Just a few steps away from the magnificent Bethesda Fountain in Central Park is the lesser-known Cherry Hill Fountain. Most commonly mistaken as the fountain from the opening of Friends, the fountain was built in 1860 and was originally a place for horses to drink. This makes its location surrounded by an open gravel circle a little more understandable. It’s a great place to catch at twilight, especially with the San Remo in the background, and is much less crowded than Bethesda Terrace. It was landmarked with Central Park on April 16th, 1974.
If you have never heard of Henderson Place, you’re not alone. It is located as far east as you can go on the island of Manhattan, on East End Avenue between 86th and 87th Street. Tourists usually have gotten lost on their way to the Met long before they make it over here. These houses were built between 1880-82 by developer John Henderson. Originally there were 32 buildings in the complex but 8 were torn down. Henderson built these houses for “persons of moderate means” which is insane given these generally fetch over $4 million on the open market today. Henderson hired the architectural firm of Lamb & Rich, the same one that designed Sagamore Hill, Teddy Roosevelt’s country estate, leading to ornate flourishes on these buildings’ facades. The Henderson Place Historic District was landmarked on February 11th 1969. This is an entry from my book Hidden Landmarks of New York which makes a great father’s day present 😉.
There have been four Madison Square Gardens so far in New York’s History. Here is my attempt at consolidating their history into a two minute video.
New York has a long history with pianos, making them, selling them, and playing them. While Steinway might be the most famous New York piano maker, it was the Sohmer Piano Company who lent their name to this building in the Flatiron. Built in 1898 for developer Henry Corn by renowned architect Robert Maynicke, Sohmer Pianos had their offices and showrooms here on the West side of 5th Avenue and 22nd Street. Originally founded by Hugo Sohmer in 1872, the company began on 14th Street and began to grow. In 1886, they built their factory in Long Island City, which is also landmarked. They would remain at this building on 5th Avenue until 1919 when they built their own building on West 57th Street. Apart from Sohmer, 170 5th Avenue was home to architectural firms and other businesses. Like much of the area, it was converted into luxury condos in the early 2000s. It was landmarked as a part of the Ladies’ Mile Historic District on May 2nd, 1989. Photo 2 is the factory.
This building might look familiar to some of you as the home of the Harry Potter store next to the Flatiron. But long before this building was hawking wizarding wares, it was home to some of the earliest department stores above Chambers Street. It was built in 1862 by architect Griffith Thomas for Richard Mortimer on 5th Ave and 22nd Street. Although commercial construction in the city was slowing due to the Civil War, this building was one of the first purpose-built commercial stores near Madison Square Park. At that time, this area would have been full of stately brownstones for the upper classes, including the Roosevelts’ home a few blocks away on 20th Street. Mortimer took his inspiration from the palatial A.T. Stewarts Department Store built at the corner of Broadway and Chambers Street. Some of the earliest tenants were the J.&C. Johnston Dry Goods company as well as offices for Stratton & Packard’s New York City Business College, a photography studio, and jewelers. More recently, it was the home to a restoration hardware store. It was landmarked as a part of the Ladies Mile Historic District on May 2nd, 1989.
Brooklyn Heights has no shortage of pricey properties, but this one takes the cake. No. 3 Pierrepont Place, the house on the left, was the most expensive listing in Brooklyn as of 2016, at $40 million. The house itself has an impressive history. It was built in 1857 for Abiel Low, who made a fortune dealing in the tea trade. His son Seth inherited it and would be incredibly consequential in the course of city history.
Seth Low was a two-term mayor of Brooklyn, who pushed hard for the unification with New York. After serving as mayor, he became the President of Columbia and moved the campus from midtown Manhattan to its modern-day location in Morningside Heights. He also donated his own money for the Low Memorial Library. He wasn’t done with politics though, and became the second mayor of unified New York. He was a big proponent of anti-corruption, instituting reforms within the civil service, eliminating patronage jobs, and lowering city taxes. He was so well respected that at his funeral, two of his pallbearers were JP Morgan Jr. and AFL founder Samuel Gompers.
The house did not end up selling for $40 million, and instead was converted into apartments. The 4-bedroom parlor apartment was recently rented for $20,000 a month. It was landmarked as a part of the Brooklyn Heights Historic District on November 23rd, 1965.
The building that houses the Moynihan train hall was built in 1913 by McKim, Mead, and White as the General Post Office, three years after they completed the original Pennsylvania Station across 8th Avenue. At the time, most mail in the country was delivered by rail, so having a post office right above the tracks at Penn Station made perfect sense. Letters would be carried up from the platforms below by giant elevators and sorted in what is now the main waiting area of the train station.
In the 1930s, the post office was expanded to fill the entire block between 8th and 9th Avenues by Postmaster James A. Farley, where the building got its prior name from. It is one of the few buildings in Manhattan where you can see all four sides. In the 50s, passenger train travel began to diminish, but mail did not, allowing the post office to be spared from the wrecking ball, unlike its unlucky sister across the street. In the 1990s, New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan began a push to convert the post office into a new waiting area for Penn Station. After many false starts and tons of planning, the renovated train hall opened at the end of 2020. The James Farley Post Office/Moynihan Train Hall was landmarked on May 17, 1966.
One of my favorite semi-random facts about New York is how it was a piano-making powerhouse at the turn of the 20th century. Companies like Steinway, Sohmer, and Smith all had factories in New York churning out millions of pianos. This house in Clinton Hill belonged to Freeborn Smith, a Baltimore native who worked his way up at the Bradbury Piano Company until he was able to acquire the company and begin manufacturing his own line. He built this house on the corner of Washington and Greene Avenue in 1876 with architect Thomas Norris. Smith was very good friends with the Governor of Georgia, who often stayed here when visiting New York to try to encourage investment in the state still reeling from the Civil War. Let’s just say that the governor’s depiction of his state to potential investors was less than accurate. The Smith family lived here for almost two decades before downsizing. It has been a multiple-unit apartment building since the 1960s and was landmarked as a part of the Clinton Hill Historic District on November 10th, 1981.
The area towards the bottom of Second Avenue, like so many areas before it, was for a time a wealthy enclave. That was short-lived, however, as the city expanded north at a rapid pace. The East Village became a large German immigrant neighborhood, with many of the former homes of the rich being converted into tenement houses. Such is the case at 36 East 3rd Street and its neighbors. Built in 1836 for developers Hubbard and Casey, this Greek Revival Home would have housed one well-to-do family, followed by many immigrant ones. This portion of East 3rd Street was landmarked as a part of the East Village Lower East Side Historic District on October 9th, 2012.
If you have ever wondered what Paris would look like if it were built by New Yorkers, here is your answer. The Dorilton Apartments were built in 1902 on the corner of 71st and Broadway. American architects at the turn of the century went to Paris to study design and brought back the Beaux-Arts style of architecture with them. The Dorilton took its styling cues from Parisian apartments and French palaces. Architectural historian Andrew Dolkhart stated that the building is the most flamboyant apartment house in the city, and I’d be apt to agree with him in a good way. The building has attracted musicians and artists throughout its history due to the large rooms and soundproofing. It was landmarked by the City of New York on October 8th, 1974.
Have you ever heard the term South Brooklyn to refer to areas like Carroll Gardens, Red Hook and even Cobble Hill? This is a holdover from when Brooklyn was just one of 6 towns that made up Kings County. Today those borders are the same which makes the old South Brooklyn further north than southern Brooklyn.
Final tour dates before it gets too hot this summer. There may be a few that I schedule if the weather stays nice but otherwise see you in the fall.
Does anyone else remember the radio ad from the 90s? The jingle went “everywhere you go, Duane Reade!” That’s becoming less the case since the merger with Walgreens, but you can still find one in this amazing 19th-century building on the corner of Grand and Broadway. 115 Grand Street was built in 1861 and designed by Thomas Suffein, and likely used for manufacturing and dry goods sales. It’s crazy to think this building was present during parades of soldiers during the Civil War. It was landmarked as a part of the Soho-Cast Iron Historic District on August 14th, 1973.
Garden Place in Brooklyn Heights is a one-block street connecting Joralemon to State Street. The road got its name by being the former location of the Livingston’s family garden, and eventually where Tunis Joralemon would grow his crops. Most of these buildings date from the 1840s, with this lovely little carriage house constructed in 1846. No. 21 Garden Place was built to be the garage of No. 15 Garden Place, just a few houses over. While most of the former stables I have covered were attached to mansions, No. 15 is quite a bit more humble and was home to multiple families, including a merchant named John Hoag and a bookkeeper named William Merrill. I’m not sure which of them used the carriage house or if they went Dutch on it. In 1916, with the rise of automobiles, the carriage house was converted into a garage, and by 1936, the entire building had been converted into a single-family home. It was landmarked as a part of the Brooklyn Heights Historic District on November 23rd, 1965.
When I lived on the Upper East Side, I was always in awe when I walked along 86th Street and saw this house. Originally built in 1916 for financier and horse breeder William Woodward, No. 9 was one of the last mansions built on an open lot on the Upper East Side. The Woodwoods hired the architectural team of Delano & Aldrich to design their home; the firm was famous for its other townhouses in the neighborhood as well as some of the most exclusive social clubs in the city. When it was constructed, the building was surrounded by other mansions housing the elite families in New York, which is why the design choice of having a recessed bay came into play. This setback entrance allows for increased light and ventilation as well as making the house appear to be free-standing rather than wedged between two buildings. This was one of the last open plots of land in the area that had not yet been developed. William Woodward would live here until his death in the 1950s, after which it was converted into a social club. The Town Club of New York would reside here from 1961-2004 when it was converted back into a single-family home for hedge fund billionaire John Paulson. It was landmarked as a part of the Expanded Carnegie Hill Historic District on December 21st, 1993.
This quaint little house sandwiched between two much newer buildings is 135 Joralemon Street in Brooklyn Heights. It is one of the oldest houses in the neighborhood but is located much further away from most of the remaining clapboard houses in the district. It was built in 1833 and was the home of a U.S. Naval Doctor for the better part of the 19th century. It had a massive fire that destroyed most of the interior in 2004, and there were concerns over the structural integrity of the building. Luckily, it was lovingly restored, even winning a preservation award for the effort. This Federal-style townhouse was last sold in 2019 for $5.75 million dollars and was landmarked as a part of the Brooklyn Heights Historic District on November 23rd, 1965.
I don’t think this building is particularly interesting. It looks like many other buildings in the City Hall/Tribeca area and isn’t even particularly notable from a history perspective. But what this building is, is a time capsule into what everyday life in the mid-1800s would have looked like. This is 25 Park Place, it was built in 1857 as a dry goods store and storage facility for Lathrop, Ludington & Co. It extends from Park Place through the whole block to Murray Street. The land it was built on was purchased from Trinity Church in 1800, which is one of the reasons why that parish is worth over $8 billion today. In addition to being a dry goods store, it also served as a home for publishers throughout its long life. But what is probably most interesting about this is the design. While it might not look too different from other buildings, architect Samuel Adams Warner took inspiration from Florentine palazzos. Even more unique though is that the windows are inspired by the Farnese Palace in Rome. Take those design cues along with the fact that it has remained substantially unaltered over its lifetime, 25 Park Place was landmarked on March 13th, 2007.
The village is full of lines these days. However, there is one corner which has always had a line of people taking photos. Located at the corner of Bedford and Grove Street in the West Village, 90 Bedford Street, also known as the Friends building, was constructed in 1899 for developers Leister & Herter by architects Schneider & Herter. The pair of architects designed about a half dozen other buildings in the neighborhood around the turn of the 20th century. Today, the apartment building is full of 22 units, all one bedrooms, looking nothing like Monica and Rachel’s. 90 Grove Street was landmarked as a part of the Greenwich Village Historic District on April 29th, 1969. This is one of the many buildings in my book, Hidden Landmarks of New York. If you want Instagram but in print form, I would check it out.
If you are at all interested in Gilded Age history, you’ll be familiar with Newport Rhode Island. You may have also asked yourself, like my wife did on our recent trip there, why was Newport the place to be if you had money at the end of the 19th Century. It turns out, it being difficult to get to was part of the appeal.
Before we get to today’s post, I want to say definitively that the sky in this picture is not photoshopped. I ALSO want to point out that I’m not in Sag Harbor for Memorial Day because I can’t afford that. This is the old customs house in Sag Harbor, New York. Immediately after the adoption of the Constitution and the creation of the US Customs Service, Sag Harbor was one of the first ports in the United States open to international merchants, making it second only to New York City in importance. This customs house was built in the 1770s to house the local customs officer, Henry Packer Derring, and his family. The house was expanded upon multiple times and served as a post office in addition to its other duties. It was initially built right by the harbor but was relocated to its current location in 1948, sparing it from demolition. It is currently part of the Sag Harbor Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 20th, 1973.
