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.

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.

ARCHITECTS: Pennington & Lewis DATE: 1929-30 The workday water tank soars to architectural heights when enclosed by inventive designers like Pennington and Lewis. Atop this Moderne apartment house, several enormous stone heads on tall brick piers gaze serenely at Central Park and Carnegie Hill. The architects may have taken their inspiration from depictions of Greek kourioi (freestanding figures of young men) or from the goddess-like caryatids supporting the Erectheion on Athens's Acropolis. The effect here is one of the most striking in New York City.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.