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.
Memorial Day weekend usually means trying to get away for a weekend trip or a vacation. I’m willing to bet a few of you reading this will be heading to Sag Harbor, NY. It was colonized by English settlers in the early 1700s on Shinnecock lands and became a huge whaling port. After the American Revolution, Sag Harbor was made the first US port of entry for foreign ships. Whaling played a large role in the town’s economy; it was mentioned in the novel Moby Dick and led to the construction of this church. This is the Old Whaler’s Church, which was built in 1844. At the time of construction, it had a 138-foot steeple on it, making it the tallest building on Long Island. The steeple was destroyed during the Great 1938 Hurricane. But perhaps the most interesting part about this church is that it was built in the Egyptian Revival style, in order to resemble something akin to the Temple of Solomon. There are very few Egyptian-inspired buildings in the United States that aren’t obelisks, and the Old Whaler’s Church is considered one of the best remaining examples in the entire country. As a result, it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1994.
These are a few of the fourteen brownstones on the north side of 1st Street in Park Slope between 7th and 8th Avenue. They’re a little shorter than some of the other brownstones in the neighborhood and were all built between 1887-1889. The architect and builder was a guy named Fred J. Griswold. Griswold was a rather prolific developer in Park Slope. He personally lived at 497 1st Street (the one with the large addition in this image) and his other projects were at 500-506 1st Street, 288-294 Garfield Place, and Nos. 178-184 8th Avenue. Nos. 477-501 1st Street were landmarked as a part of the Park Slope Historic District on July 17, 1973.
This little frame house at 190 Amity Street doesn’t have a ton of information on it, but we know that it was built before the year 1850. What’s great about frame houses from that time period is that you could literally go out and buy a book that had all different kinds of house designs, then you just build them. That’s why so many of these, whether in the West Village, Cobble Hill, the Upper East Side, or Fort Greene, look similar even with different builders and owners. This particular house was landmarked as a part of the Cobble Hill Historic District on December 30th, 1969.
This past weekend, I had the privilege of visiting some of the magnificent mansions under the care of the Preservation Society of Newport County. The Elms, a stunning summer retreat for the Berwind family, who amassed their fortune in coal, stands as a rare surviving pair of mansions between New York City and Newport. Interestingly, some of the rooms used in HBO’s The Gilded Age can be found here. Have you ever had the chance to visit the Elms?
This townhouse at 133 Clinton Street in Brooklyn Heights has an interesting connection to baseball. The building itself was built in 1851 and used to be known as, and I’m not making this up, “The Jolly Young Bachelors Clubhouse.” This group of gentlemen who lived here played one of the earlier forms of baseball and eventually changed their name to the Brooklyn Excelsiors. The Excelsiors were one of the first teams to travel outside of their home city to play competitively, especially during the Civil War, which ended up spreading the popularity of the sport. One of their pitchers, James Creighton, is thought to be one of the first people to throw a curveball, though he didn’t live at this location. The club as a whole also created the predecessor to the modern baseball hat. The house is currently apartments and was landmarked as a part of the Brooklyn Heights Historic District on November 23rd, 1965.
This rather magnificent house is the exclamation point at the end of a row on Rutland Road in Prospect Lefferts Gardens. Built in 1910 at the corner of Rutland and Bedford, this house was built for William T. Reinking by architect Benjamin Driesler, as one of five houses, the others being a slightly more modest two-story set up. This area of Brooklyn was originally part of the independent rural village of Flatbush. Development really took off in the beginning of the 20th century with the increase in transportation connections from this area of Brooklyn to Manhattan. 118 Rutland Road was landmarked as a part of the Prospect Lefferts Gardens Historic District on October 9th, 1979.
Finally back from Newport after a whirlwind trip. I was out researching and documenting homes built by and for famous New York families of the Gilded Age. Today we’re going to look at Beechwood. Built in 1853 and designed by architect Andrew Jackson Downing and Calvert Vaux. They were commissioned by Daniel Parish, who was a clothing merchant. Parish would never see the home completed as he would pass away in a steamboat accident that same year.
In 1880, the home was purchased by the Astor family. This is where THE Mrs. Astor of Gilded Age fame would hold court for her 400. This would also inspire Alva Vanderbilt to have her mansion, Marble House, built directly next door for society purposes. Between 1888 and 1890, Mrs. Astor would hire Richard Morris Hunt to design additions to the house, including a new ballroom. Caroline Astor would use the home until her death in 1908, when it passed to her son, John Jacob Astor IV. It was here that he would marry his second, much younger wife, Madeline, before whisking her off to Europe to avoid the press noticing her “delicate” position.
It was due to Madeline’s pregnancy that the house would then get its next owner. Due to her extreme morning sickness, the Astors decided to return to the United States to have her monitored by the family doctor. This involved purchasing a ticket on the most luxurious steam liner bound from Southampton to New York, the Titanic. I think you can see where this is going. John Jacob Astor IV died in the sinking, while his wife survived. The house passed to his son, Vincent, from his first marriage. He would sell the home in 1940.
In more recent history, the house used to be home to the Beechwood Theater Company in 1981. It was purchased in 2010 by Larry Ellison and has been converted back into a single-family home.
Photos 1 & 2: Beechwood. Photo 3: Mrs. Astor’s House on Fifth Avenue. Photo 4: Caroline Schermerhorn Astor. Photo 5: John Jacob Astor IV. Photo 6: Vincent Astor.
First time in a while that I’m not doing a post about New York. I’m in Newport for the weekend visiting some of the mansions owned by famous New Yorkers. First stop is The Elms. Built in 1901 for Edward Berwind whose house still remains on fifth Avenue. Can’t wait to share more.
