gifts from this effort was from Czar Nicholas II himself. The Baroque style design of the church, inspired by Moscow cathedrals, was created by John Bergesen, a New York architect of Russian descent. The church, topped with its eye-catching onion domed cupolas, was dedicated in November of 1902. The church was elevated to cathedral status in 1903 and in 1905 the Diocesan seat was moved from San Fransisco to here.

“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.

Willard and Dorothy Whitney Straight House ARCHITECT: Delano & Aldrich DATE: 1913-15 STYLE: Federal The elegant doorway with its arched opening is framed by a pair of engaged Tuscan columns. It is crowned by an entablature that connects with the second-floor belt course. Reminiscent of the Federal style are the floor-length windows of the second story and the plain lintels above the square-headed openings. The bulls-eye (oculus) windows of the fourth floor and the belt courses, together with the carved marble cornice and balustrade above it, have an urban richness and refinement which give the building great dignity and considerable architectural sophistication.

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.

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.

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.

Architect: Emery Roth Date: 1925-26 A modest 1890 row house once occupied this narrow site. In its place stands this slender, fourteen-story-plus-penthouse apartment building, rising from a three-story rusticated limestone base. Designed in neo-Renaissance style, there is a flurry of steel-level internet: at the entry, stone pilasters support a broken pediment, which embraces a second-story window with carved reveals. Large limestone blocks line the building's corners. Step back to view the fourth-story central window, fronted with a pseudo balcony and embellished with carved classical motifs. The best vantage point, however, is from the park side of Fifth Avenue. Stone pilasters applied to the brick facade soar from the fourth to the eleventh story, above which Roth pulls out all the architecture stops. At the twelfth story the three center bays are arched with carved surrounds; fourteenth-story windows alternate with decorative panels. Above the modillioned, balustrade cornice rises the penthouse tower, with three double-height arches, a carved cornice, and a huge central cartouche.

“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.

Ernesto and Edith Fabri House ARCHITECT: Egisto Fabri; Grosvenor Atterbury DATE: 1914-16 The L-shape of the plan with a rear wing at the western side of the main section of the house forms a courtyard, an unusual feature in the New York City block system. The courtyard is entered through an elaborate wrought-iron gate set between urn-topped stone pillars. A two-story section containing the entrance hall extends along the main section to the rear wing. The two-story section is lined with handsome French windows set in stone arches at both floors. The windows have balustrades at the bases, and they are separated by stone pilasters, providing an elegant contrast to the brick wall surface. The section terminates in a stone cornice surmounted by a stone parapet. The impressive entranceway, flanked by rusticated pilasters, is set within a heavy rusticated stone frame. Handsome carved wood doors beneath a wrought-iron fanlight contribute to the dignity of the entrance.

Otto and Addie Kahn House ARCHITECT: J. Armstrong Stenhouse; C. P. H. Gilbert DATE: 1913-18 STYLE: Italian Renaissance Among its important qualities, the Otto Kahn House is the finest Italian Renaissance style mansion in New York City. It belonged to a great patron of the arts, and was almost unique at the date of its erection in its simplicity and purity of detail, and that, although it is prominently located on a Fifth Avenue corner site, it is most notable for its restrained and quiet dignity.

“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.

1140 Fifth Avenue at 95th Street, 1923. Built by real estate developer Fred F. French, the 14-story structure was completed in 1922. French is best known for Tudor City, in 1925 the largest housing development in midtown Manhattan; Knickerbocker Village, one of the first federally-funded residential urban-redevelopment projects; and his eponymous Art Deco skyscraper at Fifth Avenue and 45th Street.

Willard Straight Residence ca. 1979 This large, sunny dwelling is an excellent example of the American town house at its best. The bull's-eye windows at the top lend an air of novelty to an otherwise conservative Federal design. The interior woodwork is extremely fine and demonstrates the loving care with which Delano and Aldrich executed their commissions.

My Archive Spring 2019 "Eliot Nolen outside of her apartment building on her way to a birthday party circa 1968." —Tim Bradley

1083 Fifth Avenue ca. 1929 Originally built in 1901-02 in the Beaux-Arts style for Archer Milton Huntington, 1083 Fifth Avenue was remodeled and enlarged for Huntington with the current French Second Empire details in 1913-15. The renovation was done by architect Ogden Codman in conjunction with the addition of a wing at 3 East 89th Street. Archer Milton was the stepson (or possibly biological son) of railroad magnate and industrialist Collis P. Huntington. Known for his philanthropy, Archer Milton founded The Hispanic Society of America in New York City. He was also a generous benefactor to the American Geographical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Numismatic Society, Brookgreen Gardens sculpture center in South Carolina, and the Mariners’ Museum in Virginia, which is one of the largest maritime museums in the world. In 1940, he and his sculptor wife, Anna Hyatt Huntington donated 1083 Fifth Avenue along with two adjoining townhouses and a fund for alterations to the National Academy of Design (NAD), which moved in two years later. NAD was the first institution in the United States established by and under the exclusive control of professional artists. Since its founding, NAD has pursued a simple yet powerful mission: to promote the fine arts in America through exhibition and education. The founders of NAD believed that the practice and exhibition of art and architecture could flourish outside of the aristocratic patronage system. Their new egalitarian institution aimed for the highest echelons of artistic expression with an inclusive philosophy, enriching and educating new generations of artists and architects while preserving and sharing their work with the public. In 2018, after 78 years, NAD, citing financial pressures, sold its 15,000 sq. ft., six-story, five-bedroom headquarters at 1083 Fifth Avenue for $25 million.