The Leake and Watts Orphan House was erected in 1843, and the massive Greek Revival structure is an unlikely survivor in an ever-changing city. Designed by architect Ithiel Town as a home for orphaned children with the funds from a wealthy New York lawyer, the building was the largest edifice in Morningside Heights until the construction of the neighboring St. John the Divine began in 1892. (The Cathedral is still officially unfinished more than 11 decades later.) The orphanage moved to Yonkers when the church purchased the building in 1887, and the asylum stands on land intended for the south transept of the cathedral. (See the above parenthetical for the reason this has not necessitated the demolition of the building.) The architectural writer, David Dunlap, described the scene as this: "The situation has yielded a happy architectural incongruity: two ample porticos with broad triangular pediments on giant Ionic colonnades, nestled at the base of an unfinished Romanesque-Gothic cathedral. From some vantages on the verdant grounds, it looks as if an ancient Greek temple stumbled into some medieval village." While the building was not demolished for construction, it was largely ignored by the church and might have been taken down due to safety concerns eventually. But in the early 2000s, the Cathedral reversed it hands-off plan for the asylum. With a massive restoration effort completed in 2006 and the building renamed the Town Building, for its architect, the once decaying structure has become home of the Cathedral’s Textile Conservation Lab, and the Cathedral’s social service and neighborhood outreach programming. A coop in the nearby parking lot is also the home base for the Cathedral's three peacocks, Phil, Jim, and Harry.

As the city grew and changed, Olmsted and Vaux’s design for Morning Side Park changed with it. In their first plan of 1873 the grandest of the park entrances was to be at the corner of Manhattan Ave and West 110th Street (Cathedral Parkway). This corner was closest to the northwest corner of Central Park just a short block away and one can imagine the designers envisioning park goers strolling back and forth between the two parks. Here we see a major change that most certainly made them rethink that approach. This 1879 eastward looking view of the elevated train tracks built along 110th Street just south of what would become Morningside Park, show what a changed prospect now presented itself to the designers. Olmsted and Vaux’s second 1887 plan for the park took into account this dramatically changed condition. It retained but played down the southern entrance and made more of the grand staircase leading into the middle of the park from Morningside Drive at 116th Street.

Open-Air Pulpit: Howells & Stokes, 1913

110th Street Curve, also known as “suicide curve,” 1913. In 1879, the elevated tracks of the IRT Ninth Avenue Line were extended northward from the 104th Street station. At 110th Street, the trestle turned 90 degrees to the right on 110th Street, before turning uptown again at Eighth Avenue. The 110th Street station and adjacent tracks earned the nickname “suicide curve,” as the high elevated railway had become a destination for jumpers. In 1927, the New York Times reported that local business owners were concerned that the curve’s reputation was a deterrent to customers. The Ninth Avenue El ceased operations in June, 1940, and the railway was dismantled shortly thereafter. While many sources claim the tracks stood a dizzy 100 feet above street level, a 1940 dispatch in the New York Times quoted the project superintendent overseeing the trestle's demolition, who claimed a maximum height of 56 feet. Today, the elevated tracks former right of way is still visible at the southeast corner of 110th Street and Columbus Avenue: older buildings are set back from the corner, while more recent single-story construction occupies the land once underneath the tracks.

P.S. 165, ca. 1897. This C.B.J. Snyder-designed public school was the first to make use of the H-plan, a floorplan designed to maximize light and airflow by incorporating recessed courtyards partially surrounded by “wings.” Since 1936, the school has been named for Robert E. Simon, the philanthropist and real estate developer who was president of Carnegie Hall from 1925-35.

In the closing decades of the 19th century, New York underwent a profound physical and cultural transformation. Fueled by the wealth of the exploding financial and manufacturing sectors, the city rapidly evolved into a world-class metropolis. The bold ambitions of civic and business leaders, architects, and engineers of the era manifested in landmarks such as the vast Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the stately U.S. Custom House, the towering Municipal Building, and the original terminus of New York City’s first official subway line—the ornate City Hall stop. The sweeping interior spaces common to all of these structures, and hundreds of others, depended upon a venerable Mediterranean building technology adapted to contemporary American construction: arched tile ceilings—or vaults—that were not only self-supporting but could also bear the weight of floors or roofs above them. These vaults were designed and built by a single New York firm, founded by Spanish immigrant Rafael Guastavino (1842-1908) and later headed by his son Rafael Jr. (1872-1950). The Guastavinos’ patented system for building domes and vaults involved multiple layers of thin ceramic tiles bonded with quick-drying mortar. The resulting structures were not only exceptionally strong, but also lightweight, easy to build, and inherently beautiful, thanks to intricate patterns of exposed tile that formed finished, decorative surfaces. Guastavino vaults figured prominently in more than 1,000 projects across the nation, including 200 in Manhattan alone. During its 73-year history, the Guastavino Company helped build some of the most impressive interior spaces in America—veritable palaces for the people. This list based on MCNY's exhibition Palaces for the People, contains many of Guastavino's masterpieces in the five boroughs, both those that remain and those that have been lost to the wrecking ball.

When you’re planning to build some of the world’s most spectacular and challenging tunnels, you need to know ahead of time what you’ll be digging through. Is it soil, sand, or stone? Is the stone strong and secure or friable and likely to collapse? To know what the bedrock is like, you need a drill rig to dig it out from hundreds of feet below the surface. The drill extracts geological core borings, cylindrical samples that provide a cross-section of subsurface conditions and let engineers know whether the area is good for tunneling and what construction methods should be used. The drill bits are tubular and loaded with shot or embedded with diamonds to cut around the core, like a drinking straw plunging into a milkshake (except really, really hard!).

The Braender apartment house, ca. 1910. The Braender, named for its German-born developer Philip Braender, is a ten-story apartment building designed by Frederick Browne and completed in 1903. Architecturally, the Braender incorporates a variety of influences into what the New York Times calls a “complicated, even chaotic mix of French Renaissance, Spanish and Baroque styles.”

Morningside Heights holds a very different ground than the Upper West Side - probably because it is home to Columbia University, Barnard College, the Manhattan School of Music, and other smaller schools. 🏫📚✍️ Explore the area between the Hudson and the Manhattan Schist…

How did New York build one of the largest Cathedrals in the world? Not quickly, using traditional craftsmen, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine took a century to reach its current state. As the seat of the Episcopal Diocese of New York St. John The Divine remains in active use to this day. This blog is adapted from Historic District Council's Six to Celebrate, which can be viewed here.

Bronze statue by Augustus Lukeman, in memory of Isidor and Ida Straus, ca. 1975. Lukeman’s statue depicts a nymph gazing into water, representing “memory.” The statue is situated in Straus Park, where it was dedicated in April, 1915.

View west from 2760 Broadway, at 106th Street, 1928. In the foreground is Straus Park, named for Isidor and Ida Straus, Upper West Side residents who perished aboard the Titanic. Isidor Straus and his brother Nathan were partners in Abraham & Straus department store, and later Macy’s, where the brothers became co-owners and opened the flagship Herald Square store. Isidor Straus also held office as a United States Representative for New York. The park, previously known as Schulyer Square and Bloomingdale Square, features a bronze statue in memory of the Strauses by the sculptor Augustus Lukeman. In the background, Riverside Park and the Hudson River are visible. At the foot of 106th Street is a bronze equestrian sculpture by Karl Bitter, depicted General Franz Sigel, a German-born Civil War veteran.

Cathedral of St. John the Divine interior ca. 1959 The Guastavino Company pushed the limits of traditional tile vaulting further than any previous builders. Guastavino Jr.’s building method for the dome of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine required no support during construction, yet created a highly stable shell only 4.5 inches thick at its crown. The 135-foot span was erected in a mere 15 weeks. Originally intended as a temporary, inexpensive cover for the crossing of the cathedral’s two main axes, the dome remains in place today—a testament to its solid construction.

891 Amsterdam Avenue, 1937. The Association for the Relief of Respectable Aged Indigent Females (ARRAIF) was conceived in 1813. During the "Second Great Awakening," a time when the church aimed to reassert itself, mostly through charity, a group of women established a society to help elderly women who "once enjoyed a good degree of affluence, but now reduced to poverty due to the vicissitudes of Providence." The ARRAIF aimed to aid widows of both the American Revolution and the War of 1812. The first years of the society consisted of raising donations and giving clothing, furniture, and other household items to elderly women in need. In 1837, they established their first brick-and-mortar asylum at 226 East 20th Street with the help of John Jacob Astor and Peter G. Stuyvesant. In the late 1870s, the group purchased new land at 891 Amsterdam Avenue to construct a larger building. The building here was completed in 1883. Architect Richard Morris Hunt created a Victorian Gothic style structure. The new building was open to “any respectable non-Roman Catholic gentlewoman over sixty years of age, on payment of $150 and the surrender of any property she possessed." The building operated as the ARRAIF until about 1968. In 1990, it became a branch of Hostelling International and is currently the largest hostel in North America.

Cathedral of St. John The Divine. Heins & LaFarge won the design competition for their Byzantine/Romanesque/Gothic cathedral conception. One of its most prominent features is the Guastavino tiled dome, constructed as a temporary roof during fundraising for the massive central crossing tower, which was never completed. The cathedral famously suffered many setbacks, including waning public interest to provide funds, significant design alterations, the replacement of Heins & LaFarge with Ralph Adams Cram, and building hiatuses during two world wars. Despite its uneven developmental history, the cathedral remains a fascinating juxtaposition of styles and construction technologies. Its subsidiary structures were built around the Close in Gothic variations. In spite of being an international icon, the complex remains unprotected by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. In 2007, the cathedral leased the Close’s southeast parcel for the construction of a residential high-rise, and there is currently a proposal to build two residential high-rises next to the Cathedral’s north wall. The Greek Revival Leake and Watts Orphan Asylum, restored in 2006 and currently the home of the cathedral’s tapestry conservation studio, is Morningside Heights’ oldest extant structure.

General Memorial Hospital, 1917. This still standing fortresslike French Renaissance building was constructed in 1887 as the New York Cancer Hospital, the first medical facility to focus solely on cancer. The planning and design of the building reflected prevailing ideas about illness, its causes, and treatment on that era. The hospital was funded by, among others, John Jacob Astor III, who wished to refute the stigma of cancer (in the Victorian period, cancer thought to be contagious and a disease of the poor or those with lacking hygiene). The patients were kept in the round towers, as it was believed that germs flourished in corners. The large windows in the circular towers allowed for more light, better ventilation, and a better view of the patients for the medical staff. Given the low survival rate of cancer patients in the early years of cancer research, the building became known as a death trap (with cancer advancement came an improved reputation). In the 1950s the building became a nursing home, but the operation shut down in 1974 with claims of patient abuse and crumbling facilities. The city designated the building a landmark in 1976, which saved it from demolition over the next few decades as plans were put forth for reuse, but none came to be. All the while the building continued to deteriorate and became a den for drug addicts during New York's roughest years. Finally, in 2001 a new owner began work on a residential tower on the west side of the lot. September 11th halted work, but in 2002 new loans and Columbia University's purchase of apartments in the new tower turned the tide. The tower was completed and the old hospital was restored and renovated into 17 luxury units. The roofs were fixed, the mortar repointed, and original windows were replicated.

Grace Methodist Episcopal Church, ca. 1905. The original Grace Methodist Episcopal Church was a small wood-frame chapel on West 104th Street, constructed in 1870. As the once sparse population of the neighborhood boomed around the turn of the century, the need for a larger space became apparent. In 1894 the cornerstone for a new church was dedicated. The resulting structure was a Lombardic-Romanesque building and one of the first churches in the city erected with an iron frame skeleton. Its most defining feature was the 156-foot tower at the southwest corner of the building. Unfortunately the church was destroyed in a 1983 fire. It was replaced in 1990 with a contemporary complex that includes a small church and an apartment building for clergy and low-income families.

450 Columbus Avenue, date unknown. Originally intended to be luxury apartments, the two buildings (connected on the Columbus Avenue front by a cornice) were completed in 1890 and 1891 as the Endicott Hotel . The hotel was quite opulent, with steam heat, electric lighting, and a glass-roofed restaurant. At the time of its opening, the Ninth Avenue El's 81st Street station ran just next to the hotel's third floor windows. A location for high society and political events, the hotel also had an unusually high rate of disasters and scandals, including assaults, murders, suicides, and plenty of mafia activity. By the middle of the 20th century the building was a cheap welfare hotel. As the city and neighborhood revitalized and gentrified in the 1980s, the once grand, then seedy hotel, was completely renovated and converted to condos.

At the same time as architect Henry F Kilburn was completing work on West-Park Presbyterian Church on West 86th Street, he was building another masterpiece 20 blocks north. Both churches were built to accommodate the Upper West Side’s rapidly growing population. This church, with its light-yellow, speckled brick and detailed terra-cotta banding, once housed the largest Presbyterian congregation in New York City.

New-York Cancer Hospital ARCHITECT: Charles C. Haight DATE: 1884-86 STYLE: Hospital Although the construction of the hospital was essentially finished in 1886, the opening was delayed a year because of difficulties in establishing proper sewer connections and the necessity of erecting two additional buildings; one a small mortuary building, no longer standing; the other, a boiler-house. laundry, and servant dormitory, still standing at 32 West I06th Street. When the New York Cancer Hospital opened, it was the first hospital in the United States and only the second in the world to be devoted exclusively to cancer patients (the other was the London Cancer Hospital). The death of President Ulysses S. Grant from cancer in 1885 was a factor which helped arouse public interest in the funding of the hospital. It was not until the 1880s that cancer was being seriously studied for the first time, and the New York Cancer Hospital was anxious to establish itself as a proper scientific institution. It promoted the use of surgical techniques for cancer treatment and the belief that this helped save lives. Many of the cancer patients were treated free of charge.

Cathedral of St. John the Devine, ca. 1913. The massive Cathedral of St. John, the principal church of the Episcopal diocese of New York, is the largest church in the United States and one of the largest in the world. Designed by the Heins & LaFarge firm in 1891, the Cathedral's construction began its long journey in 1892 when the first stone was laid. The design was transferred to the firm of Cram and Ferguson in 1911, when the crossing and eastern end of church was completed. The resulting change in architects caused the Cathedral's Nave to have a French Gothic influence while the sanctuary and choir taking a Romanesque Style. The initial length of the cathedral was completed in 1941 (in part due to a colossal fundraising campaign amongst New Yorkers) and the cathedral was opened, marking a pause its construction that would last until 1979. The Very Reverend James Parks then spurred another round of construction and renovation, employing masons to continue the work. However, the great Cathedral remains unfinished, the last additions having been made in 2007, as its stone on stone construction is both expensive and painstaking. Even in its unfinished state, it remains one of the most important Anglican churches in the world.

In this view from 1911 we see the rugged topography of the site which is just one block wide but 13 blocks long. The Olmsted and Vaux design highlights the natural setting by creating two linear path systems, one broad and meandering and the other cutting through the Manhattan schist and hugging a massive buttressed retaining wall along the park’s western edge.

Cathedral of St. John the Divine ca. 1904 In competition among most of the leading architects of the day, the magnificent Romanesque Revival scheme of Heins and La Farge was selected for construction of an American cathedral. Only the choir and apse and a rough masonry shell at the crossing were completed when Ralph Adams Cram gained control of the design for the rest of the building, which then was carried out in French Gothic Style.

My Archive Spring 2019 "September 1989: Playing at the Peace Fountain sculpted by Greg Wyatt, and installed in 1985. The park was a great place to play in the 1980s and I’m very lucky that my grandmother marched me out nearly every day of her visits to watch ongoing construction at the cathedral, including getting to speak with sculptor Simon Verity and his assistants who were working at the Portal of Paradise at the west facade. This photo was taken during one of my Brooklyn-born grandmother’s visits during which she’d encourage me to be more interested in my city. She would have me stand and watch the construction of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine because as she’d say, it’s not every day that you witness the construction of a cathedral. Someone living in our building was from an area near Barcelona and had brought me a 1992 Summer Olympics T-shirt, which is what I’m wearing. Barcelona had been selected as the host city on October 17, 1986." —James Russiello

My Archive Spring 2019 "Back when my Brooklyn-born grandmother would revisit the city once a year in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, she’d berate for not being more interested in my city. She’d march me out to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine because as she’d say, it’s not every day that you witness the construction of a cathedral. I was there in a stroller, playing at the newly installed Peace Fountain sculpted by Greg Wyatt. The park was a great place to play in the 1980s and I’m very lucky for my grandmother for marching me out nearly every day to watch sculptor Simon Verity and his assistants first chalk out and then sculpt the jamb figures at the Portal of Paradise. There are a lot of photos of me looking very bored, but we stood there for long periods each day watching, during which time the sculptor spoke to us, and my grandmother inquired if there was a training program I could join. He politely explained that it was nice that I was local but I was too young to be part of the cathedral works (my first in a long line of rejections). I was fortunate to see his amazing Yorkminster west portal figures while living in the UK and his work at NYC’s Hanover Square. I remember we posed my dad under the New York Apocalypse featuring the World Trade Center carving because he was handling maintenance plans for one of the buildings depicted in that carving nearby the World Trade Center. Coincidentally, the photograph is dated September 11, 1991 only because the outing correlated to a family birthday. We had no idea at the time that that would be the exact date featured at the start of The Big Lebowski (1998)." —James Russiello

Atlas Motor Company Garage, ca. 1907.

Elevated railroad at 110th Street and 8th Avenue, ca. 1895.