Friends Meeting House, Stuyvesant Square, ca, 1900. The Friends Meeting House and Seminary in Stuyvesant Square date to 1860. In the 1820s a schism occurred within the Society of Friends in New York. When the larger Quaker community began accepting the then in-fashion focus on intense Bible study, a group led by Elias Hicks of Long Island defected. (Traditional Quaker practice places the utmost importance on the personal relationship and direct interaction between worshiper and deity.) The break off group, referred to as Hicksites, purchased land on what had formerly been Peter Stuyvesant's estate. In 1860 one of their own, Charles Bunting, designed and built the pictured the Meeting House and Seminary. The red brick buildings are a mix of Federal and Greek Revival styles, rendered in a simple and unassuming design. In the 1950s, more then a century after the split, the two Quaker sects reunited. Today, they continue to occupy these buildings. The Friends Seminary, a private day school, run here is the oldest continuously coeducational school in New York City. The school was founded in 1786 with funds from a $10,000 bequest by wealthy merchant Robert Murray (who the neighborhood Murray Hills named).

Friends Meeting House and Seminary ARCHITECT: Charles T. Bunting DATE: 1861 These two buildings are fine brick buildings built in the style of an earlier period. They display great elegance in their simplicity and, as a pair of buildings, set off in spacious grounds, they are a positive addition to Stuyvesant Square.

Between 1954 and 1957, the Municipal Art Society surveyed historic buildings in all five boroughs to create a database of potential landmarks to preserve. Local residents and MAS staff compiled individual sheets devoted to about 200 buildings. Each sheet outlined the building’s date, location, and style and provided a description and a small photograph. This is the list of Manhattan buildings.

Hermoine Panken Mokray, daughter of beloved Lower East Side family court judge, socialist politician, and Forward Association president Jacob Panken, was also a Jewish politician in her own right as well as a Women’s Army Corps aviation cadet veteran of WWII, social worker, and activist from New York.