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.

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.

In 1837, the New York and Harlem Railroad extended its Fourth Avenue (now Park Avenue) tracks to Harlem. In 1872, the tracks south of 98th Street were sunk below ground to reduce their street-level impact, and in 1874, a brownstone viaduct was built where the tracks emerged above ground (later the line continued northward with the construction of a steel viaduct). The viaduct, which, from 102nd to 110th Streets, allows vehicular and pedestrian crossing via rounded archways, had a lasting impact on the neighborhood. While the grand rowhouses west of Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park) thrived, those to the east were replaced with subsidized housing. Beneath the tracks from 111th to 116th Streets is La Marqueta, a marketplace that originally served as an informal gathering place for pushcart vendors until the city officially sanctioned it in 1936. Around that time, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia waged war against the city’s pushcarts, which were widely believed to be a traffic menace and sanitation hazard. La Marqueta became one of several enclosed markets operated by the city, with merchants renting stalls. It reached its apex in the 1950s and 1960s with over 500 vendors, and was an important cultural hub for the neighborhood’s Hispanic population. After decades of decline, the City Council allocated $3 million to revitalize the market in 2014.

Parkway Hospital, August 3, 1928. The Parkway Hospital, a private 70-bed facility on the north side of Central Park, opened to the public on January 5, 1929. The West 110th Street building became the Italian Hospital during the 1950s. In 1973, Italian merged with Columbus Hospital, creating the Cabrini Medical Center and shifting care to a new facility in Gramercy Park.

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

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.

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.

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.