135 Hamilton Place, ca. 1910. Unfortunately the flourishes at the roofline of this building has since been removed and bricked up.

St. Francis Court, ca. 1910. Early advertising for St. Franics Court notes that its location on "the choicest corner' of Riverside Drive afford it 20-mile views of the Hudson River and the hills of New Jersey. The apartments offered in this Neville & Bagge-designed building were five, six, or seven rooms with wood floors and a long distance telephone in each apartment! They rented for between $700 and $1500 a year.

Known locally as the “castle,” A late Gothic Revival building with a façade of roughhewn stone and terra-cotta trim was built for Saint Walburga’s Academy of the Holy Child of Jesus. Founded in 1904 to educate and house orphans, the convent and school were originally located in the two ornate mid-19th century mansions shown here. In their place rose an imposing, five-story, nine-bay structure with a crenellated tower puncturing its gable roof. Similar in appearance to the nearby City College campus, both institutions were constructed of schist excavated during the construction of the IRT subway. In 1957, the academy relocated to Rye, New York, and rechristened itself as the School of the Holy Child. After numerous failed attempts to repurpose the abandoned school, the Fortune Society purchased the building in 1998 and utilized historic tax credits to restore the exterior. It was converted into emergency and longterm housing for the formerly incarcerated

U.S.S. "Illinois" and Launch, July 2, 1937. Launched in 1898 and commissioned in 1901, the U.S.S. Illinois was a naval battleship. Active in the European Squadron and North Atlantic fleet through 1907, between 1907 and 1909 the ship was one a group, called the Great White Fleet, that circumnavigated the globe. After being decommissioned in late summer 1909, she became a training ship and was lent to New York State as a training vessel for the New York Naval Militia in 1919. Five years later the ship had a building-type structure constructed on its main deck when it became a floating armory, barracks, and the location of the Naval Reserves Midshipmen's School. Renamed the Prairie State in 1941 (so that a new battleship called Illinois could be commissioned) the ship would survive until 1956 when it was removed from the naval register and sold for scrap in Baltimore.

1560 Amsterdam Avenue, west side, between West 136th and West 138th Streets, showing the Hebrew Orphans Asylum, date unknown. Hebrew Orphans Asylum was established in 1860 for the care of orphaned Jewish children. The large building was constructed in 1884 in a Renaissance Revival style and designed by William H. Hume. The building functioned as an institutional home for children until 1941. It was demolished in 1956.

(Carlson & Wiseman, 1921) This three-story commercial structure, spanning the full block-front on Broadway, was originally the Gotham Theatre. Although most of the building’s exterior finishes have been removed, the inscribed words “Gotham Theatre,” flanked by Corinthian pilasters, exhibit the building’s original use. It was commissioned by Harris Theatrical Enterprises, which operated numerous theaters throughout the city, including the nearby Dorset/ Bunny Theatre at 3589 Broadway. The company hired the firm of Carlson & Wiseman, which designed a number of other theaters, including Brooklyn’s Alpine Cinema and Alhambra Theatre. Renamed the Delmar Theatre in 1937, the building remained in use as a theater until 1961. Located next to Montefiore Park, the theater was constructed on the site of the Montefiore House, founded by Jewish philanthropists to serve those suffering from chronic illnesses and the predecessor to the Bronx’s Montefiore Medical Center.

St. Walburga Convent and School, 1931. St. Walburga Convent and School (named after an 8th-century British female saint) provided housing and education for orphans administered by nuns. It was both a boarding and a day school for girls. It was originally housed in a pair of large 19th-century homes. This Gothic Revival building was constructed between 1911 and 1913 and remained St. Walburga until the late 1950s when the school moved upstate. In 1998 the building was purchased by an organization that assists formerly incarcerated people in reintegrating to society called the Fortune Society. With this new occupant, the building was restored and now can house up to 62 individuals.

Adolph Lewisohn Stadium, during a formal reception for Italian legation when Italy entered World War I., ca. 1915. The Lewisohn Stadium was an amphitheater and athletic facility built where City College's North Academic Center presently stands. Designed by Arnold W. Brunner, the arena opened in 1915 and was the site of City College's athletic events and commencement ceremonies from its inception to 1973, when it was demolished. The structure could not have been built without the financial support of philanthropist Adolph Lewisohn, who donated the money for construction. It was through his contribution that the school was able to construct a great open space that not only served the student body but the public. The stadium was a destination for elaborate theatrical events, summer concerts, including the production of The Trojan Women at the dedication ceremony. In 1973, the structure was demolished to make way for the $125 million North Academic Center.

Hamilton Gate on Convent Avenue, undated postcard. Four concrete and metal arched gates, rendered in a neo-Gothic style, created four entrances to the North Campus Quadrangle of City College. Mirroring the original neo-Gothic buildings of the campus (the building seen here is Shepard Hall), the gates were all named for famous men, Hudson, Washington, Stuyvesant, and Hamilton. This gate at the northern edge of Convent Avenue was named for Alexander Hamilton who lived nearby at the start of the 19th century.

Hamilton Place and West 138th Street. February 1, 1949. The building at center-right is No. 30 Hamilton Place. At left is Montefiore Square Park, named for Sir Moses Haim Montefiore, a prominent 19th century British-Italian Jewish philanthropist. In 1884, members of New York’s Jewish philanthropic community established the Montefiore Chronic Individuals on the Upper East Side. The Home moved to 138th Street in 1889; the park was acquired and named for Montefiore in 1906. Today, the institution is known as the Montefiore Medical Center, and has been located in the Bronx neighborhood of Norwood since 1913.

College of the City of New York: The Main Building, 1911. Described in the LPC designation report as being shaped from above as a stubby anchor, Shepard Hall (originally known as Main Hall) is the largest of the buildings on the City College of New York North Campus. Built in a lavish neo-Gothic style with terra cotta quoins and a seven-story tower, Shepard Hall is the "cathedral" of this campus. Designed, along with most of the other university buildings nearby, by George B. Post between 1903 and 1907, it was the particular project a former graduate Edward Morse Shepard. Shepard would oversee the design and decoration of the enormous room within the Main Building called the Great Hall, which could accommodate more than 1000 people.

Block 2075, made up of 17 apartment buildings, is representative of the “Apartment Court” building typology found throughout West Harlem. Derived from Ernest Flagg’s “New Law Tenement” design, these apartment buildings were designed to meet the 1901 Tenement House Act requirement that every room contain at least one window. Building codes only permitted self-service elevators in low rise buildings, so apartment courts typically ranged from five to seven stories. These buildings proliferated in the city’s expanding middle class districts, with 63 apartment courts built on Broadway and Riverside, from West 135th to West 165th Streets, between 1905 and 1908. The prolific firm of Neville & Bagge designed at least three of the buildings on Block 2075: Washington Court at 3502-3512 Broadway; Lucerne Court at 505 West 143rd Street; and Hamilton Court at 501 West 143rd Street and 144 Hamilton Place. All of these feature brick and limestone façades designed in the neo-Renaissance and Italianate styles and included self-service elevators and servants’ quarters. Before these buildings’ construction, this block was the home of the Colored Orphan Asylum, constructed in 1867. Founded in 1836 by Quakers, it was originally located at 5th Avenue and 42nd Street until it was burnt to the ground during the Draft Riots of 1863. Although the 233 children at the orphanage escaped unharmed, the building’s destruction prompted the institution to move to the then isolated environs of rural West Harlem. The three-story brick building with a central tower was laid out in a cross plan and positioned mid-block. As professional opinion shifted against large institutions, the asylum constructed a new campus of smaller “cottages” in Riverdale in 1907, selling off its West Harlem site just as the construction of the IRT subway spurred a building boom in the neighborhood.

U.S.S. "Illinois" and Wharf: Armory for Naval Reserves, July 2, 1937. The USS Prairie State docked at the 135th Pier on the Hudson River was the nation's largest floating armory. The 375-foot houseboat had been a naval battleship, the USS Illinois, from 1901 until 1920. In 1924, it was disarmed and converted into an armory with the large, barn-like shed built on the hull. The USS Prairie State remained until 1951, when it was relocated to 25th Street on the East River and eventually scrapped. In 1991, the City opened the North River Waste Water Treatment plant on this site.

136th Street, east of the northeast corner of Broadway, 1931. The four-story building in the background is part of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum. In the foreground on the corner is a once common rail car diner, which has since been replaced by an equally if not more ubiquitous today market and corner fruit stand.

35 Hamilton Place, north east corner of West 138th Street, ca. 1922.

Townsend - Harris Hall, City College, ca. 1910.

(Gaetano Ajello, 1913-1914) As evidenced by the terra-cotta movie camera and tripod in its parapet, the Claremont Theater is one of the city’s first buildings built specifically to show motion pictures. The two-story, neo-Renaissance building faced in white brick and terra cotta is distinguished by its chamfered corner, a rarity in Manhattan’s gridiron plan. Unlike the first theaters downtown which was simply nickelodeons located in storefronts, those built-in expanding neighborhoods like West Harlem were freestanding structures built by theater operators seeking to elevate the movie-going experience. Commissioned by the Wayside Realty Company, the theater was the only non-residential building by architect Gaetano Ajello, who designed roughly 30 apartment buildings on the Upper West Side. Seating between 1,200 and 1,500 people and featuring multiple shows a week, the Claremont Theater also boasted a second-floor restaurant and dance hall.

This group of 15 Italianate rowhouses was constructed around 1899 by an unknown developer. Each three stories with an English basement, they were built as speculative housing for working class families, including some European immigrants. The houses can be divided into four sub-groups based on their distinctive ornamentation, such as the rock-faced brownstone basements at 611-619. Over time, the houses were subdivided and eventually hosted a number of artists after the 1921 opening of the Gotham Theatre (site 19). The unified appearance of this block has been compromised over the years, as stoops have been removed and window openings altered.