1950 Third Avenue, with jewelry dealer at the corner of 107th Street visible in the foreground.

The Manhattan Oddfellows Temple, 1929. The Oddfellows fraternal organization likely originated in 18th century Britain, and its earliest outposts in New York date to the early 19th century.

The Church of Saint Edward the Martyr, 1941. The church was designed by architect George A. Bagge and completed in 1887. A 1903 expansion, financed by philanthropist, lawyer, senior warden of the parish Elbridge T. Gerry included interior decoration such as stained glass, mosaics, and marble and metal work, designed and installed by famed decorative arts firm J. & R. Lamb.

The then-new location Museum of the City of New York, seen from across Fifth Avenue near 103rd St. In the niche at right, Adolph Alexander Weinman’s statue of DeWitt Clinton, the sixth Governor of New York.

By 1897, New York City was well on its way to becoming the metropolis of steel and concrete that we know today. Elevator cars were carrying passengers up and down in the earliest skyscrapers, while the elevated rail lines stretched further and further uptown. It was around this time that photographer James Reuel Smith embarked upon a quest to document part of the city’s vanishing pastoral life—its springs and wells.

The northwest corner of Third Avenue and 109th Street, 1912. Storefront signage includes "John Armstrong Real Estate"; "Conservatory of Music," offering lessons in piano, violin, mandolin, guitar, and bass; and "B. Rosenfeld Diamonds, Watches, and Jewelry."

St. Cecilia's Church, 1942. Construction on the brick Romanesque Revival structure began in 1883, and was completed in 1887. The completion of the upper church (the larger more ornate space) in 1887 was not only managed by the pastor at the time, but he, Reverend Michael J. Phelan, acted as general contractor and enlisted the skills of church members to finish the construction. Designed by Napoleon Le Brun & Sons, the firm was not involved in the construction at all. The red brick church, with terra cotta relief of St. Cecilia on the front facade, was designated a landmark in 1976 and continues to serve the East Harlem community today.

Aguilar Branch, NYPL, 1928. The Aguilar Free Library was a library structure built between 1898 and 1899 in an Art Nouveau style by the architecture firm Herts & Tallant. The firm was well-known for their work on theaters. Largely funded through the philanthropic support of Grace Aguilar, a popular British novelist and essayist of Sephardic Jewish descent, the Free Library merged with NYPL in 1903. In 1904 the same architecture firm extensively renovated (and nearly tripled in size) the original building. Funded by the Carnegie bequest the new library had an exaggerated classical style with two massive columns flanking the three-story facade. This feature and the iron and glass structure that fills in most of the rest of the facade, this branch is distinctive among the Carnegie libraries.

The McGown's Pass Tavern was built in 1883-1884 and served refreshments to Central Park visitors for the next 30 years. Originally called the Mount St. Vincent's Hotel (after an earlier establishment), the first proprietor was Patrick H. McCann, brother-in-law to a Tammany Hall boss. Supposedly McCann lost his lease on the business in 1890 after refusing to provide Tammany men free entertainment (a capital offense to the presumptuous and overly indulged political machine leaders). The Tavern closed in 1915, its furnishings sold at auction, and the building razed.

The former Manhattan Oddfellows Temple, photographed in 1944 with the annotation "Diesel Electric Co. has purchased building for use of the television industry." The television production facility called Metropolis Studios is still active at 105 East 106th St. BET's popular new music program "106 & Park" was filmed here.

\*Odetta (1930- 2008), born Odetta Holmes, was an influential artist/activist of the civil rights generation. During her 60-year career, she influenced numerous performers, including Harry Belafonte, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Janis Joplin. Her signature song was “This Little Light of Mine.” Odetta took part in the historic freedom marches of the 1960s in Selma, Alabama, and in Washington, D.C. Martin Luther King, Jr. named her “Queen of American Folk Music.” President William J. Clinton honored her with the National Medal of Arts, saying, “Odetta reminds us all that songs have the power to change the heart and change the world.” \*Text from the Cultural Medallion placed on 1270 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan

Public School 72, ca. 1920. Constructed as Public School 72, this neo-Grec structure is one of the oldest intact school buildings in Manhattan. Built to accommodate the growing immigrant population of East Harlem, it was the first full block school building in the city. Its architect, David I. Stagg, was Superintendent of Public School Buildings from 1872 to 1886. The original portion of the building was completed in 1882 and the annex (by C.B.J. Snyder) was added in 1913. The Board of Education closed the school in 1975, and for the next two decades it provided classroom and office space for various institutions. In 1994-95, the building was converted to a cultural center. The conversion was spearheaded by El Taller Boricua, an arts organization founded in 1969 to bring attention and relevancy to artists who were being ignored and systematically marginalized by the cultural gatekeepers of the times. Named in honor of the Puerto Rican teacher, journalist and, poet who died in East Harlem, the Julia de Burgos Latino Cultural Center is home to El Taller Boricua (the Puerto Rican Workshop), the Heritage School and Los Pleneros de la 21.

St. Cecilia Roman Catholic Church complex, built from 1883-87, is located at 120 East 106th Street in between Lexington and Park Avenues. St. Cecilia’s was one of the first religious institutions built in the area. The church has been in continuous use as a Roman Catholic parish church since the chapel was completed in 1884. The adjacent buildings that housed the Convent were finished in 1887.

The Museo Del Barrio, sometimes simply referred to as "El Museo," is a museum dedicated to primarily Puerto Rican Art. The institution was born out of East Harlem protests in the late 1960s that called for education in neighborhood public schools to include curricula that acknowledged and addressed the heritage of many of the families whose children attended these schools. A group of Central and East Harlem activists demanded for resources to be made available to students. In response, Superintendent Martin W. Frey of District 4 appointed Puerto Rican educator and activist Raphael Montaña Ortiz to create the educational materials necessary for this change. In response, Montaña Ortiz formed the idea to create a community-based museum that would supplement this necessity. A museum "del Barrio" (of the neighborhood) would be accessible to all ages, not just those attending the schools of District 4. East Harlem's primarily Puerto-Rican and Caribbean population needed to also benefit from this asset in their community. The endeavor was funded by the Board of Education from 1969-1974, which enabled Montaña Ortiz to travel to Puerto Rico and make connections with local museums and anthropologists alongside Superintendent Martin W. Frey. Additionally, Montaña Ortiz visited museums across New York City to survey their collections of Puerto-Rican Art. Montaña Ortiz was conscious to involve the immediate community in discussions of the project, along with members of The Young Lords Political Party, The Real Great Society, and Marcos Dimas and Adrian Garcia who would later form the Art Worker's Coalition. The museum was founded in a classroom of PS 125 at 425 West 123rd Street, where District 4's offices were also located. Montaña Ortiz said the following of the museum: "The cultural disenfranchisement I experience as a Puerto Rican has prompted me to seek a practical alternative to the orthodox museum, which fails to meet my needs for an authentic ethnic experience. To afford me and others to establish living connections with our own culture, I founded El Museo del Barrio." El Museo del Barrio moved from the PS 125 to PS 206 and then subsequent storefronts in the vicinity. El Museo later moved to an old firehouse on 104th street, where it launched it's "Mobile Unit" that traveled to serve schools and events. Eventually, in 1977, El Museo settled in the Heckscher Building on 104th Street, where it occupied the ground floor. In this move, it joined the Cultural Institutions Group (CIG), an association of 23 cultural organizations housed in city-owned buildings. El Museo is the founding member of the Museum Mile. The permanent collection of El Museo del Barrio spans over 800 years of Puerto-Rican, Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Art. There are now around 6,500 pieces in the collection, and El Museo hosts a variety of temporary exhibitions on Puerto-Rican and Latin American Modern Art. Additionally, the institution is the site for many festivals, educational programs, and events. The most well known and widely attended festivity is the parade for Three Kings Day in January. The museum underwent a renovation and expansion in 2009 and another renovation of its theater from 2018 to 2019. In 2012, an exhibition at now-defunct gallery Exit Art and a subsequent publication called "Alternative Histories" said that El Museo del Barrio went from alternative art space to a globally established museum. In El Museo's mission statement, it states the following: "To enhance the sense of identity, self-esteem and self-knowledge of the Caribbean and Latin American peoples by educating them in their artistic heritage and bringing art and artists into their communities."

Artist and educator Raphael Montañez Ortiz and a coalition of Puerto Rican activists founded El Museo del Barrio in 1970 to combat the city’s institutional indifference to Puerto Rican art and culture. Over the past five decades, El Museo has become a major institution celebrating and promoting Latin American art, with a permanent collection of over 6,500 objects spanning 800 years of history. El Museo also performs outreach and education for young people of Caribbean and Latin American descent to enhance their understanding of and pride in their heritage. El Museo’s permanent home since 1977 is a building commissioned by philanthropists August and Anna Heckscher for the headquarters of The Heckscher Foundation for Children, and donated to the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children as a shelter for abused and neglected children. Its interior features a series of tile murals on the ground floor depicting storybook tales and children at play, which El Museo restored in 2008-12, as well as the Heckscher Theater, which hosted performances for and by children. El Museo undertook a renovation of the theater in 1995-2000, renaming it Teatro Heckscher.

The former Manhattan Odd Fellows Temple located at 105 E 106th Street has been home to numerous establishments throughout its nearly 100-year history.

This 1913 photo of Lexington Avenue, between 105th and 106th Streets in Manhattan shows a construction method called cut and cover. Like the name suggests, this method involved cutting or digging a trench in the street, installing the necessary infrastructure, and then covering with the street on top. During construction business went on as usual around construction. With temporary wooden structures placed over the work below, trolleys and other traffic were able to pass over top of the construction. Many of our first subway tunnels were built using this method beginning in 1900, which made construction faster, cheaper, and easier than trying to dig deep under the ground. It allowed sand hogs (the nickname given to tunnel workers) to avoid the difficult and unstable bedrock underneath most of Manhattan called Manhattan schist.

East Harlem/El Barrio is home to a great number of murals that build on a long tradition in Latin American art, wherein residents may express themselves and tell their stories. Protecting these significant cultural symbols has become a great challenge, but an important endeavor, in a rapidly changing neighborhood. East 107th Street between Lexington and Third Avenues Natalie del Villar, Marthalicia Matarrita and Xen Medina 2015 The original mural on this site paid tribute to two Puerto Rican political prisoners, Oscar López Rivera and Avelino Gonzalez Claudio. The project was conceived in 2010 by members of the National Boricua Human Rights Network along with local residents. The badly weathered and vandalized mural was re-imagined in 2015 by local artists commissioned by East Harlem Preservation, Inc., with support from the Historic Districts Council. Since Avelino Gonzalez Claudio was released in February 2013, the artists re-focused the mural on Oscar López Rivera, the last Puerto Rican political prisoner in the U.S. who is now 73 years old and has spent 35 years in prison. Because he often speaks about his desire to return to his homeland to walk along the seashore, the artists incorporated his wish into the design. Watch East Harlem Preservation's video on the creation of the mural \*image Photo courtesy Marina Ortiz, East Harlem Preservation, Inc.

Streetcar traffic on Lexington Avenue, north of East 109th Street, April 23, 1914. In the foreground, sidewalk grating above the IRT Lexington Avenue Line is visible. The IRT line would open four years later, in 1918.

This 1913 photo of Lexington Avenue, between 105th and 106th Streets in Manhattan shows a construction method called cut and cover. Like the name suggests, this method involved cutting or digging a trench in the street, installing the necessary infrastructure, and then covering with the street on top. During construction business went on as usual around construction. With temporary wooden structures placed over the work below, trolleys and other traffic were able to pass over top of the construction. Many of our first subway tunnels were built using this method beginning in 1900, which made construction faster, cheaper, and easier than trying to dig deep under the ground. It allowed sand hogs (the nickname given to tunnel workers) to avoid the difficult and unstable bedrock underneath most of Manhattan called Manhattan schist.

St. Cecilia’s Roman Catholic Church Designed by Napoleon LeBrun & Sons, 1883-87 116 East 106th Street Neville & Bagge, 1907 This beautiful Romanesque Revival style church was built for the parish of St. Cecilia’s Roman Catholic Church, which, beginning in the 1870s, worshipped in the former Old Red House, a hotel on East 105th Street. In 1881, the church purchased this property and hired Napoleon LeBrun & Sons to design proper church facilities. The result is a richly ornate brick and terra cotta church featuring a large relief of St. Cecilia, patron saint of music, embedded into an arched panel on the building’s central gable. The adjacent “Regina Angelorum” was originally two separate buildings, a four-story tenement built in 1883-84 and a school built in 1885-87. The two buildings were combined in 1906-07 with a façade by Neville & Bagge, but still had two separate functions: a home for working women and a convent. In the late 1930s, the convent took over the entire building until 2004, when the building was converted to the Cristo Rey New York High School.

Originally constructed as Public School 72, this neo-Grec structure is one of the oldest intact school buildings in Manhattan, built to accommodate the growing immigrant population of East Harlem. Its architect, David I. Stagg, was Superintendent of Public School Buildings from 1872 to 1886. For about 20 years after the Board of Education closed the school in 1975, it provided classroom and office space for various institutions. In 1994-95, the building was converted to a cultural center. The Julia de Burgos Latino Cultural Center is a designated New York City Individual Landmark.

Learn about the history of transportation in New York City, and the past through the lens of subway construction. (This can be viewed in its original context here)

In tandem with our exhibition, Cycling in the City: A 200 Year History, we are excited to invite you on a bike tour throughout our neighborhood. MCNY's little section of the world, nestled between the Upper East Side and East Harlem, has a plethora of amazing buildings and sites with an even more amazing history. We suggest that you stick to the labeled bike lanes and follow the safety rules of biking in the city. Never text and ride at the same time, and always wear a helmet!

East 106th Street, looking west toward Park Avenue and the Harlem line railroad tracks, June 1942.

Storefronts on Madison Avenue, south of East 109th Street, undated photo. These deteriorating tenement buildings would be demolished and replaced by Public School 108.

The Museum of the City of New York was founded in 1923 by Henry Collins Brown, a Scottish-born writer with a vision for a populist approach to the city. The Museum was originally housed in Gracie Mansion, the future residence of the Mayor of New York. The City offered land on Fifth Avenue between 103rd-104th Streets and construction for Joseph H. Freedlander’s Georgian Colonial-Revival building started in 1929 and was completed in 1932. Freedlander’s red brick museum was not his only contribution to New York City history: he’s also known for designing the city’s first-ever traffic signals.