Hamilton Grange at its second location before St. Luke's Richardsonian Romanesque church was constructed, ca. 1889.

Washington Arms at 554 West 148th Street, date unknown.

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

The plain style of the Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. School defies the dynamic community activism that facilitated its completion in an era of disinvestment in the city’s black and Latino neighborhoods. However, the school’s almost Brutalist style façades are typical of schools built during the postwar era, with its solid mass of red brick punctuated by narrow bands of windows on the upper stories. In the late 1960s, the city commissioned P.S. 153 to replace the aging and overcrowded P.S. 186, acquiring and clearing a tract of residential buildings. After the school was not included in the Board of Education’s austere annual budget in 1971, the locally-led National Economic Growth and Reconstruction Organization (NEGRO) staged a boycott, with staff and students relocating to temporary classrooms throughout the neighborhood until construction began on P.S. 153. Finally completed in 1975, the school was named after Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., who, in 1941, was the first African-American elected to New York City Council before representing Harlem in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1945 to 1971. In 1994-95, the school constructed an addition on the site of its playground (which was relocated to the roof) to house kindergarten and first grade students.

287 Convent Avenue, 1932. Hamilton Grange in its second location! The 1802 home of Alexander Hamilton was originally located at approximately West 143rd Street between what is now Convent Avenue and Hamilton Place. Built by John McComb Jr., the two-story Federal style house was only home to Hamilton for two years before his death by duel in 1804. The home remained in his family until the 1840s. By the 1880s the home had been condemned and was likely to be razed for the implementation of the street grid uptown. St. Luke's, an Episcopal parish originally organized in Greenwich Village, had recently moved uptown. In 1889, the church had the structure moved east and south (about 250 feet) to a new lot at 287 Convent just north of 141st Street. For the move many features of the home, including the original porches, were removed, the traditional entrance was sealed (that side of the house was no longer the front), and a new staircase and entrance were created once the home was in place. The church used the house for their first uptown services in 1889, but soon after built their own massive Richardsonian Romanesque church. In the 1910s a new apartment building was constructed within inches of the Grange (it can be seen at left in this 1932 photograph). The home became a public museum in 1924. It stood, literally encircled on one side by the church and squeezed in on the other side by the apartment building, until 2008. After being closed in 2006 for architectural and structural surveys, it was decided that a more appropriate place for the house was in nearby St. Nicholas Park. The home was raised high enough to pass over the loggia (porch) of the church that curved around it. In July of 2008, from its spot on stilts in the middle of Convent Avenue, the home was moved 500 feet to the park. Attached to its new foundation, the home had its original staircase and entrance restored. It also had 13 sweet gum trees (for the original 13 states) installed nearby, exactly as Hamilton had planted in 1802. Hamilton Grange reopened to the public in September 2011.

603 West 148th Street, 1932. The staircase leading down the the home at least 15 feet below the grade. Today no. 603 is a narrow apartment house at the level of the street.

Hamilton Apartments, ca. 1910.

Hamilton Theatre, 1915. Constructed in 1912-1913, the Hamilton Theatre was vaudeville house designed by famed theatre architect Thomas Lamb.The neo-Renaissance building has large round-arched windows that dominate the facades. The upper floors are clad in terra cotta and cast iron, with an elaborate bracketed cornice (since removed). The marquee in this 1915 photo advertises Ethel Barrymore in "The Final Judgement" and "Vaudeville Photo Plays." The building became an RKO movie theatre in 1928 as vaudeville was being replaced by "talking pictures." The theatre operated until 1958. In the later 20th century, the building was a sports venue and disco. An evangelical church owned and occupied the building from 1965 until the mid 1990s. The lobby has been converted to retail space, the auditorium has been unused since the 1990s and the marquee has been removed.

Designed by architects Bannister & Shell and built in 1906, this church at 459 West 149th Street burned in 1963. Only a small portion of the parish house and an adjoining rectory survive.

West Harlem is graced with several rows of wood-frame houses, a rare sight in Manhattan, where fire codes in the 19th century halted their construction. Nos. 454-460 West 150th Street form a row of four attached wood-frame dwellings, with an asymmetrical roofline of peaked dormers and a central gable over 458-460. Now faced in green and white permastone, historic photographs indicate that these houses once boasted Queen Anne detailing and shingle façades. The group on West 150th Street originally extended to the corner of Convent Avenue and encompassed nos. 450-460, but the end structure was demolished in the early 2000s. They were designed by John Hemenway Duncan, whose notable work includes Grant’s Tomb in Manhattan and the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument in Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza.

(Charles F. McKim of McKim, Mead & White, 1905-06) The New York Public Library’s Hamilton Grange branch, named for the nearby home of Alexander Hamilton, was one of over 60 circulating libraries built with funds from Andrew Carnegie in the early 20th century. Charles McKim designed this Italian Renaissance-inspired, three-story, mid-block building— three characteristics typical of branch libraries during this period. The illusion created by the grading of the building’s fenestration, from the round-arch windows and door on the first floor to the five small, rectangular windows on the third floor, imbues a grand scale to this otherwise modest “palazzo.” The grandeur of the Renaissance style is also reflected in details like the first story window grills and the fleur-de-lis-patterned frieze under the dentilled cornice. The library underwent an interior modernization in 1975 and contains a collection of Spanish publications and works on African-American heritage to serve its local constituency

(Hugo Kakfa, 1885-86) In 1885 Joseph Loth & Company, a silk ribbon manufacturer, commissioned this industrial building, designed in a reversed K plan to ensure well-lit working spaces and constructed of materials that adhered to the city’s strict building codes for mills. While certain components of its design, like the narrow window bays flanked by pilasters, were typical of American mill buildings of the time, the sandstone and red brick façades also had unique ornamentation and panels to identify the firm. The building’s chimney, rising above its three stories, serves as a reminder of the coal-fired boilers that powered the factory’s looms and provided electricity. One of the few industrial enterprises in West Harlem, the mill was built at a time when the neighborhood was characterized by small farms and wood-frame houses. After the company vacated the factory in 1902, the founder’s son Bernard Loth purchased the building and converted it to partial commercial use, constructing a larger entrance on Amsterdam Avenue with cast-iron storefronts. Over the years it also housed offices for a storage company, a movie theater, a dry goods store, a firm producing theater scenery, a recording studio and a basement bowling alley. Today it is home to the New Heights Academy Charter School.

Hamilton Grange porch detail, with St Luke's loggia (first floor exterior gallery) archways seen in the background, date, unknown.

Hamilton Grange, prior to its first move, 1889. When the house was moved the main entrance and staircase were removed because the house was going to be facing the street with what was the original side facade. Here the main entrance is seen cut back and the home is on piles of brick pillars in preparation for the move. Notice the rowhouses that had already been constructed in the distance. Much of Hamilton's original 32-acre estate would become residents on the newly implemented street grid.

Hamilton Grange with porch configuration and non-original entrance at 287 Convent Avenue, date unknown.

Hamilton Grange in its original location, pre-1889. The 1802 home of Alexander Hamilton was originally located here at approximately West 143rd Street between Convent Avenue and Hamilton Place. Built by John McComb Jr, the two-story Federal style home was only home to Hamilton for two years before his death. The home remained in his family until the 1840s. In 1889 the home was moved south about 250 feet to 287 Convent Avenue by the St. Luke's Episcopal Church. Notice at right the grove of trees. While Hamilton lived in the home, he had 13 sweet gum trees planted in honor of the 13 original states. When the home was moved a second time in 2008 to St. Nicholas Park, the new landscaping included a new grove of 13 trees.

He told her she could “guess and guess again,” but that he would let her in on his “scheme” when they next saw each other. Now that Alexander Hamilton has been restored as one of the most talked-about New Yorkers, reminders of his footsteps through the city are cropping up all over the grid. He's also a featured personality in New York at its Core, where visitors will have the opportunity to “meet” him through an innovative interactive storyline that highlights his founding of the Bank of New York, a central aspect of the city’s recovery after the devastation of the Revolutionary War and British occupation.

791-793 St. Nicholas Avenue, two 2 1/2-story frame houses adjoining the south west corner of 150th Street, 1932.

Documentation of gay men and lesbians living and socializing in New York City dates back well over 150 years. In this curated collection, cultural institutions, residences, and bars reveal a gay community that thrived in pre-20th century New York.

Temple B'Nai Israel ca. 1922 Because this was the most aesthetically-accomplished synagogue designed by Henry Roth in the metropolitan New York area, it's all the more sad that the domed interior ornamented with neo-classical elements, like the rosette above, no longer survives and the square dome of the exterior had much of its elaborately-embossed copper cladding stolen. Fortunately, a profusion of finely-carved Jewish iconography, including citrons (citrus fruits) and menorrahs, are still intact.

(Nathaniel D. Bush, 1871-72) Completed in 1872 as part of a larger effort to improve the city’s police facilities, the 32nd Police Precinct House served as the police department’s outpost in Carmansville, serving a large but sparsely populated area centered around the churches, hotel and residences adjacent to Trinity Cemetery. Officers on patrol could send telegraph messages from signal boxes to the station house, where sleeping quarters provided living space for the captain, sergeants and other officers. Nathaniel Bush, who designed numerous station houses throughout the city during his tenure as the Police Department’s architect, designed the 32nd Police Precinct House in the French Second Empire style. This symmetrical, three-story building is set under a slate mansard roof with a central tower. A two-story jail annex was constructed on West 152nd Street. Situated near the cluster of churches that once formed the core of Carmansville, the Precinct House was purchased by the nearby St. Luke African Methodist Episcopal Church (site 5) for use as its administration building.

418-422 West 150th Street, south side, east of Convent Avenue, ca. 1913.

P.S. 186, 1920. Public School 186 opened in 1903, one of over 170 school buildings designed by prolific Superintendent of School Buildings C.B.J. Snyder during his 32-year tenure. By the mid-70s, the school had slid into disrepair and was plagued by hazardous overcrowding and crime. After the school was shuttered in 1975, the building's condition continued to deteriorate. The building was purchased by the Boys and Girls Club of Harlem in 1986, but an expected redevelopment as a community center never came to pass. For decades, the building sat vacant. In 2013, the building was purchased by a construction firm and converted to private residences. Today, the refurbished building — which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places — retains Snyder's original layout, and includes ground floor space operated by the Boys and Girls Club.

New York is the city that never sleeps, and these photos prove it. If you were looking for a (neon) sign, we've got a few here!

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.

603 West 148th Street, 1932. This wood-frame home dated to a time when this very steep street was at a much lower grade.

10 Nicholas Place at the corner of West 150th Street, as seen from St, Nicholas Avenue, 1935. Designed by Samuel Burrage Reed for famed circus producer James Bailey, the Romanesque Revival style mansion was completed in 1888. The stately home, despite being surrounded by apartment houses today and for much of the 20th century, was constructed in a still rural area. Impressive from both facades visible on the large corner plot, the house features a three-story corner tower at St. Nicolas Place and 150th Street and three smaller turrets at the other corners of the home. Supposedly the home was filled with trophies, animal skins, and other curios and artifacts from Bailey's circus travels. It also featured a number of pictorial stained glass mosaic windows. The house was so admired that Chester Wickwire got permission to build a mirror image replica in Courtland, New York . In the 1940s the home was owned by Dr. Franz Koempel, a doctor and pioneering X-ray specialist. When his widow put the house up for sale in the early 1950s, it was purchased by a local African American woman who had always admired it. The asking price: $86,000 (only $6k more than it had cost to build in 1888). She ran a funeral home on the first floor during the second half of the 20th century. In recent years it has seen a large-scale renovation. Along with its neighbors (no. 14-16 is pair of attached houses designed to look like one massive mansion), no. 10 stands newly restored, with a gleaming light colored stone facade, at a high point of the surrounding Sugar Hill neighborhood.

Washington Theatre ca. 1910 Thomas W. Lamb's (1871-1942) Washington Theatre, at 1801-1807 Amsterdam Avenue and 149th Street, was more modestly made of tapestry brick and used comic and tragic masks as keystones. Here, the proscenium painting was an eighteenth-century pastoral scene; the fireproof asbestos stage curtain displayed Washington crossing the Delaware. Today, the building serves as the Childs Memorial Temple Church of God in Christ and was the setting of Malcolm X in 1965.

The 11-story Beaumont Apartments was one of many apartment buildings constructed in West Harlem following the 1904 opening of the subway along Broadway. It is a fine example of George & Edward Blum’s use of the Arts & Crafts style. Rising up from a two-story limestone base, the building’s façade is enlivened by patterned brickwork, geometric tile patterns, ornate iron balconies and terracotta bandcourses. Perhaps in reference to its proximity to the home of John James Audubon, the Blums’ design features decorative terra-cotta medallions with images of owls, eagles and parakeets, among other birds. Similar to many of the luxury courtyard apartment buildings of the time, the Beaumont originally offered apartments ranging from five to eight rooms, including entrance foyers and ample closet space. The building has been the home of such notable residents as Congressman Jacob Javits and writer Ralph Ellison.The Beaumont Apartments is a NYC Individual Landmark.

(Thomas W. Lamb, 1912-13) Although missing its original ornate cornice, the Hamilton Theater, designed by famed movie architect Thomas Lamb, prominently stands out on its corner lot. The building’s round-arch windows feature cast-iron caryatids supporting pediments at the second story and oculi at the third story apex of the arches. The Hamilton is typical of Lamb’s early, smaller neighborhood theaters in its neo-Renaissance style, three-story height and use of terra cotta. As Harlem developed at the end of the 19th century, the theater became one of the many satellite centers of entertainment appearing in the burgeoning residential neighborhoods along the new subway system. The 2,500-seat theater was conceived in 1912 by theater operators B.S. Moss and Solomon Brill to host vaudeville performances, screen motion pictures and feature dining and recreational space in the basement and rooftop. Moss sold his theater empire to RadioKeith-Orpheum Radio Pictures, Inc. in 1928, which operated the Hamilton until its closure and conversion to a sports arena in 1958.

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.

The otherwise unassuming Russian Holy Fathers Church is smaller than other churches on the block, but makes its mark with a blue onion dome topped by a golden cross. The rise of the Soviet Union and its hostility towards the Russian Orthodox Church prompted North American religious leaders to split from Russian leadership and establish an autonomous jurisdiction. In response, religious leaders loyal to the Patriarchate of Russia founded the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia and established new parishes, of which Holy Fathers Church was the first. Founded in 1928 and originally located on Fifth Avenue between 128th and 129th Streets, the Russian Holy Fathers Church moved to a converted space on West 153rd Street in the late 1930s. By 1966, under the leadership of Protopriest Alexander Krasnoumov, the congregation had raised funds to construct its own building, remaining on West 153rd Street a block from its original location.

Hamilton’s impact on New York City was deep and long-lasting. In addition to establishing the Bank of New York and resurrecting Columbia College, he advocated for the city through his role as the first Secretary of the Treasury. A physical reminder of Hamilton’s presence remains in Harlem in the form his “country” estate, The Grange, although it has moved a couple of times over the last 200 years in response to our growing metropolis. Towards the end of his political, financial, and legal career, Alexander Hamilton wrote to his wife, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, about a “sweet project” he was planning, with which she would be pleased. He told her she could “guess and guess again,” but that he would let her in on his “scheme” when they next saw each other. Hamilton’s plan was to purchase land in part of upper Manhattan about nine miles above the city limits of the time, and to commission a country home. The Federal-style home was designed by John McComb, Jr., and Hamilton named the estate “The Grange” after his family’s ancestral home in Scotland. The Grange was finished in 1802 and Hamilton lived there for just two years, until his death-by-duel in 1804. Hamilton’s widow sold the home in 1833 and moved downtown. By 1889, the Grange had fallen into disrepair and was set to be razed to make room for the expanding city grid. The estate sat on what was to be 143rd Street – the street would have run right through the house’s northwest corner. Luckily, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, in the midst of relocating from Greenwich Village, acquired the house and moved it a half block east and two blocks south, out of the way of the city’s bulldozers. The home’s original porches and staircase were removed for the move; the original front entrance was boarded up; and a new entrance was added to the side of the house, which now faced the street. St. Luke’s used the house for various purposes and built an adjacent church building that nearly touched The Grange’s front porch. In 1924 the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society purchased The Grange and turned it into a museum, complete with furniture and decorative objects associated with the Hamilton family. The house changed hands yet again in 1962, after being purchased by the National Park Foundation and transferred to the National Park Service. The same year Congress designated The Grange as a National Memorial, with the caveat that it be relocated, again, and restored to its original condition. The second relocation didn’t occur until about 45 years later, in part due to local opposition to moving the home from its spot on Convent Avenue in the eponymous Hamilton Heights neighborhood. Residents were afraid the move would effect the character of the community. Officials decided to move The Grange to nearby St. Nicholas Park, where the home would remain within the original 32 acres of Hamilton’s estate, and where its original features could be restored. The Grange temporarily closed in 2006 – the home was moved one block south and one block east in June 2008 – and in September 2011, it finally re-opened to the public.. The house is oriented in a different direction, allowing for a better view from the street, but otherwise its original characteristics have been restored, including the addition of 13 sweet gum trees – the same variety that Hamilton had planted to represent the original 13 colonies. Perhaps Hamilton already had these trees in mind when he referred to The Grange as his “sweet project!”