Morningside Heights is graced with the highest concentration of institutional complexes built in a relatively short period at the turn of the 20th century, both in the city and anywhere in the United States. It is home to monumental places of worship, higher learning and healing, which accentuate its backdrop of rowhouses and apartment buildings, culminating in streetscapes that are both elegant and eye-filling. Topographically, it is situated on a plateau historically known as Harlem Heights, while geographically it is bounded by West 110th Street to the south, West 125th Street to the north, and two Frederick Law Olmsted–designed parks to the east (Morningside Park) and to the west (Riverside Park). The first institution to move into the area was New York Hospital, which began purchasing land in 1816 to establish the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum (on the present-day campus of Columbia University) and the Leake and Watts Orphan Asylum (on the present-day campus of St. John the Divine) in 1821 and 1834, respectively. The stigma of an insane asylum, compounded by inadequate transit access to the area, hindered other development until the late 19th century, when the hospital auctioned off its real estate holdings and relocated to White Plains in favor of more space and fresher air. The asylum’s relocation prompted a flurry of development by other institutions intent on expansion, starting with the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in 1887 and followed by St. Luke’s Hospital, Columbia College and Teacher’s College in 1892. The introduction of the subway into Morningside Heights in 1904, coupled with the neighborhood’s magnificent parks and prestigious institutions, led to a frenzy of speculative apartment house construction, attracting middle-class residents who could now commute directly downtown to work. Even before the advent of zoning regulations for land use, developers erected rowhouses and modest apartment buildings on the side streets and grand apartment houses on the avenues, with particularly monumental examples on Riverside Drive, Claremont Avenue and Cathedral Parkway, and mixed-use commercial buildings along Broadway, giving the neighborhood a heterogeneous yet cohesive character. Morningside Heights’ unorthodox yet distinctive sense of place comes from the coexistence of residential and institutional clusters, as exemplified by elegant rowhouses and apartment buildings just steps away from renowned academic institutions and houses of worship. Today the neighborhood still enjoys this singular sense of place. Its institutions are impressive examples of Beaux-Arts planning and design, including the graceful approach to Grant’s Tomb, the entrance façades of St. John the Divine and Riverside Church aligned with the axes of 112th Street and 122nd Street, and especially Charles McKim’s plan for Columbia University, whose symmetry and axial layout emphasize the monumentality and unity of the surrounding architecture. The residential architecture, though sometimes grand, offers a human scale and balance to the whole neighborhood.

Hendrik Hudson Apartments, ca. 1910. Completed in 1907, the Hendrik Hudson Apartments occupy the entire block between Riverside Drive and Broadway and 110th and 111th Streets. The building was modeled on Italian villa with a Spanish tile roof. Of the two tall towers seen in this circa 1910 photograph, once one remains today. The units were spectacularly upscale (unsurprising in this neighborhood of early 20th century luxury apartments). Decorating the 7-9 room apartments was walnut paneling, wood-beamed ceilings, mahogany doors with glass knobs, and the newest technology in porcelain bathroom features. The building itself also boasted a billiard parlor, a cafe, a barber shop, and a ladies hairdressing salon for the exclusive use of tenants and their guests. The original costs for the apartments ranged from $1500 to $3000 a year.

Colosseum Apartment House, ca. 1910. This unique 1910 apartment house with the curved facade was built as a pair with the similarly curved building across the street at no. 440 Riverside Drive. Both buildings were designed by a neighborhood favorite architectural firm, Schwartz & Gross, and built by the same contractors, the Paterno Brothers (after whom the building at no. 440 is named). The Colosseum, at 13-stories, has a symmetrical facade and a grand entrance (though lacks some of the more elaborate architectural details of its larger neighbor across the street). The building was designed with only 16 apartments, including 12 and 8 room single level apartments, and ten room duplex apartments. Harlan Fiske Stone, who would go on to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1941-1946), lived in this building while Dean of Columbia University's Law School (1910-1923).

Low Memorial Library Interior STATUS Designated Interior Landmark 116th St & Broadway ARCHITECT: McKim, Mead & White; Charles F. McKim DATE: 1894-97 STYLE: Neo-Classical The design of the Low Library Interior is characterized by a restrained but striking combination of classical ornament and richly colored materials. It is an excellent expression of the classical spirit that so strongly influenced American architecture at the turn of the 20th century. Low Library is an excellent expression of the neo-Classical style. The monumental domed building is the focal point of the campus. Its imposing interior, dominated by a vast central hall with rich, classically-inspired ornament, ranks as one of the finest monumental spaces in New York City

Manhasset Apartments ARCHITECT: Joseph Wolf DATE: 1899-1901 STYLE: Beaux-Arts Erected at the turn of the century, when the Upper West Side of Manhattan became the center of apartment house construction in the city, the Manhasset is one of the city’s most imposing apartment houses. The building was designed and constructed in two phases. The lower eight stories of 1899- 1901 were designed by Joseph Wolf. The second phase, consisting of grand entrance pavilions and three additional stories incorporating a two-story slate-covered mansard, was added in 1901-05 by a new owner to the designs of Janes & Leo, a firm responsible for several of the Upper West Side’s most prominent apartment buildings. The handsome limestone, brick, and terra-cotta Beaux-Arts style facades of the Manhasset continue to attract attention, creating an important anchor at the northern edge of the Upper West Side.

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.

View of Broadway, toward the 116th Street Station, June 14, 1911.

Rudd Mansion, ca. 1911. Built by George Rudd, a British arrival to New York in 1815, the Rudd Mansion was a grandiose two-story Greek Revival mansion. Completed in 1852, after George had become quite wealthy in real estate, the mansion was built in the area called Bloomingdale, a bucolic expanse overlooking the Hudson River. Quickly enough the rest of the city began encroaching on the rural vistas here, propelled by the construction of Riverside Park (begun in 1872) and newly laid out thoroughfares. By the start of the new century, the mansion would be surrounded by new homes and apartment buildings. Interestingly the home was not given an address for decades and was known by its intersection, "Riverside Drive and 114th Street.” When Rudd's daughter died (young) in the home in 1909, the building was finally listed with an address, no. 420 Riverside Drive. In 1911 the mansion was sold and razed, a 12-story apartment house, designed by Gaetano Ajello, was constructed and remains extant today.

"Riverside Drive at the S.E. corner of West 113th Street. Apartment house, ca. 1910." The Strathmore is an apartment house built in 1909 for the Akron Building Company, and designed by Schwartz & Gross. The facade of the 12-story building is broken up into three bands. The four-story base is rusticated limestone, while floors five through ten are a dark red brick, and the top of the building is a three-story limestone and terra cotta capital and cornice. The building was designed to house two 10-room apartments on each floor and the apartments were to be of the highest luxury with high ceilings, elaborately parquet floors, and huge bathtubs.

From April 23 to April 30, 1968, Hundreds of Columbia University students occupied and barricaded five buildings on the Morningside Heights campus. They were protesting Columbia’s plan to build a private gym in Morningside Park—an “apartheid gym,” as they saw it, which would exclude the local black community, as well as disciplinary measures taken against student anti-war demonstrators. Afraid a confrontation might spark riots in nearby Harlem, Columbia President Grayson Kirk held back from calling in the police. On April 30, Columbia called in the NYPD to clear the buildings. Police arrested 705 students, at least 150 of whom they beat; more violence erupted on May 1 in skirmishes between police and demonstrators. policemen were also injured, one seriously. Lindsay publicly praised the “restraint” of most police, while admitting that some “used excessive force.”

Schinasi Mansion, ca. 1909. Built in 1909 for the Turkish-born tobacco magnate Morris Schinasi, this mansion is the largest single-family residence on Riverside Drive. Schinasi enlisted William Tuthill, the architect of Carnegie Hall, to produce a heavily ornamented, French Renaissance style residence in white marble. Some sources claim the home included a Prohibition-era trap door leading to the Hudson River below, but these claims do not appear in Landmarks Preservation Commission documents. After Schinasi’s death, the home was a finishing school, before being acquired by Columbia University. The house was bought privately by a Columbia law professor in 1979 and sold again in 2013.

The Vietnam War was a bloody conflict which lasted nearly 20 years. The United States entered the conflict because of the policy of Containment. Americans believed they needed to contain the spread of Communism in order to prevent the Domino Theory from playing out. This theory held that if one nation fell to Communism then surrounding nations would follow, much like if a person was to knock one domino tile down the others would fall in a chain reaction. As a result, the policy of Containment pursued a goal of containing or limiting Communism's spread by becoming involved in the affairs of nations at risk of turning "Red." With this in mind, US troops first arrived in Vietnam in 1955, and did not leave until 1973. Throughout those 18 years, American soldiers fought and died in the jungles of Vietnam. As time went on, many Americans grew frustrated with their nation's involvement in the conflict and began protesting to demand peace. This protest movement grew quickly and, at times, was marred by violence. However, the pressure put on the US government eventually helped to bring the troops home. Unfortunately, the 18 years, thousands of lives lost, and the millions of dollars spent ultimately proved ineffective at stopping Ho Chi Minh's communist regime from taking over Vietnam in 1975. To this day, the Vietnam War is considered one of America's darkest chapters. Its legacy continues to effect our nation and its veterans of the conflict in particular. As you read, consider how the Vietnam War shaped domestic feelings and movements and how people have come to remember the conflict today. NYS Social Studies Scope and Sequence Standards: 8.7, 8.9 & 11.9 For Teachers: Vietnam War @ Home Lesson Plan

Morris and Laurette Schinasi House ARCHITECT: William B. Tuthill DATE: 1907-09 This two and a half story building is basically rectangular in plan, accented by an interplay of projected and recessed wall sections. The flush entrance facade, facing Riverside Drive, is pierced by windows on each floor. The main doorway, located to the right, is approached by steps flanked by wing walls. These wing walls terminate in high, square, newel posts that, in turn, connect with the balustraded yard railing.

Seventh Church of Christ Scientist, August 22, 1929. Designed by Griffin & Wynkoop, this Greek Revival church was completed in 1919. Clad in white limestone, the facade boasted no windows. The building survived until the late 1980s when the church sold the deteriorating church and its brownstone neighbor (which housed administrative offices and the Sunday school). The purchasing developers constructed a modest, modern church facade with a large circular window (that the church owns outright) next to a 22-story condo building, both clad in red brick.

Often thought of as a "concrete jungle," New York City also has a rich history of environmental activism--from the creation of green spaces to confronting climate change. In the decades following the first Earth Day in 1970 and the birth of the environmental movement, New Yorkers sought to make their city greener with recycling centers, community gardens, and bike lanes. Activist groups also called for improved environmental conditions and air quality that disproportionately affected people of color. Though the city is less polluted today, climate change has posed large challenges that have ignited a new generation of environmental activists. Explore key sites of eco-advocacy in the city from the 1960s to today.

435 Riverside Drive Schwartz & Gross 1909 and 1910 Joseph, Charles, Michael and Anthony Paterno were prolific apartment house builders in Morningside Heights between 1898 and 1924. The Paterno and the Colosseum were constructed across 116th Street from one another on the corner of Riverside Drive. Both buildings feature curved corner façades with stone bases and Renaissance ornamentation.

Charles McKim, 1895–97: New York City Individual and Interior Landmark, State and National Registers of Historic Places Charles McKim designed the campus in the Beaux-Arts style popularized at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Its focal point is Low Library, designed in the Roman Classical style, with Italian Renaissance–inspired classroom buildings flanking it in the forecourt and rear. Fashioned after the Baths of Caracalla and the Pantheon, the library’s granite dome is the country’s largest. The university outgrew Low Library in the 1920s, and a new library named for then president Nicholas Murray Butler was built on the campus’ southern end.

The Great God Pan, ca. 1907. Originally located (as seen here) at the center of a fountain on the north side of the Columbia campus, the bronze sculpture was actually intended for a very different location. Commission by the Clark family in the 1890s for a location at their Dakota apartment building, the resulting statue was deemed too risque for the apartment house. For a time it was considered for a spot in Central Park, but finally Edward Severin Clark donated the piece to Columbia for its uptown campus. It was installed in 1907 as a working fountain in a grotto on the northeast corner of campus. It was moved, at an unknown point in the 20th century to its current location outside of Lewisohn Hall. Pan, (deemed to risque for the Dakota) by the American artist George Grey Barnard, is depicted in his usual form as half-man (nude), half-goat, playing his traditional pipes. Cast from bronze by the Henry-Bonnard Bronze Co., a local foundry, it was one of Branard's first commissions. His later medieval architectural fragments and sculptures would go to become the foundation for the The Cloisters Museum & Gardens at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Low Memorial Library, c. 1975. President Seth Low founded the Low Memorial Library in honor of his father, Abiel Abbot Low. It was designed in the Neoclassical style by Charles Follen McKim of the renowned architecture firm McKim, Mead, and White, who designed the Beaux-Arts plan that governs Columbia University's campus. The Low Memorial Library was constructed from 1895 until 1897 as the first major building on the new campus. It was meant to be both the visual and the academic focus of the grounds. The building, a Greek cross in plan, was modeled after the Pantheon, with windows inspired by the Baths of Diocletian, and various Classical influences on the outside, including busts of Apollo, Zeus, and Athena. The great hall of the building, octagonal in plan, was designed as the main reading room. The reading room took influence from the Reading Room at the British Museum, which was circular in plan and also covered by a domed ceiling. A circular arrangement of tiered desks surrounded a central reception desk, both of which occupy the space under the rounded ceiling. The ceiling is painted dark blue and adorned with a suspended white sphere meant to represent the moon and night sky. The reading room held 12,000 of the library's books, and at maximum capacity, the library was to hold 1,900,000 volumes in total. Since 1934, the reading room has been repurposed for more ceremonious occasions such as exhibitions, convocations, and as a reception area. The iconic facade of the building is used as the backdrop for Columbia's graduation ceremonies. During the protests at Columbia in 1968, the library, which also housed the president's office, was occupied by a group of students. The students were protesting the university's involvement in the Vietnam War and, among other things, a segregated gymnasium proposed near campus. Of the drama that ensued, one account by a former student describes food being hurled at the building to feed the occupants. Peculiarly, the 1897 Real Estate Record and Guide wrote that the Library's design was a direct copy of a French Church designed by an architect called Rumpf. There is no record of such a building, though the Guide wrote of the building, "Successful architects have too much to do to be pre-eminently artists -- they much be first-rate men of business." The library is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Sunnycrest Apartments, ca. 1905. The early advertising for the Sunnycrest Apartments noted its proximity to the Hudson River, St. John the Divine, and subway, street car, and elevated train stations. The 1907-completed Colonial style building in red brick and limestone decoration was designed by the neighborhood favorite firm of Schwartz and Gross. Though laid out originally as substantially sized apartments with servants space, the building became single occupancy residences by the mid century. At some point prior to 1965 Columbia University became the owner of this building, known then as York Studios. That year the evicted the tenants of the building for then unknown reasons. The structure was demolished at some point in the mid to late 20th century and today the site is used as a parking lot.

Pulitzer Hall (formerly Journalism Hall), home to the Columbia University Graduate school of Journalism, undated photo. The Columbia Journalism School is the only journalism school in the Ivy League and one of the oldest in the world. Established by newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer, the school and the related Pulitzer Prizes were funded via a gift of $2 million in 1903. It took nearly a decade to iron out the details from the time of the gift until the official founding and matriculation of the first class in 1912. The classical building that has housed the school since its inception (and was funded through the original gift) was known for its first century as Journalism Hall. Alas a closer reading (in 2003) of the 1903 gift agreement uncovered the specification that "the building shall bear the name of the donor." In 2012 during the celebration of the school's centennial, the building was renamed Pulitzer Hall.

Louis Kossuth monument, Riverside Park, ca. 1976. This monument to the 19th century Hungarian patriot was erected in 1928. Its inscription reads: "Erected by a liberty loving race of Americans of Magyar origin to Louis Kossuth the great champion of liberty."

"445-447 Riverside Drive. The Stadium and Shoreham View Apartment, ca. 1912."

The Manhasset is an 11-story apartment house located on Broadway between West 108th and 109th Streets on the Upper West Side. Apartment houses were a brand new building type imported from France. When they began appearing on the Upper West Side in the 1880s, families had to adjust to the idea of living in the same building as other families. Advantages of apartment living included not needing so many servants and having elevators, which were new technology then. Built in 1899, the Manhasset is colorful and grand. The top floor roofs have a special form called mansard. The building covers the entire block-front, and, because it is located where Broadway makes a curve, it can be seen from many blocks away. Originally, the Manhasset was an eight-story apartment house. A few years later it was redesigned by two famous architects, Janes and Leo. In addition to making it taller, they added many shops on the first floor after the opening of the subway in 1904. The original 77 apartments, planned for upper middle class families, contained six, seven, or nine rooms with one to three baths. In 1905, the New York Census records the presence of many professional and business people. Most of the renters were born in the United States, but there were also a number of adults who were immigrants from Germany as well as others from Ireland, France, and Canada. As would be expected on the diverse Upper West Side, the residents appear to have been from various ethnic groups and religions and included Catholics, Protestants, and Jews. Each apartment included a single servant’s room, and most residents had one or two live-in servants.

To learn more about the Columbia University Protests of '68, visit: https://www.gothamcenter.org/blog/remembering-the-columbia-protest-of-68-students AND https://www.gothamcenter.org/blog/remembering-the-columbia-protest-of-68-faculty

Low Memorial Library, Columbia University, ca. 1975. Seth Low, the president of Columbia College, which in the 1890s was located at Madison Avenue at 50th Street, established a great urban university that would eventually be called Columbia University in the City of New York. He built a new campus for this university in the open spaces of 114th to 120th Streets between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue. The first building erected on this new campus was the library and President Low was its benefactor. The University moved to its new campus in 1897