When one speaks about the historic buildings of New York City, images of the stately brick rowhouses of Brooklyn, the cast-iron office buildings of SoHo, and the elaborate mansions of 5th Avenue come to mind. But the interesting architecture of the city is not limited to buildings constructed before 1900 in a classical style. Buildings built in the modern styles in the middle of the 20th century dot the streetscape and range from tall office buildings, to transportation structures, to private residences. These Mid-Century Modern buildings with their unique shapes, unusual massing, and uncommon materials (at least uncommon compared to architecture that came before) stand out from the earlier masonry buildings and the contemporary glassy structures that surround them.

Grace Institute ca. 1929 Founded in 1897 with funds provided by former mayor William R. Grace and his family, Grace Institute opened in 1898 in a remodeled mansion on West 60th Street. The Sisters of Charity provided instruction within a nonsectarian framework. By its second year of operation, the Institute enrolled 500 girls and women in cooking, sewing, millinery, stenography, and bookkeeping classes. Although no longer administered by the Sisters of Charity, Grace Institute continues to provide practical tuition-free education for women.

Leon Lowenstein Academic Building, Fordham University Lincoln Center Campus, ca. 1974. This 14-story Modernist building was constructed as the second building of the Fordham University Lincoln Center campus in 1969. The facade is raw concrete and the repeated rectangular windows give the building a utilitarian look, described by one modern writer as, " look\[ing] like a prison or socialist government building...uninviting, boring and generally ugly eye sore." Though it should be noted that many a modern building has inspired equal or more vitriolic criticism.