Euclid Hall, ca. 1930. This large, multi-section 1903 building was designed by Hill & Turner. It was developed as a luxury apartment buildings with most apartments arranged around narrow light courts. The units typically had four to five bedrooms, with a parlor-library-dining room arranged together. While the original tenants were somewhat prosperous New Yorkers, newer, more luxurious apartment buildings nearby quickly rendered the Euclid Hall less desirable. By the 1920s the entire Broadway front of the building had ground-level commercial spaces. And by the 1930s, it had been converted to the Euclid Hotel, a single occupancy residence (SRO) building. Decades of neglect left the building in a terrible state by the 1980s. It was purchased and refurbished in 1989 by a senior housing organization and continues to function today as a senior and supportive housing building.

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 It was superceded by the Beresford Apartments, built 1928-29.

Belnord, ca. 1909. Designed by the architectural firm of Hiss and Weekes and completed in 1908, the Belnord Apartments is a 12-story, Italian Renaissance apartment building. The building occupies the full block between West 86th and 87th Streets and Amsterdam and Broadway. Similar to other full block apartments in New York City the building surrounds a large, landscaped interior courtyard. Originally all entrances to the building were located within the central courtyard. Two low, barrel vaulted arches on the 86th Street facade allow car access to the interior yard. Famous residents of the building include actor Zero Mostel and jazz impresario Art D'Lugoff.

Broadway, west side, north from 86th to 88th Streets. Note subway entrance at 86th Street, 1935. The entrances and exits to the original subway stations were structures with either doomed (entrance) or peaked (exit) roofs, known as kiosks. They were modeled after the structures found on the earliest Metro lines in Budapest, Hungary. An entrance kiosk can be seen at the street level just below the words 'rye whiskey' in this photograph. They were glass and cast metal and were all torn down by the late 1960s. In 1986 a replica of one of the original kiosks was reinstalled at the Astor Place Station.

Public School 166 ARCHITECT: C. B. J. Snyder DATE: 1897-99 STYLE: Collegiate Gothic Built in 1897-99, Public School 166 is one of the few remaining nineteenth-century institutional buildings, and one of the oldest extant public schools, on the Upper West Side. The school was designed by New York’s Superintendent of School Buildings, C.B.J. Snyder, who held that position from 1891 to 1923, exerting a tremendous influence on the design and construction of the city’s schools. He created buildings that were inventive, functional, and handsome as civic monuments and is credited with introducing the Collegiate Gothic style (usually associated with universities) to New York’s public school architecture where it was used for over twenty years.

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

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.

127 West 89th Street, unknown date. This theatre, which is for sale, was formerly the Battery Swedish Methodist Episcopal Church

520 West End Avenue, 1924. The little home on the corner (at right) is dwarfed by the larger apartment buildings that surround it. But, in fact, this small home is actually a mansion of considerable size. Built on a long and narrow plot (27 feet by 100 feet), the mansion, fashioned in Romanesque, Elizabethan, and Gothic Revival styles, was designed by Clarence True as a speculative development. It was purchased while still being constructed by a cotton broker named John Burgess Leech, who had nine children. The house was completed in 1892 and the family lived there until 1905. After the Leech family left, the home was converted into a school for girls and later into eight separate apartments with a doctor's office in the basement. The mansion was threatened by demolition in the late 1920s by an owner who thought the prime corner lot would better serve him financially as a large apartment building. The Great Depression halted his plans, and today the building remains apartments.

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.

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.

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.

John B. and Isabella Leech House ARCHITECT: Clarence True DATE: 1892 STYLE: Romanesque, Gothic, Elizabethan In the bold form of its rusticated sandstone base, the complex massing of its tan Roman ironspot brick upper stories (now painted), the subtle handling and richness of its carved stone details of Romanesque, Gothic, and Elizabethan derivation, and decorative wrought-ironwork, it is a fine example of the diverse picturesque, eclectic architecture of the late 19th century which once characterized West End Avenue as one of New York City’s most desirable residential avenues. Its corner site, allowing for two principal designed facades linked by a curved corner bay, both enhances the prominence and integrity of its original architectural elements and emphasizes its status as one of the most significant surviving individually-designed large town houses on the Upper West Side.

Metropolitan Apartments, at the S.W. corner of West 88th Street, 1901. The first subway line, which traveled from City Hall to 145th Street on the West Side, was constructed using the 'cut and cover' method. Workers dug giant trenches through existing streets, laid the tracks, and covered them back up. This was a very disruptive construction method, as entire sections of streets were blocked off for weeks or months at a time. This photograph depicts subway construction at West 87th Street, three years before the subway officially opened.

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.

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.

Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew ca. 1995 The facade of the church of St. Paul and St. Andrew is an eclectic mixture of architectural styles and decorations topped by a multi-level terracotta tiled roof. Its most eye-catching elements are the two mismatched towers that rise above 86th Street on the south side and West End Avenue on the north side. These two focal points embrace the marble steps leading into the vast semi-circular arched ceiling sanctuary visually anchored by four massive angels. The sanctuary is circled on three sides by a second story balcony flooded with light from a series of clerestory windows. The apse is framed by towering organ pipes and faux marble painted columns. Unique to the church is an intimate 75 seat theatre on its second floor and a large Social Hall on its lower level. This hall is home to Westside Campaign Against Hunger, Goddard Meals on Wheels, Homework Help tutoring program, and a variety of community and social outreach programs sponsored by the church. St. Paul and St. Andrew is a city landmark, an Upper West Side neighbor and a committed global citizen.

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.

127 West 89th Street, ca. 1925. Formerly the Battery Swedish Methodist Episcopal Church, 127 West 89th Street, between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues. This church was remodeled into a motion picture theatre and by 1931 the theatre was boarded up and offered for sale.

Belnord Apartments ARCHITECT: Hiss & Weekes DATE: 1908-09 A notable feature of this architectural scheme is the manner in which the window arrangements differ from those in most contemporary high-rise buildings. Instead of establishing a uniform window size and subordinating the entire composition to it, the architect of the Belnord chose to use windows of several sizes, which were then further differentiated by varying their enframements and embellishments. Handsomely decorated panels were used to tie the corner windows together vertically, which, combined with the rusticated brickwork at the corners of the building, constitute a very subtle but effective vertical emphasis for each of the four long, horizontal facades.

Broadway, east side, at West 84th Street, showing the house in which Edgar Allan Poe wrote "The Raven". In the "Life of Poe' by William F. Gill (published 1877) on page 147-8 appears a drawi ng of this building. It is stated to have been a "few hundred feet from the corner of 84th St. and St. Nicholas Blvd. (formerly Bloomingdale Road)." A Mrs. Brennan lived here for 47 years and rented same to Poe in the Spring of 1844. He finished "The Raven" in the Winter of that year. The following Spring he moved to the City proper. It is inferred that General Washington and his officers used it as a shelter. G. E. Woodberry in his 'Life of E. A. Poe" (V. 2 page 113) reports the location as being "near what is now the eastern corner of 84th Street and Broadway. The sign hanging from the house reads "John Negel, Mason Builder, Ovens Built & Burners Set, Kalaomining". The inscription on the rock reads " R. Hamilton, Upholsterer, 11th Avenue.

In the last two decades of the 19th century, West End Avenue became a center for Dutch Colonial Revival architecture. Various architects including McKim, Mead, and White built Dutch (or Flemish) influenced rowhouses on West End, and in 1892 came the "Netherlandish crown of the West End" (as per Times architecture writer Christopher Gray), the West End Collegiate Church at 77th Street. Two years later, C.B.J. Snyder, Superintendent of School Buildings, designed Public School 9 in a what is usually described as an English Gothic style, but which can easily also be called Dutch, with its orange brick and prominent stepped gables. Since 2002, this building has been the home to the Mickey Mantle School (P.S. 811M), serving children with disabilities.

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.

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.