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tag-speakeasy-harlem-st-nicholas-avenue tag-st-nicholas-avenue-harlem-history tag-sugar-hill-row-house-harlem tag-the-heights-club-st-nicholas-avenue" id="post-47717"> <h2><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/17/from-elite-club-to-speakeasy-the-early-life-of-an-ornate-house-called-a-hot-air-balloon-of-masonry/" rel="bookmark">From elite club to speakeasy, the early life of an ornate house called a “hot-air balloon of masonry”</a></h2> <small>February 17, 2025 </small> <div class="entry"> <p class="has-text-align-left">When 721 St. Nicholas Avenue (below, corner house) made its debut in 1891, the formerly sleepy village of Harlem was rapidly becoming part of the urban streetscape.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicholashouserow.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47730" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/17/from-elite-club-to-speakeasy-the-early-life-of-an-ornate-house-called-a-hot-air-balloon-of-masonry/stnicholashouserow/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicholashouserow.jpg" data-orig-size="1024,768" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1739636859","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.25","iso":"40","shutter_speed":"0.0081967213114754","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.824680555556","longitude":"-73.944175"}" data-image-title="Stnicholashouserow" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicholashouserow.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicholashouserow.jpg?w=450" width="1024" height="768" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicholashouserow.jpg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47730" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicholashouserow.jpg 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicholashouserow.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicholashouserow.jpg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicholashouserow.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">What had been a rural area dotted with estate houses in the 18th century (like <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/a-founding-fathers-country-home-in-harlem/">Alexander Hamilton’s country retreat, the Grange</a>) became a popular place for wealthy New Yorkers to enjoy harness racing by carriage or sleigh after the Civil War.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">That was due to the official opening of St. Nicholas Avenue—a broad, 80-block boulevard running from about Central Park to the wilds of Upper Manhattan. Before it was widened into St. Nicholas Avenue, the road was known as Harlem Lane (third image).</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickhouseside.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47735" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/17/from-elite-club-to-speakeasy-the-early-life-of-an-ornate-house-called-a-hot-air-balloon-of-masonry/stnickhouseside/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickhouseside.jpg" data-orig-size="1024,768" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1739636794","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.25","iso":"80","shutter_speed":"0.0082644628099174","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.824822222222","longitude":"-73.944511111111"}" data-image-title="Stnickhouseside" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickhouseside.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickhouseside.jpg?w=450" width="1024" height="768" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickhouseside.jpg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47735" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickhouseside.jpg 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickhouseside.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickhouseside.jpg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickhouseside.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">In the 1880s, however, developers arrived, hoping to capitalize on St. Nicholas Avenue’s carriage and trotter cache. One of these developers snapped up land stretching to the corner of 146th Street and hired an architect to design five row houses.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">Described as “Victorian Romanesque” by the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) in a 2000 historic designation report, the first four row houses, Numbers 713 to 719, were splendid confections of brownstone and brick turrets, gables, and dormers.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickstrotters.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47737" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/17/from-elite-club-to-speakeasy-the-early-life-of-an-ornate-house-called-a-hot-air-balloon-of-masonry/stnickstrotters/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickstrotters.jpg" data-orig-size="1600,1126" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="StNickstrotters" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickstrotters.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickstrotters.jpg?w=450" width="1024" height="720" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickstrotters.jpg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47737" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickstrotters.jpg?w=1024 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickstrotters.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickstrotters.jpg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickstrotters.jpg?w=768 768w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickstrotters.jpg 1600w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">But the real showpiece was Number 721. Larger than its sister houses, it featured a curved tower with a flat roof, plus what the LPC report described as a “mansard roof with slate tiles,” “dormer with scrolled gable,” and a “paneled, brick parapet.”</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">Some would describe this house as storybook-like, something mysterious and delightful from a fairy tale. Others found it pretentious, like Christopher Gray, who called it “bulbous” and a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/realestate/24scapes.html?searchResultPosition=1">“hot-air balloon of masonry”</a> in a 2009 <em>New York Times</em> column.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicksrowfront.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47743" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/17/from-elite-club-to-speakeasy-the-early-life-of-an-ornate-house-called-a-hot-air-balloon-of-masonry/stnicksrowfront/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicksrowfront.jpg" data-orig-size="3869,2389" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1739636904","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.25","iso":"100","shutter_speed":"0.0083333333333333","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.824486111111","longitude":"-73.944458333333"}" data-image-title="StNicksrowfront" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicksrowfront.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicksrowfront.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="632" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicksrowfront.jpg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47743" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicksrowfront.jpg?w=1024 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicksrowfront.jpg?w=2048 2048w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicksrowfront.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicksrowfront.jpg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicksrowfront.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">Both descriptions might fit. But in the Gilded Age, when home-buyers sought out Queen-Anne style row houses with lots of decorative doo-dads, 713-721 St. Nicholas Avenue would have commanded attention. These would be white home-buyers, as Harlem’s transformation into the center of African American life in New York was a few decades away.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">Who occupied Number 721 on the corner? The first residents in its earliest days are unclear. But by 1898, the house was purchased by an organization called the Heights Club, a <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/image/20579267/?match=1&terms=%22721%20st.%20nicholas%20avenue%22">“newly formed club”</a> composed of upper-class residents who held an inaugural “smoker” in March 1898 where images viewed through a stereoscope made for the entertainment.</p> <p>By the early 1900s, the Heights Club was gone, replaced by the Barnard School, a boys’ college preparatory school. The school held sports events called the <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/image/555973176/?match=1&terms=%22721%20st.%20nicholas%20avenue%22">Barnard School Games</a> at the Kingsbridge Armory and invited other schools to compete.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicksschool.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47745" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/17/from-elite-club-to-speakeasy-the-early-life-of-an-ornate-house-called-a-hot-air-balloon-of-masonry/stnicksschool/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicksschool.jpg" data-orig-size="352,550" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="StNicksschool" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicksschool.jpg?w=192" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicksschool.jpg?w=352" loading="lazy" width="352" height="550" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicksschool.jpg?w=352" alt="" class="wp-image-47745" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicksschool.jpg 352w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicksschool.jpg?w=96 96w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicksschool.jpg?w=192 192w" sizes="(max-width: 352px) 100vw, 352px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">When the Barnard School departed is a mystery. But in 1925 with Prohibition the law of the land, the ground floor of Number 721 transformed into a speakeasy. The Silver Dollar Cafe was considered one of the first speaks in this part of Harlem, now known as Hamilton Heights or Sugar Hill, according to the LPC report.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">The Silver Dollar Cafe “became the Seven-Two-One Club following Prohibition,” per the LPC report. “The spot featured local jazz talent, such as the Kaiser Marshall Trio, Harlem Harley’s Washboard Band, and the Ernie Henry Band.” The space operated until 1964. (Below, in 1940)</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://nycrecords.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/IO_3e0cfd16-bd29-462f-b4a1-ba29e11d08bf/"><img data-attachment-id="47752" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/17/from-elite-club-to-speakeasy-the-early-life-of-an-ornate-house-called-a-hot-air-balloon-of-masonry/stnickstaxphoto/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickstaxphoto.png" data-orig-size="1566,1180" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="StNickstaxphoto" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickstaxphoto.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickstaxphoto.png?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="771" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickstaxphoto.png?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47752" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickstaxphoto.png?w=1024 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickstaxphoto.png?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickstaxphoto.png?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickstaxphoto.png?w=768 768w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickstaxphoto.png 1566w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p class="has-text-align-left">In the ensuing years, numbers 713-717 have had commercial spaces installed on the ground floor, replacing the stoops. That, along with the alteration of other original details, made for the loss of “the genteel appearance with which they faced the carriages and sleighs of the avenue,” wrote Gray.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">What’s next in the life of Number 721? It looks like this storybook survivor has been marketed as a condo building with five separate units, according to a <a href="https://streeteasy.com/building/721-st-nicholas-avenue-new_york">Streeteasy description</a>.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickslast.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47757" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/17/from-elite-club-to-speakeasy-the-early-life-of-an-ornate-house-called-a-hot-air-balloon-of-masonry/stnickslast/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickslast.jpg" data-orig-size="938,753" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1739636823","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.25","iso":"32","shutter_speed":"0.0082644628099174","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.824791666667","longitude":"-73.944472222222"}" data-image-title="Stnickslast" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickslast.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickslast.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="938" height="753" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickslast.jpg?w=938" alt="" class="wp-image-47757" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickslast.jpg 938w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickslast.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickslast.jpg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnickslast.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 938px) 100vw, 938px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">Imagine what it would be like making your home here and feeling the phantoms of the trotters, club-goers, schoolboys, secret drinkers, and jazz trios who occupied this space in its earliest, most colorful years.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">[Third image: NYPL Digital Collections; fifth image: <a href="https://collections.mcny.org/CS.aspx?VP3=DamView&VBID=24UP1GQ9L2S7C&PN=2&WS=SearchResults&FR_=1&W=1110&H=607#/DamView&VBID=24UP1GZQVUWYF&PN=3&WS=SearchResults">MCNY F2011.33.193</a>; sixth image: <a href="https://nycrecords.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/IO_3e0cfd16-bd29-462f-b4a1-ba29e11d08bf/">NYC Department of Records & Information Services</a>]</p> </div> <p class="postmetadata">Tags: <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/721-st-nicholas-avenue/" rel="tag">721 St. Nicholas Avenue</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/barnard-school-for-boys-st-nicholas-avenue/" rel="tag">Barnard School for Boys St. Nicholas Avenue</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/row-houses-harlem-hamilton-heights/" rel="tag">Row Houses Harlem Hamilton Heights</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/silver-dollar-speakeasy-harlem/" rel="tag">Silver Dollar Speakeasy Harlem</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/speakeasy-harlem-st-nicholas-avenue/" rel="tag">Speakeasy Harlem St. Nicholas Avenue</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/st-nicholas-avenue-harlem-history/" rel="tag">St. Nicholas Avenue Harlem History</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/sugar-hill-row-house-harlem/" rel="tag">Sugar Hill Row House Harlem</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/the-heights-club-st-nicholas-avenue/" rel="tag">The Heights Club St. Nicholas Avenue</a><br /> Posted in <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/category/upper-manhattan/" rel="category tag">Upper Manhattan</a> | <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/17/from-elite-club-to-speakeasy-the-early-life-of-an-ornate-house-called-a-hot-air-balloon-of-masonry/#comments">11 Comments »</a></p> </div> <div class="post-47659 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-upper-manhattan category-war-memorials tag-knowlton-battle-of-harlem-heights tag-knowltons-rangers-revolutionary-war tag-st-nicholas-avenue-unmarked-grave-thomas-knowlton tag-thomas-knowlton-americas-first-spy tag-thomas-knowlton-george-washington tag-thomas-knowlton-revolutionary-war" id="post-47659"> <h2><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/17/the-unmarked-harlem-grave-of-one-of-revolutionary-war-era-americas-first-spies/" rel="bookmark">The unmarked Harlem grave of one of Revolutionary War-era America’s first spies</a></h2> <small>February 17, 2025 </small> <div class="entry"> <p class="has-text-align-left">Walk along Broadway at about 116th Street, and you’ll come across a <a href="https://www.hmdb.org/PhotoFullSize.asp?PhotoID=39922">bronze tablet</a> on the facade of a Columbia University building.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/plaque_commemorating_the_battle_of_harlem_heights.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47699" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/17/the-unmarked-harlem-grave-of-one-of-revolutionary-war-era-americas-first-spies/plaque_commemorating_the_battle_of_harlem_heights/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/plaque_commemorating_the_battle_of_harlem_heights.jpg" data-orig-size="1280,1622" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Plaque_commemorating_the_Battle_of_Harlem_Heights" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/plaque_commemorating_the_battle_of_harlem_heights.jpg?w=237" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/plaque_commemorating_the_battle_of_harlem_heights.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="808" height="1023" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/plaque_commemorating_the_battle_of_harlem_heights.jpg?w=808" alt="" class="wp-image-47699" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/plaque_commemorating_the_battle_of_harlem_heights.jpg?w=808 808w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/plaque_commemorating_the_battle_of_harlem_heights.jpg?w=118 118w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/plaque_commemorating_the_battle_of_harlem_heights.jpg?w=237 237w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/plaque_commemorating_the_battle_of_harlem_heights.jpg?w=768 768w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/plaque_commemorating_the_battle_of_harlem_heights.jpg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 808px) 100vw, 808px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">The tablet shows a dramatic Revolutionary War battle scene: A Continental Army leader stands on a rock outcropping, raising his sword defiantly with the British at his back. Below him, another American fighter lies mortally wounded on the ground, clutching his chest.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">As the tablet explains, the bas relief depicts a scene from the Battle of Harlem Heights—in which George Washington’s forces pushed back the invading British in a <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/visit/battlefields/harlem-heights">buckwheat field</a> on today’s Columbia campus.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="alignleft size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/thomasknowltonwiki-3.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47705" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/17/the-unmarked-harlem-grave-of-one-of-revolutionary-war-era-americas-first-spies/thomasknowltonwiki-4/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/thomasknowltonwiki-3.jpg" data-orig-size="243,277" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Thomasknowltonwiki" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/thomasknowltonwiki-3.jpg?w=243" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/thomasknowltonwiki-3.jpg?w=243" loading="lazy" width="243" height="277" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/thomasknowltonwiki-3.jpg?w=243" alt="" class="wp-image-47705" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/thomasknowltonwiki-3.jpg 243w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/thomasknowltonwiki-3.jpg?w=132 132w" sizes="(max-width: 243px) 100vw, 243px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">The Battle of Harlem Heights happened weeks after the bruising defeat of the Battle of Brooklyn, and this small victory in the rural countryside of Harlem <a href="https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/battle-of-harlem-heights">raised the morale</a> of the Patriots in a big way.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">But the victory may not have happened without the assistance of Thomas Knowlton (at left)—the commander considered one of America’s first spies who raises his sword in the tablet. </p> <p class="has-text-align-left">Who was Thomas Knowlton? Brought up in Connecticut, Knowlton was 15 when he served in the French and Indian War. As the Revolutionary War broke out in 1775, he joined a militia that fought the Battle of Bunker Hill.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">Promoted to lieutenant colonel, he and 150 select New England soldiers marched to New York in August 1776 at the behest of George Washington to serve as “an elite company for conducting reconnaissance mission behind enemy lines,” according to <em>Spy Sites of New York City: Two Centuries of Espionage in Gotham</em>.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/battlepfharlemheightsnypl.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47709" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/17/the-unmarked-harlem-grave-of-one-of-revolutionary-war-era-americas-first-spies/battlepfharlemheightsnypl/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/battlepfharlemheightsnypl.jpg" data-orig-size="1488,1027" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Battlepfharlemheightsnypl" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/battlepfharlemheightsnypl.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/battlepfharlemheightsnypl.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="706" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/battlepfharlemheightsnypl.jpg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47709" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/battlepfharlemheightsnypl.jpg?w=1024 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/battlepfharlemheightsnypl.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/battlepfharlemheightsnypl.jpg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/battlepfharlemheightsnypl.jpg?w=768 768w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/battlepfharlemheightsnypl.jpg 1488w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">Knowlton’s Rangers, as the company was known, were tasked with scouting the movement of British forces, who had come to Manhattan at Kip’s Bay and were making their way to the rocky, hilly terrain of Upper Manhattan, where American forces had amassed.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">Knowlton’s espionage skills have led historians to designate him as the father of military intelligence. “These men undertook the dangerous task of obtaining intelligence information for the Continental army,” notes <a href="https://connecticuthistory.org/thomas-knowlton-a-small-towns-national-hero/">Connecticuthistory.org</a>. “Included among Knowlton’s troops was the soon-to-be-famous patriot Nathan Hale.”</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/statue_of_thomas_knowlton_by_enoch_smith_woods_at_connecticut_state_capitol_-_january_2016.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47711" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/17/the-unmarked-harlem-grave-of-one-of-revolutionary-war-era-americas-first-spies/statue_of_thomas_knowlton_by_enoch_smith_woods_at_connecticut_state_capitol_-_january_2016/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/statue_of_thomas_knowlton_by_enoch_smith_woods_at_connecticut_state_capitol_-_january_2016.jpg" data-orig-size="1024,1369" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Statue_of_Thomas_Knowlton_by_Enoch_Smith_Woods_at_Connecticut_State_Capitol_-_January_2016" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/statue_of_thomas_knowlton_by_enoch_smith_woods_at_connecticut_state_capitol_-_january_2016.jpg?w=224" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/statue_of_thomas_knowlton_by_enoch_smith_woods_at_connecticut_state_capitol_-_january_2016.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="766" height="1024" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/statue_of_thomas_knowlton_by_enoch_smith_woods_at_connecticut_state_capitol_-_january_2016.jpg?w=766" alt="" class="wp-image-47711" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/statue_of_thomas_knowlton_by_enoch_smith_woods_at_connecticut_state_capitol_-_january_2016.jpg?w=766 766w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/statue_of_thomas_knowlton_by_enoch_smith_woods_at_connecticut_state_capitol_-_january_2016.jpg?w=112 112w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/statue_of_thomas_knowlton_by_enoch_smith_woods_at_connecticut_state_capitol_-_january_2016.jpg?w=224 224w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/statue_of_thomas_knowlton_by_enoch_smith_woods_at_connecticut_state_capitol_-_january_2016.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 766px) 100vw, 766px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">But even an elite and experienced colonel like Knowlton (above, in a statue at the Connecticut state capitol) was vulnerable. On September 16, “Knowlton’s men undertook a reconnaissance mission that brought them into direct contact with the British army,” states Connecticuthistoryorg.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">“Knowlton engaged the British in battle in an effort to prevent them from pursuing the fleeing Continental army up Manhattan Island. Knowlton’s men suffered heavy casualties, including Knowlton himself, whose life was ended by a fatal shot to the back.”</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">Washington <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-06-02-0256">acknowledged the loss</a> by writing in his General Orders, “The gallant and brave Col. Knowlton, who would have been an Honor to any Country, having fallen yesterday, while gloriously fighting….”</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/knowltongrave.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47713" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/17/the-unmarked-harlem-grave-of-one-of-revolutionary-war-era-americas-first-spies/knowltongrave/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/knowltongrave.jpg" data-orig-size="1024,768" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1739636416","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.25","iso":"32","shutter_speed":"0.0083333333333333","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.822311111111","longitude":"-73.945555555556"}" data-image-title="Knowltongrave" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/knowltongrave.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/knowltongrave.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="768" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/knowltongrave.jpg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47713" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/knowltongrave.jpg 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/knowltongrave.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/knowltongrave.jpg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/knowltongrave.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">Like other fallen soldiers, Knowlton was reportedly buried on her near the battlefield—in this case, in the middle of today’s urbanized Harlem.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">According to the Connecticut Society of the Sons of the Revolution, Knowlton’s body was laid to rest <a href="https://www.sarconnecticut.org/lt-col-thomas-knowlton-connecticuts-forgotten-hero/">“with military honors”</a> in an unmarked grave that would correspond with today’s St. Nicholas Avenue and 143rd Street—two roads that didn’t exist at the time.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">There actually is no St. Nicholas Avenue and 143rd Street, as 143rd Street temporarily ends at Convent Avenue to the west and begins again at Bradhurst Avenue. But where Knowlton’s body is supposedly buried might be in the fifth and sixth photos, taken from St. Nicholas Avenue.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicholasaveend-1.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47714" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/17/the-unmarked-harlem-grave-of-one-of-revolutionary-war-era-americas-first-spies/stnicholasaveend-2/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicholasaveend-1.jpg" data-orig-size="3987,2655" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1739636476","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.25","iso":"32","shutter_speed":"0.0051282051282051","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.822497222222","longitude":"-73.945458333333"}" data-image-title="Stnicholasaveend" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicholasaveend-1.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicholasaveend-1.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="681" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicholasaveend-1.jpg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47714" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicholasaveend-1.jpg?w=1024 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicholasaveend-1.jpg?w=2045 2045w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicholasaveend-1.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicholasaveend-1.jpg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/stnicholasaveend-1.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">It would be almost impossible to definitively know if Knowlton’s remains lie here. But perhaps another plaque at this site could explain the story of the unmarked grave—and the American spy who died nearby for liberty and independence.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">[Top image: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Harlem_Heights#/media/File:Plaque_commemorating_the_Battle_of_Harlem_Heights.jpg">Wikipedia</a>; second image: Wikipedia; third image: <a href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47da-2e92-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99">NYPL Digital Collections</a>; fourth image: Wikipedia]</p> </div> <p class="postmetadata">Tags: <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/knowlton-battle-of-harlem-heights/" rel="tag">Knowlton Battle of Harlem Heights</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/knowltons-rangers-revolutionary-war/" rel="tag">Knowlton's Rangers Revolutionary War</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/st-nicholas-avenue-unmarked-grave-thomas-knowlton/" rel="tag">St. Nicholas Avenue Unmarked Grave Thomas Knowlton</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/thomas-knowlton-americas-first-spy/" rel="tag">Thomas Knowlton America's First Spy</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/thomas-knowlton-george-washington/" rel="tag">Thomas Knowlton George Washington</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/thomas-knowlton-revolutionary-war/" rel="tag">Thomas Knowlton Revolutionary War</a><br /> Posted in <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/category/upper-manhattan/" rel="category tag">Upper Manhattan</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/category/war-memorials/" rel="category tag">War memorials</a> | <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/17/the-unmarked-harlem-grave-of-one-of-revolutionary-war-era-americas-first-spies/#comments">7 Comments »</a></p> </div> <div class="post-47647 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-transit tag-misspelled-mta-subway-signs tag-misspelled-subway-signs-nyc tag-subway-sign-errors-new-york-city tag-subway-signs-spelled-wrong-new-york-city" id="post-47647"> <h2><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/10/when-subway-signs-spell-simple-words-wrong/" rel="bookmark">When subway signs spell simple words wrong</a></h2> <small>February 10, 2025 </small> <div class="entry"> <p class="has-text-align-left">This is not a new photo, nor am I sure what station we’re at. But I do know that someone tasked with proofreading subway signs before they’re installed made a big error.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/dowtownsubwaysign.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47651" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/10/when-subway-signs-spell-simple-words-wrong/dowtownsubwaysign/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/dowtownsubwaysign.jpg" data-orig-size="1033,847" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Dowtownsubwaysign" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/dowtownsubwaysign.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/dowtownsubwaysign.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="839" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/dowtownsubwaysign.jpg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47651" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/dowtownsubwaysign.jpg?w=1024 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/dowtownsubwaysign.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/dowtownsubwaysign.jpg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/dowtownsubwaysign.jpg?w=768 768w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/dowtownsubwaysign.jpg 1033w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">Unless “dowtown” is a new hip neighborhood name I’m not aware of? Thank you Andrew Alpern for sending me this image…one of many I’ve posted of MTA spelling errors. </p> <p class="has-text-align-left"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/subway-sign-typos/">This post shows a photo of a subway entrance</a> for “Bleeker Street” on the 6 train. Not to be outdone are the people responsible for street names—<a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2008/04/11/copy-editors-desperately-needed/">see the photo for “Merser Street”</a> at West Houston!</p> </div> <p class="postmetadata">Tags: <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/misspelled-mta-subway-signs/" rel="tag">Misspelled MTA Subway Signs</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/misspelled-subway-signs-nyc/" rel="tag">Misspelled Subway Signs NYC</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/subway-sign-errors-new-york-city/" rel="tag">Subway Sign Errors New York City</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/subway-signs-spelled-wrong-new-york-city/" rel="tag">Subway Signs Spelled Wrong New York City</a><br /> Posted in <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/category/transit/" rel="category tag">Transit</a> | <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/10/when-subway-signs-spell-simple-words-wrong/#comments">8 Comments »</a></p> </div> <div class="post-47625 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-flatiron-district category-uncategorized tag-arc-lights-madison-square-park tag-arc-streetlights-in-new-york-city tag-electricity-in-new-york-city-1880s tag-first-street-lamps-in-new-york-city tag-history-of-street-lamps-in-new-york-city tag-sun-towers-arc-lights-madison-square-park" id="post-47625"> <h2><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/10/the-problem-with-the-enormous-sun-towers-that-illuminated-madison-square-park-in-the-1880s/" rel="bookmark">The problem with the enormous “sun towers” that illuminated Madison Square Park in the 1880s</a></h2> <small>February 10, 2025 </small> <div class="entry"> <p class="has-text-align-left">The first street lights to illuminate New York City came from home oil lamps. In 1697, the Common Council mandated “that all and every of the house keepers within this city shall put out lights in their windows fronting ye respective streets,” according to a 1997 Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) report.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/electricarclights.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47640" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/10/the-problem-with-the-enormous-sun-towers-that-illuminated-madison-square-park-in-the-1880s/electricarclights/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/electricarclights.jpg" data-orig-size="1080,785" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Electricarclights" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/electricarclights.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/electricarclights.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="744" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/electricarclights.jpg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47640" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/electricarclights.jpg?w=1024 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/electricarclights.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/electricarclights.jpg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/electricarclights.jpg?w=768 768w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/electricarclights.jpg 1080w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">In 1762, oil lamps were installed on city streets, with watchmen paid to oversee them. During the 1820s, gas-lit, cast-iron street lamps gave off their weak, smelly glow while lighting the way along New York’s expanding roadways, per the LPC report.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">By 1880, a new type of light was ready to replace the gas lamp: electric light. That year, the Brush Electric Light & Power Company built Manhattan’s first arc street lamps along Broadway between 14th through 26th Streets (above illustration).</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">But the Brush people had another idea: illuminating Madison Square with massive arc lamps that were dubbed “sun towers.”</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">“At the top of a mast of 160 feet was a circular carriage, to which were attached enormous electric lamps of 6,000 candlepower each,” wrote Miriam Berman in her 2001 book, <em>Madison Square: The Park and Its Celebrated Landmarks</em>.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/brusharc1882.png"><img data-attachment-id="47641" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/10/the-problem-with-the-enormous-sun-towers-that-illuminated-madison-square-park-in-the-1880s/brusharc1882/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/brusharc1882.png" data-orig-size="1246,1861" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Brusharc1882" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/brusharc1882.png?w=201" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/brusharc1882.png?w=450" loading="lazy" width="686" height="1024" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/brusharc1882.png?w=686" alt="" class="wp-image-47641" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/brusharc1882.png?w=686 686w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/brusharc1882.png?w=100 100w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/brusharc1882.png?w=201 201w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/brusharc1882.png?w=768 768w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/brusharc1882.png 1246w" sizes="(max-width: 686px) 100vw, 686px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">The goal of so much light was to illuminate the park and surrounding streets, which in the Gilded Age were the heart of Gotham’s theater and shopping district. What could go wrong with powerful bright light to guide people on their way?</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">Plenty. “Unfortunately, they were almost blinding to people standing nearby, and the ladies complained that they appeared almost ghostly in this bright light,” wrote Berman.</p> <p>A <em>Brooklyn Daily Times</em> article agreed. Arc light “hurts the eyes by its constant flicker and emits a ghastly, blueish light that is the reverse of pleasant,” <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/image/555840471/?match=1&terms=%22arc%20light%22%20%22madison%20square%22">the newspaper reported</a>. Sun towers were also installed at Union Square.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">These giant showers of light remained in place until October 1888, when the Department of Public Parks—as NYC Parks was known at the time—asked Brush to remove their electric light poles from Union and Madison Squares “within ten days,” according to <a href="https://www.nycgovparks.org/news/reports/archive#Minutes">the minutes and documents</a> archive on NYC Parks’ website.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">The arc street lamps continued to be in use through the 1910s, per the LPC report, when improvements to incandescent light put an end to the arc-lamp era on New York’s streets.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left"> [Top image: <em>Scientific American</em>, 1881; second image: Wikipedia]</p> <p></p> </div> <p class="postmetadata">Tags: <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/arc-lights-madison-square-park/" rel="tag">Arc Lights Madison Square Park</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/arc-streetlights-in-new-york-city/" rel="tag">Arc Streetlights in New York City</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/electricity-in-new-york-city-1880s/" rel="tag">Electricity in New York City 1880s</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/first-street-lamps-in-new-york-city/" rel="tag">First Street lamps in New York City</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/history-of-street-lamps-in-new-york-city/" rel="tag">History of Street Lamps in New York City</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/sun-towers-arc-lights-madison-square-park/" rel="tag">Sun Towers Arc Lights Madison Square Park</a><br /> Posted in <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/category/flatiron-district/" rel="category tag">Flatiron District</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/category/uncategorized/" rel="category tag">Uncategorized</a> | <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/10/the-problem-with-the-enormous-sun-towers-that-illuminated-madison-square-park-in-the-1880s/#comments">7 Comments »</a></p> </div> <div class="post-47580 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-chelsea category-schools tag-128-west-17th-street-nyc tag-african-american-public-school-in-chelsea tag-black-public-school-in-nyc tag-colored-school-chelsea-new-york-city tag-colored-school-number-4-chelsea-nyc tag-history-of-public-schools-in-new-york-city tag-sarah-tompkins-garnet-teacher-nyc tag-school-segregation-new-york-city" id="post-47580"> <h2><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/10/this-former-schoolhouse-built-in-1849-in-chelsea-is-a-remnant-of-new-yorks-segregated-past/" rel="bookmark">This former schoolhouse built in 1849 in Chelsea is a remnant of New York’s segregated past</a></h2> <small>February 10, 2025 </small> <div class="entry"> <p class="has-text-align-left">It’s a pale yellowish stub of a building on West 17th Street—just three stories high and sheared of any decorative embellishments it had when it was built in pre-Civil War New York City.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoolfront.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47587" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/10/this-former-schoolhouse-built-in-1849-in-chelsea-is-a-remnant-of-new-yorks-segregated-past/schoolfront/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoolfront.jpg" data-orig-size="3405,2742" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1739112866","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.25","iso":"32","shutter_speed":"0.0034246575342466","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.740027777778","longitude":"-73.997186111111"}" data-image-title="Schoolfront" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoolfront.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoolfront.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="824" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoolfront.jpg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47587" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoolfront.jpg?w=1024 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoolfront.jpg?w=2046 2046w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoolfront.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoolfront.jpg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoolfront.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">But if you look closely, you’ll see some unique features. The top two floors have four multi-paneled windows rather than the typical three. And two identical separate entryways on the ground level seem excessive; for such a small building, one doorway should do.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">These features are clues that 128 West 17th Street wasn’t built as a home or commercial structure. As unlikely as it seems, it was originally a schoolhouse. The long windows allowed plenty of light to reach children in their classrooms, and the two doorways would have been the separate entrances for girls and boys.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooldooways.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47593" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/10/this-former-schoolhouse-built-in-1849-in-chelsea-is-a-remnant-of-new-yorks-segregated-past/schooldooways/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooldooways.jpg" data-orig-size="1024,768" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"2.4","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1739112401","copyright":"","focal_length":"1.54","iso":"160","shutter_speed":"0.016666666666667","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.739958333333","longitude":"-73.996894444444"}" data-image-title="Schooldooways" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooldooways.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooldooways.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="768" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooldooways.jpg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47593" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooldooways.jpg 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooldooways.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooldooways.jpg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooldooways.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">It’s amazing enough that a school building still exists in today’s Chelsea 175 or so years after it opened, especially since <a href="https://considerthesourceny.org/using-primary-sources/researching-history-your-school/development-elementary-and-secondary-education-new-york">no state law mandated</a> that children even attend school until 1874.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">But what makes this little schoolhouse so remarkable is that it spent most of its early decades as a public city “colored school”—one of eight separate, segregated grammar schools in Manhattan for African-American kids. (Below, the school in 1908)</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/school19082.png"><img data-attachment-id="47602" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/10/this-former-schoolhouse-built-in-1849-in-chelsea-is-a-remnant-of-new-yorks-segregated-past/school19082/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/school19082.png" data-orig-size="662,850" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="School19082" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/school19082.png?w=234" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/school19082.png?w=450" loading="lazy" width="662" height="850" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/school19082.png?w=662" alt="" class="wp-image-47602" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/school19082.png 662w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/school19082.png?w=117 117w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/school19082.png?w=234 234w" sizes="(max-width: 662px) 100vw, 662px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">“Colored School No. 4,” as it was known for most of its life, was constructed in 1849-1850 by the Public School Society. Though wealthy families relied on private schools and tutors to educate their kids, working-class and poor children were on their own.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">The Society—formed in 1805 by city leaders and with roots in the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/07/realestate/segregated-school-landmark-manhattan.html">abolitionist-led Free African School</a> organization of the late 18th century—took on the responsibility of creating free public schools throughout Manhattan. </p> <p class="has-text-align-left">When it first opened its doors in what was a working-class enclave of modest row houses in the rapidly developing Chelsea neighborhood, this primary school served local kids whose families were English, Scottish, German, French, Italian, or Irish, according to a 2023 report from the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC).</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoollistteachers1884.png"><img data-attachment-id="47610" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/10/this-former-schoolhouse-built-in-1849-in-chelsea-is-a-remnant-of-new-yorks-segregated-past/schoollistteachers1884/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoollistteachers1884.png" data-orig-size="1234,1148" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Schoollistteachers1884" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoollistteachers1884.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoollistteachers1884.png?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="952" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoollistteachers1884.png?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47610" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoollistteachers1884.png?w=1024 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoollistteachers1884.png?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoollistteachers1884.png?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoollistteachers1884.png?w=768 768w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoollistteachers1884.png 1234w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">The Public School Society merged with the newly created Board of Education in 1853. By 1860, 128 West 17th Street became a Black primary school—first called Colored School No. 8 and then Colored School No. 4.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">“By 1860 many African Americans, who were often limited to where they were able to live, settled the West Side of Manhattan from 10th to 30th streets, and the school reflects this history,” notes the LPC report.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">That 19th century New York had a legally segregated school system isn’t well-known; we tend to think of Gotham as a city that has long welcomed people from all backgrounds, at least on paper. </p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooltaxphoto1940.png"><img data-attachment-id="47611" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/10/this-former-schoolhouse-built-in-1849-in-chelsea-is-a-remnant-of-new-yorks-segregated-past/schooltaxphoto1940/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooltaxphoto1940.png" data-orig-size="778,1176" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Schooltaxphoto1940" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooltaxphoto1940.png?w=198" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooltaxphoto1940.png?w=450" loading="lazy" width="677" height="1023" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooltaxphoto1940.png?w=677" alt="" class="wp-image-47611" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooltaxphoto1940.png?w=677 677w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooltaxphoto1940.png?w=99 99w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooltaxphoto1940.png?w=198 198w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooltaxphoto1940.png?w=768 768w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooltaxphoto1940.png 778w" sizes="(max-width: 677px) 100vw, 677px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">But other facets of city life were also segregated at the time, like hotels, churches, and even streetcars. The end of mass transit segregation was prompted by one fed-up Black rider <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2012/04/19/the-rosa-parks-of-1854-manhattan/">named Elizabeth Jennings, who pushed back</a> against the Third Avenue Railway Company and won her case in court in 1854 (with help from her lawyer, future <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2015/02/09/a-new-president-is-sworn-in-on-lexington-avenue/">president Chester Arthur</a>).</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">Colored School No. 4 may have been segregated, but that didn’t seem to affect the dedication of the staff. The school was led by Sarah Tompkins Garnet, a pioneering educator and suffrage supporter who came from a Brooklyn farming and merchant family. Garnet was one of the first Black women to become principal of a city school, per the LPC report.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">But the school wasn’t immune from racism. During the Draft Riots of July 1863, a mob surrounded the school and tried to break in while students and teachers were inside. “It seemed that two colored women whom they had pursued had taken refuge in the school-building, and they were determined to get at them,” reported the <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/image/78639100/?match=1&terms=%22The%20mob%20congregated%22%20school%20"><em>New-York Tribune</em> on July 15</a>.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooldrafrriotstribune1863.png"><img data-attachment-id="47616" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/10/this-former-schoolhouse-built-in-1849-in-chelsea-is-a-remnant-of-new-yorks-segregated-past/schooldrafrriotstribune1863/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooldrafrriotstribune1863.png" data-orig-size="1012,752" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Schooldrafrriotstribune1863" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooldrafrriotstribune1863.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooldrafrriotstribune1863.png?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1012" height="752" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooldrafrriotstribune1863.png?w=1012" alt="" class="wp-image-47616" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooldrafrriotstribune1863.png 1012w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooldrafrriotstribune1863.png?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooldrafrriotstribune1863.png?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schooldrafrriotstribune1863.png?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1012px) 100vw, 1012px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">“The teachers promptly barred all the doors leading into the street,” the newspaper wrote (above). The rioters moved on, turning their attention to a house across the street.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">“Later that day, [Garnet] escorted many of the schoolchildren safely to their homes through the dangerous streets before heading to her own home in Brooklyn,” wrote <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/07/realestate/segregated-school-landmark-manhattan.html">John Freeman Gill in a 2022 <em>New York Times</em></a> article.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">The end of city-endorsed school segregation came in 1883, states the LPC report, and Colored School No. 4 was renamed Public Grammar School 81. By 1894, it was shuttered. Garnet remained school principal until the end.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/sarahgarnetwiki.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47618" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/10/this-former-schoolhouse-built-in-1849-in-chelsea-is-a-remnant-of-new-yorks-segregated-past/sarahgarnetwiki/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/sarahgarnetwiki.jpg" data-orig-size="469,760" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Sarahgarnetwiki" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/sarahgarnetwiki.jpg?w=185" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/sarahgarnetwiki.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="469" height="760" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/sarahgarnetwiki.jpg?w=469" alt="" class="wp-image-47618" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/sarahgarnetwiki.jpg 469w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/sarahgarnetwiki.jpg?w=93 93w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/sarahgarnetwiki.jpg?w=185 185w" sizes="(max-width: 469px) 100vw, 469px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">In the early 1900s, the schoolhouse was leased to a veteran’s association, then underwent a renovation in the 1930s that removed its cornice and added the brick facade. </p> <p class="has-text-align-left">Still city-owned, it was used by the Sanitation Department as a lunchroom until about a decade ago, according to Gill’s 2022 <em>Times</em> article. (Fifth photo: the school in 1940)</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">A campaign to acknowledge the school’s place in New York City history, led by <a href="https://www.ekwashington.com/">historian Eric K. Washington</a>, resulted in landmark status for the building. Right now, 128 West 17th Street is undergoing a much-needed renovation.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoolcloseup-1.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47619" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/10/this-former-schoolhouse-built-in-1849-in-chelsea-is-a-remnant-of-new-yorks-segregated-past/schoolcloseup-2/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoolcloseup-1.jpg" data-orig-size="1024,768" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1739112451","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.25","iso":"40","shutter_speed":"0.0081967213114754","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.740019444444","longitude":"-73.996963888889"}" data-image-title="Schoolcloseup" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoolcloseup-1.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoolcloseup-1.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="768" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoolcloseup-1.jpg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47619" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoolcloseup-1.jpg 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoolcloseup-1.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoolcloseup-1.jpg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/schoolcloseup-1.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">While it’s getting rehabbed, the little schoolhouse on a Chelsea sidestreet stands as a remnant of New York’s backstory that’s been mostly forgotten.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">[Third image: <em><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Real_Estate_Owned_by_the_City_of_New_Yor/cs5LAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Headquarters+of+Veterans+Zouaves,+Seventy-Third+Regiment&pg=PA21&printsec=frontcover">Real Estate Owned by the City of New York</a></em>; fourth image: <em><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Directory_of_the_Board_of_Education_of_t/rFIlAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22128+west+17th+street%22&pg=PA164&printsec=frontcover">Directory of the Board of Education of the City and County of New York</a></em>; fifth image: <a href="https://nycrecords.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/IO_dd0fb445-139e-4dc2-be5b-b60d5f513e65/">NYC Department of Records & Information Services</a>; sixth image: <em>New-York Tribune</em> July 1863; seventh image: Wikipedia]</p> </div> <p class="postmetadata">Tags: <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/128-west-17th-street-nyc/" rel="tag">128 West 17th Street NYC</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/african-american-public-school-in-chelsea/" rel="tag">African American Public School in Chelsea</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/black-public-school-in-nyc/" rel="tag">Black public school in NYC</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/colored-school-chelsea-new-york-city/" rel="tag">Colored School Chelsea New York City</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/colored-school-number-4-chelsea-nyc/" rel="tag">Colored School Number 4 Chelsea NYC</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/history-of-public-schools-in-new-york-city/" rel="tag">History of Public Schools in New York City</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/sarah-tompkins-garnet-teacher-nyc/" rel="tag">Sarah Tompkins Garnet Teacher NYC</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/school-segregation-new-york-city/" rel="tag">School Segregation New York City</a><br /> Posted in <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/category/chelsea/" rel="category tag">Chelsea</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/category/schools/" rel="category tag">Schools</a> | <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/10/this-former-schoolhouse-built-in-1849-in-chelsea-is-a-remnant-of-new-yorks-segregated-past/#comments">8 Comments »</a></p> </div> <div class="post-47465 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-bars-and-restaurants category-gramercymurray-hill category-random-signage tag-best-old-store-signs-in-new-york-city tag-la-delice-pastry-shop-1960s-sign tag-la-delice-pastry-shop-kips-bay tag-la-delice-pastry-shop-third-avenue-27th-street tag-old-school-nyc-bakeries tag-vintage-1960s-store-signs-still-in-nyc" id="post-47465"> <h2><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/03/the-delightful-1960s-era-sign-above-an-old-school-pastry-shop-in-kips-bay/" rel="bookmark">The delightful 1960s-era sign above an old-school pastry shop in Kips Bay</a></h2> <small>February 3, 2025 </small> <div class="entry"> <p class="has-text-align-left">Without La Delice Pastry Shop’s swinging 1960s store sign—a visual feast of blue and red, curlycue cursive, and capital letters—the southwest corner of Third Avenue and 27th Street would be just another stretch of Kips Bay.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicesign2.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47471" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/03/the-delightful-1960s-era-sign-above-an-old-school-pastry-shop-in-kips-bay/ladelicesign2/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicesign2.jpg" data-orig-size="4032,3024" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1736092900","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.25","iso":"80","shutter_speed":"0.0083333333333333","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.741244444444","longitude":"-73.981338888889"}" data-image-title="Ladelicesign2" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicesign2.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicesign2.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="768" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicesign2.jpg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47471" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicesign2.jpg?w=1024 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicesign2.jpg?w=2048 2048w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicesign2.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicesign2.jpg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicesign2.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">Though the sign looks very midcentury, La Delice (which translates from French as “the delight”) has actually <a href="http://www.ladelicepastry.com/">been around since 1935</a>, according to the bakery’s website, meaning its 90th birthday is upon us.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">Was the shop always on this corner? Considering that it occupies the ground floor of a white-brick postwar apartment building, you wouldn’t think so.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">But take a look at this photo of the same corner from about 1940. It’s hard to make out, but the sign hanging off the tenement that stood here before the white brick building appears to read “pastry shop,” and maybe “La Delice” as well.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://nycrecords.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/IO_2e3db9f0-4d64-47cc-9e68-210f632d3a8e/"><img data-attachment-id="47475" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/03/the-delightful-1960s-era-sign-above-an-old-school-pastry-shop-in-kips-bay/ladelicetaxphotonycdeptrecordsinformationservices/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicetaxphotonycdeptrecordsinformationservices.png" data-orig-size="2272,1188" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="LaDelicetaxphotonycdeptrecords&amp;informationservices" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicetaxphotonycdeptrecordsinformationservices.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicetaxphotonycdeptrecordsinformationservices.png?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="535" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicetaxphotonycdeptrecordsinformationservices.png?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47475" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicetaxphotonycdeptrecordsinformationservices.png?w=1024 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicetaxphotonycdeptrecordsinformationservices.png?w=2046 2046w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicetaxphotonycdeptrecordsinformationservices.png?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicetaxphotonycdeptrecordsinformationservices.png?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicetaxphotonycdeptrecordsinformationservices.png?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure> <p class="has-text-align-left">Click in to enlarge the photo, which comes from the indispensable <a href="https://nycrecords.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/IO_2e3db9f0-4d64-47cc-9e68-210f632d3a8e/">New York City Department of Records & Information Services</a>. Note the awning that reads “French Chocolates” on the 27th Street side, and “pies, cakes, pastries” facing Third Avenue.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">La Delice has been under the radar as a New York City bakery destination, but it did make it into Dorothy Kilgallen’s <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/image/41260412/?match=1&terms=%22la%20delice%22%20pastry">Voice of Broadway column in 1945</a>. A letter writer bemoaning the possibility of having to leave the city, calls out “the delightful odor that sweeps around the corner at Third Avenue and 27th Street from La Delice Pastry Shoppe.”</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicesign.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47478" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/03/the-delightful-1960s-era-sign-above-an-old-school-pastry-shop-in-kips-bay/ladelicesign/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicesign.jpg" data-orig-size="3998,2998" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1736092920","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.25","iso":"80","shutter_speed":"0.0083333333333333","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.741280555556","longitude":"-73.981322222222"}" data-image-title="Ladelicesign" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicesign.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicesign.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="767" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicesign.jpg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47478" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicesign.jpg?w=1024 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicesign.jpg?w=2046 2046w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicesign.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicesign.jpg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ladelicesign.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">On a recent visit I didn’t detect that delicious bakery scent the letter writer noted. But what a visual treat of seeing piles of fresh cookies and pastries arranged on baking sheets in brightly lit windows!</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">[Photo: <a href="https://nycrecords.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/IO_2e3db9f0-4d64-47cc-9e68-210f632d3a8e/">NYC Department of Records & Information Services</a>]</p> </div> <p class="postmetadata">Tags: <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/best-old-store-signs-in-new-york-city/" rel="tag">Best Old Store Signs in New York City</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/la-delice-pastry-shop-1960s-sign/" rel="tag">La Delice Pastry Shop 1960s Sign</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/la-delice-pastry-shop-kips-bay/" rel="tag">La Delice Pastry Shop Kips Bay</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/la-delice-pastry-shop-third-avenue-27th-street/" rel="tag">La Delice Pastry Shop Third Avenue 27th Street</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/old-school-nyc-bakeries/" rel="tag">Old-School NYC Bakeries</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/vintage-1960s-store-signs-still-in-nyc/" rel="tag">Vintage 1960s Store Signs Still in NYC</a><br /> Posted in <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/category/bars-and-restaurants/" rel="category tag">Bars and restaurants</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/category/gramercymurray-hill/" rel="category tag">Gramercy/Murray Hill</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/category/random-signage/" rel="category tag">Random signage</a> | <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/03/the-delightful-1960s-era-sign-above-an-old-school-pastry-shop-in-kips-bay/#comments">12 Comments »</a></p> </div> <div class="post-47524 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-art category-west-village tag-all-about-washington-mews tag-greenwich-village-alleys-lanes tag-new-yorks-secret-alleys tag-stables-carriage-houses-in-new-york-city tag-washington-mews tag-washington-mews-greenwich-village tag-washington-mews-houses-studios tag-washington-square-north-alley" id="post-47524"> <h2><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/03/from-horse-stables-to-art-studios-to-university-housing-the-changing-face-of-washington-mews/" rel="bookmark">From horse stables to art studios to university housing, the changing face of Washington Mews</a></h2> <small>February 3, 2025 </small> <div class="entry"> <p class="has-text-align-left">The Greek Revival row houses built on Washington Square North between 1829 and 1833, with their graceful stoops and elegant ionic columns, offered everything a wealthy New York family could want.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewscentered.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47539" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/03/from-horse-stables-to-art-studios-to-university-housing-the-changing-face-of-washington-mews/mewscentered/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewscentered.jpg" data-orig-size="1024,768" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1737907654","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.25","iso":"40","shutter_speed":"0.0081967213114754","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.73135","longitude":"-73.995269444444"}" data-image-title="Mewscentered" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewscentered.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewscentered.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="768" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewscentered.jpg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47539" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewscentered.jpg 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewscentered.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewscentered.jpg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewscentered.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">What would that be? Think spacious living quarters, backyard gardens, proximity to the theater, church, and fine shops, and <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/It_Happened_on_Washington_Square/thWVcHVixF4C?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=mews">assurance by the builders</a>, who leased the land from Sailors’ Snug Harbor, that no factories would encroach on this residential enclave.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">Elite residents also craved some distance from the filth overtaking lower city. And across the street was a lovely new park—the former potter’s field turned military parade ground, Washington Square. Access to the park was definitely a plus.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewstowarduniversity2.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47572" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/03/from-horse-stables-to-art-studios-to-university-housing-the-changing-face-of-washington-mews/mewstowarduniversity2/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewstowarduniversity2.jpg" data-orig-size="1024,768" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"2.4","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1737907800","copyright":"","focal_length":"1.54","iso":"80","shutter_speed":"0.0082644628099174","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.731525","longitude":"-73.995758333333"}" data-image-title="Mewstowarduniversity2" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewstowarduniversity2.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewstowarduniversity2.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="768" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewstowarduniversity2.jpg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47572" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewstowarduniversity2.jpg 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewstowarduniversity2.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewstowarduniversity2.jpg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewstowarduniversity2.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">But for any New Yorker to live comfortably in the antebellum city, they needed a place to keep their horses and carriage, and possibly living space for the servants who tended to them.</p> <p>So began the early years of Washington Mews, perhaps Greenwich Village’s most famous and photographed historic private lane.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsnorthside.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47542" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/03/from-horse-stables-to-art-studios-to-university-housing-the-changing-face-of-washington-mews/mewsnorthside/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsnorthside.jpg" data-orig-size="1024,768" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1737907667","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.25","iso":"32","shutter_speed":"0.00625","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.73135","longitude":"-73.995316666667"}" data-image-title="Mewsnorthside" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsnorthside.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsnorthside.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="768" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsnorthside.jpg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47542" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsnorthside.jpg 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsnorthside.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsnorthside.jpg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsnorthside.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">Shortly after the row houses fronting Washington Square were completed, planning began for this back alley—an unusual concession in a city that was <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2022/07/18/the-lower-east-sides-mechanics-alley-is-one-of-the-last-true-alleys-in-manhattan/">intentionally mapped out</a> without alleys, as real estate was too precious to waste on horses and garbage.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">Cutting a slender path between Washington Square North and Eighth Street, the Mews followed what had been a Lenape trail connecting the Hudson and East Rivers, according to James and Michelle Nevius’ <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Inside_the_Apple/X3qRsoicp48C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=washington+mews+lenape+trail&pg=PA5&printsec=frontcover"><em>Inside the Apple</em></a>.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsnyhs.jpeg"><img data-attachment-id="47550" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/03/from-horse-stables-to-art-studios-to-university-housing-the-changing-face-of-washington-mews/mewsnyhs/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsnyhs.jpeg" data-orig-size="4351,3157" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"IQ180","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1419303247","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"35","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="MewsNYHS" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsnyhs.jpeg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsnyhs.jpeg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="742" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsnyhs.jpeg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47550" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsnyhs.jpeg?w=1024 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsnyhs.jpeg?w=2045 2045w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsnyhs.jpeg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsnyhs.jpeg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsnyhs.jpeg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">Once the Belgian block paving was in place, a row of two-story carriage houses were built—but only on the north side of the Mews (third photo). That kept the sound and stench of horses from intruding on the “deep rear gardens and extensions” of the Washington Square North houses, according to the Greenwich Village Historic District report.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">Who were the well-heeled residents who parked their equipages here? Bankers and merchants, according to <a href="https://www.villagepreservation.org/2011/12/09/my-favorite-things-washington-square-north/">Village Preservation</a>. The Row, as Washington Square North became known, enjoyed decades of status as one of the most desirable places to live.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">But change was coming. In the 1850s, six new stables were built on the south side, freeing up space on the north side for the carriage owners living on Eighth Street, per the Greenwich Village Historic District report. No longer was it the exclusive lane of residents of The Row.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/42-48mews1918mcny.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47561" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/03/from-horse-stables-to-art-studios-to-university-housing-the-changing-face-of-washington-mews/42-48mews1918mcny/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/42-48mews1918mcny.jpg" data-orig-size="682,550" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="42-48mews1918mcny" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/42-48mews1918mcny.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/42-48mews1918mcny.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="682" height="550" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/42-48mews1918mcny.jpg?w=682" alt="" class="wp-image-47561" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/42-48mews1918mcny.jpg 682w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/42-48mews1918mcny.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/42-48mews1918mcny.jpg?w=300 300w" sizes="(max-width: 682px) 100vw, 682px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">In 1881, city officials mandated that gates be built at the entrances of the Mews, clarifying its status as a private lane, wrote Christopher Gray in a 1988 <em><a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1988/11/20/153088.html?pageNumber=343">New York Times</a></em> Streetscapes column. (Fourth photo shows a gate on the University Place side.)</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">By now, artists were arriving; “the house and stable at 3 Washington Square North was demolished for a studio building in 1884,” stated Gray. Coinciding with the coming of the artists was the end of the horse and carriage era. </p> <p class="has-text-align-left">In 1916, Sailors’ Snug Harbor, which still owned the land, announced that “the little stables of the mews, whose usefulness has long since passed away,” will be converted into artists’ live-work studios, per Gray. ( Fifth image: 1917, looking toward University Place)</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsbrickhouse.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47563" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/03/from-horse-stables-to-art-studios-to-university-housing-the-changing-face-of-washington-mews/mewsbrickhouse/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsbrickhouse.jpg" data-orig-size="1024,768" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1737907738","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.25","iso":"32","shutter_speed":"0.0043478260869565","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.731461111111","longitude":"-73.995613888889"}" data-image-title="Mewsbrickhouse" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsbrickhouse.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsbrickhouse.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="768" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsbrickhouse.jpg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47563" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsbrickhouse.jpg 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsbrickhouse.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsbrickhouse.jpg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewsbrickhouse.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">Artists like Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Edward Hopper, and Paul Manship did occupy the stables-turned-studios. More dwellings were constructed on the south side, and a renovation did away with many of the original brick facades in favor of stucco and the occasional ornamental tile.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">Washington Mews’ next chapter began in 1949, when New York University <a href="https://www.villagepreservation.org/2012/05/01/whats-happening-on-washington-mews/">purchased the alley</a>—or the lease from Sailors Snug Harbor, as some sources state. Since then, school administrators have gradually transformed the cottages into faculty housing and facilities space.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">Even though it’s a private street, the gates tend to be open during the day, so tourists and curious New Yorkers can wander through and imagine living inside this “charming little village,” as the Greenwich Village Historical District report describes it, isolated from city traffic.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewstowarduniversity.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47568" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/03/from-horse-stables-to-art-studios-to-university-housing-the-changing-face-of-washington-mews/mewstowarduniversity/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewstowarduniversity.jpg" data-orig-size="1024,768" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1737907885","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.25","iso":"32","shutter_speed":"0.0036764705882353","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.731669444444","longitude":"-73.996116666667"}" data-image-title="Mewstowarduniversity" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewstowarduniversity.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewstowarduniversity.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="768" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewstowarduniversity.jpg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47568" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewstowarduniversity.jpg 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewstowarduniversity.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewstowarduniversity.jpg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mewstowarduniversity.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">If you stand still and concentrate, you might even sense the ghosts of the original horses clip-clopping on those Belgian blocks.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">[Fourth image: between 1890-1919, <a href="https://dcmny.org/do/4bb100d3-a6c6-4382-a238-3deb876dd2f3">New York Historical</a>; fifth image, <a href="https://collections.mcny.org/CS.aspx?VP3=DamView&VBID=24UP1GZ6YSVMF&PN=1&WS=SearchResults&FR_=1&W=1182&H=628">MCNY X2010.7.1.5302</a>]</p> </div> <p class="postmetadata">Tags: <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/all-about-washington-mews/" rel="tag">All About Washington Mews</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/greenwich-village-alleys-lanes/" rel="tag">Greenwich Village Alleys Lanes</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/new-yorks-secret-alleys/" rel="tag">New York's Secret Alleys</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/stables-carriage-houses-in-new-york-city/" rel="tag">Stables Carriage Houses in New York City</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/washington-mews/" rel="tag">Washington Mews</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/washington-mews-greenwich-village/" rel="tag">Washington Mews Greenwich Village</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/washington-mews-houses-studios/" rel="tag">Washington Mews Houses Studios</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/washington-square-north-alley/" rel="tag">Washington Square North Alley</a><br /> Posted in <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/category/art/" rel="category tag">art</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/category/west-village/" rel="category tag">West Village</a> | <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/03/from-horse-stables-to-art-studios-to-university-housing-the-changing-face-of-washington-mews/#comments">7 Comments »</a></p> </div> <div class="post-47482 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-central-park category-music-art-theater category-random-signage category-upper-east-side tag-ancient-playground-central-park tag-ancient-playground-gates-central-park tag-hospital-for-the-ruptured-and-crippled-nyc tag-osborn-gates-central-park tag-osborn-society-for-the-ruptured-and-crippled tag-paul-manship-central-park-animals tag-society-for-the-relief-of-the-ruptured-and-crippled tag-william-church-osborn-central-park" id="post-47482"> <h2><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/03/how-these-fairy-tale-gates-in-central-park-connect-to-an-1860s-hospital-for-the-ruptured-and-crippled/" rel="bookmark">How these fairy-tale gates in Central Park connect to an 1860s hospital for the “ruptured and crippled”</a></h2> <small>February 3, 2025 </small> <div class="entry"> <p class="has-text-align-left">Walk up Fifth Avenue to about East 85th Street, and something enchanting will catch your eye. Just inside Central Park are two granite pillars flanking cast-iron gates decorated with animal sculptures.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gates.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47492" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/03/how-these-fairy-tale-gates-in-central-park-connect-to-an-1860s-hospital-for-the-ruptured-and-crippled/gates/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gates.jpg" data-orig-size="3174,2640" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1738510096","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.25","iso":"64","shutter_speed":"0.0081967213114754","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.780675","longitude":"-73.961066666667"}" data-image-title="Gates" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gates.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gates.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="851" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gates.jpg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47492" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gates.jpg?w=1024 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gates.jpg?w=2046 2046w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gates.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gates.jpg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gates.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">Bears, deer, mice, squirrels, a frog, a fox, a wold, a crane, and a crow—these playful sculptures set against a backdrop of tree branches are inspired by the stories in Aesop’s Fables. </p> <p class="has-text-align-left">It’s an appropriate theme, as the gates open to the Ancient Playground, one of the Central Park’s <a href="https://www.centralpark.com/things-to-do/activities/playgrounds/#page=1">21 play areas</a> for kids.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">But the pillars have a curious inscription. One carries a dedication to the memory of a William Church Osborn, while the other pillar calls out his accomplishments: president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1941 to 1947; president of the Children’s Aid Society from 1901 to 1949.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gatesclosup.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47494" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/03/how-these-fairy-tale-gates-in-central-park-connect-to-an-1860s-hospital-for-the-ruptured-and-crippled/gatesclosup/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gatesclosup.jpg" data-orig-size="1024,768" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1738510185","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.25","iso":"125","shutter_speed":"0.016666666666667","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.780691666667","longitude":"-73.961180555556"}" data-image-title="Gatesclosup" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gatesclosup.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gatesclosup.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="768" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gatesclosup.jpg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47494" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gatesclosup.jpg 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gatesclosup.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gatesclosup.jpg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gatesclosup.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">The pillar also notes that from 1910 and 1937 he was president of a group called the New York Society for the Relief of the Ruptured and Crippled.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">The ruptured and crippled? Like institution and lunatic asylum, these Dickens-ish terms have been long abandoned by the medical establishment. But it made me wonder about the Society and to try to trace its origins.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">That took me back to the New York City of 1863. With the Civil War in the backdrop, the newly formed Society founded a hospital led by an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. James Knight, in Knight’s own home on Second Avenue and Sixth Street.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/hospitalimagenypl1875.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47499" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/03/how-these-fairy-tale-gates-in-central-park-connect-to-an-1860s-hospital-for-the-ruptured-and-crippled/hospitalimagenypl1875/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/hospitalimagenypl1875.jpg" data-orig-size="760,530" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Hospitalimagenypl1875" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/hospitalimagenypl1875.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/hospitalimagenypl1875.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="760" height="530" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/hospitalimagenypl1875.jpg?w=760" alt="" class="wp-image-47499" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/hospitalimagenypl1875.jpg 760w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/hospitalimagenypl1875.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/hospitalimagenypl1875.jpg?w=300 300w" sizes="(max-width: 760px) 100vw, 760px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">In a city population of about 800,000, many people suffered from orthopedic problems and “ruptured” organs. That first year, more than 800 people sought help, including many children.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">“Persons afflicted with ruptures, ulcerated legs [and] poor families having crippled children, suffering from spinal and paralytic affections, thronged our streets, dwellings and places of business, making revolting displays of their infirmities and misfortunes,” <a href="https://www.nyc.gov/site/mopd/events/our-history.page?slide=2">wrote Dr. Knight</a>, according to this NYC Mayor’s Office page.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/hosptialbuildingnypl.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47501" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/03/how-these-fairy-tale-gates-in-central-park-connect-to-an-1860s-hospital-for-the-ruptured-and-crippled/hosptialbuildingnypl/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/hosptialbuildingnypl.jpg" data-orig-size="760,557" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1414636583","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Hosptialbuildingnypl" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/hosptialbuildingnypl.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/hosptialbuildingnypl.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="760" height="557" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/hosptialbuildingnypl.jpg?w=760" alt="" class="wp-image-47501" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/hosptialbuildingnypl.jpg 760w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/hosptialbuildingnypl.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/hosptialbuildingnypl.jpg?w=300 300w" sizes="(max-width: 760px) 100vw, 760px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">By 1875, the Society raised enough funds to open a much larger hospital on 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue, below. (Above, the third image shows the play area for children living at the hospital.)</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">William Church Osborn, a lawyer and philanthropist from a wealthy New York family, got involved with the Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled around this time.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">Under his leadership, he helped <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2504267/">negotiate the selling of the second hospital</a> and the 1912 construction of a new, more modern facility on East 42nd Street and Second Avenue.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="alignleft size-full"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/williamchurchosbornesmall-1.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47514" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/03/how-these-fairy-tale-gates-in-central-park-connect-to-an-1860s-hospital-for-the-ruptured-and-crippled/williamchurchosbornesmall-2/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/williamchurchosbornesmall-1.jpg" data-orig-size="216,208" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Williamchurchosbornesmall" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/williamchurchosbornesmall-1.jpg?w=216" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/williamchurchosbornesmall-1.jpg?w=216" loading="lazy" width="216" height="208" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/williamchurchosbornesmall-1.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-47514" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/williamchurchosbornesmall-1.jpg 216w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/williamchurchosbornesmall-1.jpg?w=150&h=144 150w" sizes="(max-width: 216px) 100vw, 216px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">In 1940, the hospital was renamed the <a href="https://www.hss.edu/history.asp">Hospital for Special Surgery</a>, which exists today on 70th Street east of York Avenue.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">So what’s the connection between Osborn and the animal gates? </p> <p class="has-text-align-left">After Osborn’s death in 1951 at age 88, city officials decided to honor his long history of supporting children’s causes by commissioning the gates, which would grace a new playground to be built north of the Museum this avid art collector once led.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gateswolf.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47517" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/03/how-these-fairy-tale-gates-in-central-park-connect-to-an-1860s-hospital-for-the-ruptured-and-crippled/gateswolf/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gateswolf.jpg" data-orig-size="1024,768" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1738510194","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.25","iso":"160","shutter_speed":"0.016666666666667","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.780788888889","longitude":"-73.961211111111"}" data-image-title="Gateswolf" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gateswolf.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gateswolf.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="768" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gateswolf.jpg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47517" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gateswolf.jpg 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gateswolf.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gateswolf.jpg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gateswolf.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">In <a href="https://www.centralparknyc.org/locations/osborn-gates">1953, the “Osborne Gates”</a> were dedicated. They are the work of 20th century sculptor Paul Manship, whose <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/paul-mansfield-central-park/">animal and mythological figures</a> in bronze can be found throughout Central Park.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">In the 1970s, the gates were relocated to the Ancient Playground; the previous playground was demolished to make room for an expanded Met museum building.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gatesend.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47519" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/03/how-these-fairy-tale-gates-in-central-park-connect-to-an-1860s-hospital-for-the-ruptured-and-crippled/gatesend/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gatesend.jpg" data-orig-size="844,641" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1738510002","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.25","iso":"32","shutter_speed":"0.003921568627451","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.780797222222","longitude":"-73.961119444444"}" data-image-title="Gatesend" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gatesend.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gatesend.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="844" height="641" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gatesend.jpg?w=844" alt="" class="wp-image-47519" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gatesend.jpg 844w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gatesend.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gatesend.jpg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/gatesend.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 844px) 100vw, 844px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">The kids scampering around the playground these days may not be able to read Osborn’s name inscribed in the pillar. But they meet eye to eye with the animals on the gates—which I imagine would charm the man they’re named for.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">[Third image: <a href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e0-d3bf-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99">NYPL Digital Collections</a>; fourth image: NYPL Digital Collections; fifth image: Alamy]</p> </div> <p class="postmetadata">Tags: <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/ancient-playground-central-park/" rel="tag">Ancient Playground Central Park</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/ancient-playground-gates-central-park/" rel="tag">Ancient Playground Gates Central Park</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/hospital-for-the-ruptured-and-crippled-nyc/" rel="tag">Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled NYC</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/osborn-gates-central-park/" rel="tag">Osborn Gates Central Park</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/osborn-society-for-the-ruptured-and-crippled/" rel="tag">Osborn Society for the Ruptured and Crippled</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/paul-manship-central-park-animals/" rel="tag">Paul Manship Central Park Animals</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/society-for-the-relief-of-the-ruptured-and-crippled/" rel="tag">Society for the Relief of the Ruptured and Crippled</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/william-church-osborn-central-park/" rel="tag">William Church Osborn Central Park</a><br /> Posted in <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/category/central-park/" rel="category tag">central park</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/category/music-art-theater/" rel="category tag">Music, art, theater</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/category/random-signage/" rel="category tag">Random signage</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/category/upper-east-side/" rel="category tag">Upper East Side</a> | <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/02/03/how-these-fairy-tale-gates-in-central-park-connect-to-an-1860s-hospital-for-the-ruptured-and-crippled/#comments">14 Comments »</a></p> </div> <div class="post-47447 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-art category-west-village tag-95-christopher-street-nyc tag-beulah-r-bettersworth-christopher-street tag-beulah-r-bettersworth-nyc tag-christopher-street-1930s-nyc tag-christopher-street-greenwich-village tag-greenwich-village-painters-1930s" id="post-47447"> <h2><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/01/27/a-winter-scene-on-christopher-street-in-the-1930s-that-looks-eerily-similar-today/" rel="bookmark">A winter scene on Christopher Street in the 1930s that looks eerily similar today</a></h2> <small>January 27, 2025 </small> <div class="entry"> <p class="has-text-align-left">The chalet-style elevated train station is long gone; the Ninth Avenue El, which ran along Greenwich Avenue, was demolished in 1940. (Though Berenice Abbott keeps it alive just as the painting does <a href="https://collections.mcny.org/CS.aspx?VP3=DamView&VBID=24UP1GZ6MG4X3&PN=1&WS=SearchResults&FR_=1&W=1186&H=505">in this 1936 photo</a>.)</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/christopherstreet19342025-1.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47451" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/01/27/a-winter-scene-on-christopher-street-in-the-1930s-that-looks-eerily-similar-today/christopherstreet19342025-1/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/christopherstreet19342025-1.jpg" data-orig-size="509,640" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="christopherstreet19342025-1" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/christopherstreet19342025-1.jpg?w=239" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/christopherstreet19342025-1.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="509" height="640" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/christopherstreet19342025-1.jpg?w=509" alt="" class="wp-image-47451" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/christopherstreet19342025-1.jpg 509w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/christopherstreet19342025-1.jpg?w=119 119w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/christopherstreet19342025-1.jpg?w=239 239w" sizes="(max-width: 509px) 100vw, 509px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">The cigar shop in the little Federal-style house on the left has also bit the dust. The land is part of the churchyard of St. Luke’s, and the sidewalk is occupied by a row of Citibikes.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">But otherwise, so much of Beulah R. Bettersworth’s 1934 depiction of Christopher Street looking down toward Greenwich Avenue is strangely unchanged more than 90 years later.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">The three-story yellow building on the northwest corner of Greenwich is still there and still yellow. The two red-brick taller buildings to the north exist as well. The curvy awning at the entrance to the Hudson Tubes—aka, the PATH train—remains in place.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/christopherstreet2025.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47456" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/01/27/a-winter-scene-on-christopher-street-in-the-1930s-that-looks-eerily-similar-today/christopherstreet2025/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/christopherstreet2025.jpg" data-orig-size="1024,768" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1737909304","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.25","iso":"32","shutter_speed":"0.0037453183520599","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.733055555556","longitude":"-74.006727777778"}" data-image-title="Christopherstreet2025" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/christopherstreet2025.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/christopherstreet2025.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="768" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/christopherstreet2025.jpg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47456" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/christopherstreet2025.jpg 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/christopherstreet2025.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/christopherstreet2025.jpg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/christopherstreet2025.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">Beyond Greenwich Street, the Gothic steeples of St. Veronica’s enchant and delight. Far in the background, a sliver of the Hudson River lets us know we’re at the small-scaleend of this historic street in Greenwich Village.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">I tried to capture the same view today, but my camera work is no match for Bettersworth’s eye. This was her neighborhood—she lived in an Art Deco high-rise on the corner of Bleecker Street—and she depicts her neighborhood with tenderness.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">I’m not the only one so taken with this streetscape. “A wintry corner of Greenwich Village lives in this painting as Beulah Bettersworth knew it when she and her husband inhabited 95 Christopher Street, a block away,” explains the Smithsonian, which has the painting in its collection. (Before that, FDR had it hanging in the White House.) </p> <p class="has-text-align-left">“Closely observed details draw the viewer into the painting to join Bettersworth’s neighbors hurrying through the slushy snow, catching a whiff of tobacco from the cigar store in the foreground. Snow melts from the roof of St. Veronica’s Catholic Church, whose towers are visible behind the Ninth Avenue ‘L’ station. The elevated train station had been an elegant adaptation of a Swiss chalet when it was built in 1867, but by Bettersworth’s time it was an aging relic soon to be torn down.”</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">More about Christopher Street is known than about Bettersworth. Born in St. Louis, she studied at the Art Students League and became a WPA painter during the Depression. She exhibited portraits and still lifes; she painted a mural for a Mississippi post office that by today’s sensibilities <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/image/185605750/?match=1&terms=beulah%20bettersworth">has been considered controversial</a>.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">She died in Tucson in 1968, and I like to think she’d be quite charmed to know that the contours of this part of Christopher Street are almost frozen in time.</p> </div> <p class="postmetadata">Tags: <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/95-christopher-street-nyc/" rel="tag">95 Christopher Street NYC</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/beulah-r-bettersworth-christopher-street/" rel="tag">Beulah R. Bettersworth Christopher Street</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/beulah-r-bettersworth-nyc/" rel="tag">Beulah R. Bettersworth NYC</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/christopher-street-1930s-nyc/" rel="tag">Christopher Street 1930s NYC</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/christopher-street-greenwich-village/" rel="tag">Christopher Street Greenwich Village</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/greenwich-village-painters-1930s/" rel="tag">Greenwich Village Painters 1930s</a><br /> Posted in <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/category/art/" rel="category tag">art</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/category/west-village/" rel="category tag">West Village</a> | <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/01/27/a-winter-scene-on-christopher-street-in-the-1930s-that-looks-eerily-similar-today/#comments">13 Comments »</a></p> </div> <div class="post-47379 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-brooklyn category-chelsea category-east-village category-gramercymurray-hill category-midtown category-upper-east-side category-upper-west-sidemorningside-hts category-west-village tag-first-brownstones-in-nyc tag-history-of-brooklyn-brownstones tag-history-of-brownstones-in-new-york-city tag-how-new-york-fell-in-love-with-brownstones tag-the-story-of-brownstones-in-new-york-city tag-why-brownstones-are-so-popular-in-nyc tag-why-new-yorkers-love-brownstones" id="post-47379"> <h2><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/01/27/how-19th-century-new-york-city-fell-in-love-with-brownstones-a-love-story-that-endures-today/" rel="bookmark">How 19th century New York City fell in love with brownstones—a love story that endures today</a></h2> <small>January 27, 2025 </small> <div class="entry"> <p class="has-text-align-left">The first signs of it emerged in the 1830s cityscape: brown porous sandstone began appearing around entrances and as window lintels on New York’s stylish Federal-style brick houses.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-bedstuy.jpeg"><img data-attachment-id="47388" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/01/27/how-19th-century-new-york-city-fell-in-love-with-brownstones-a-love-story-that-endures-today/brownstones-bedstuy/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-bedstuy.jpeg" data-orig-size="1024,768" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1734277769","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.25","iso":"64","shutter_speed":"0.016666666666667","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.693797222222","longitude":"-73.950438888889"}" data-image-title="Brownstones BedStuy" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-bedstuy.jpeg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-bedstuy.jpeg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="768" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-bedstuy.jpeg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47388" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-bedstuy.jpeg 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-bedstuy.jpeg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-bedstuy.jpeg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-bedstuy.jpeg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">By the 1860s, brownstone-clad row houses were everywhere, going up across Manhattan and then Brooklyn (above, a brownstone row in Bedford-Stuyvesant) as fast as the Gilded Age’s upper classes could buy them. </p> <p class="has-text-align-left">Some rose four stories with grand proportions, including a tall stoop and elaborately carved doorway, such as the brownstone below, built in 1853 at 47 Fifth Avenue and long occupied by the Salmagundi Club. Others stopped at three floors and cut a more slender, less ornate appearance.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">But what was it about this iconic house type that made it a symbol of New York City elegance and charm—and is still sought after today?</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstone-salmaygundi-2023.jpeg"><img data-attachment-id="47440" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/01/27/how-19th-century-new-york-city-fell-in-love-with-brownstones-a-love-story-that-endures-today/brownstone-salmaygundi-2023/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstone-salmaygundi-2023.jpeg" data-orig-size="1024,768" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1664559516","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.25","iso":"125","shutter_speed":"0.0082644628099174","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.734469444444","longitude":"-73.994819444444"}" data-image-title="Brownstone salmaygundi 2023" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstone-salmaygundi-2023.jpeg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstone-salmaygundi-2023.jpeg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="768" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstone-salmaygundi-2023.jpeg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47440" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstone-salmaygundi-2023.jpeg 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstone-salmaygundi-2023.jpeg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstone-salmaygundi-2023.jpeg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstone-salmaygundi-2023.jpeg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">Before getting into the backstory of the brownstone, it might be helpful to define what one is. New Yorkers often consider any attached row of houses to be brownstones whether the facade is brick, marble, or limestone.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">But a brownstone is a specific type of row house constructed between the 1830s and the 1890s cloaked in brown sandstone.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">“Originally referred to as ‘brownstone fronts’ in the nineteenth century, the brick buildings acquired their name from the four-to-six-inch-thick stone veneer that covered the front side,” wrote Suleiman Osman, author of <em><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Invention_of_Brownstone_Brooklyn/-IgfAwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=what+is+a+brownstone&printsec=frontcover">The Invention of Brownstone Brooklyn</a></em>.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/hopperhousebrownstone.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47404" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/01/27/how-19th-century-new-york-city-fell-in-love-with-brownstones-a-love-story-that-endures-today/hopperhousebrownstone/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/hopperhousebrownstone.jpg" data-orig-size="2918,3891" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"2.4","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1737906999","copyright":"","focal_length":"1.54","iso":"100","shutter_speed":"0.0081967213114754","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.727663888889","longitude":"-73.98825"}" data-image-title="Hopperhousebrownstone" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/hopperhousebrownstone.jpg?w=225" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/hopperhousebrownstone.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="768" height="1024" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/hopperhousebrownstone.jpg?w=768" alt="" class="wp-image-47404" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/hopperhousebrownstone.jpg?w=768 768w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/hopperhousebrownstone.jpg?w=1536 1536w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/hopperhousebrownstone.jpg?w=112 112w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/hopperhousebrownstone.jpg?w=225 225w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">This stone, much of it mined from a quarry in Portland, Connecticut, was actually pink when it was cut and shipped to stone yards along the East and Hudson Rivers.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">But once placed on the exterior of a brick house and then exposed to the elements, it turned brown, stated Osman. That brown could be a reddish rust, or dark mud, or a brown that made the house appear <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1985/04/28/magazine/how-the-city-shapes-its-writers-behind-the-brownstone-door.html">“chocolate-colored,”</a> as Edith Wharton, who was born in a <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/edith-whartons-new-york-city/">brownstone at 14 West 23rd Street</a>, disparaged it.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">As Wharton’s comment reveals, brownstones have always had their detractors. <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2017/10/23/edgar-allan-poe-on-new-yorks-inevitable-doom/">In an 1840s dispatch</a>, Edgar Allan Poe contemplated the destruction of Manhattan by predicting that “in some 30 years every noble cliff will be a pier, and the whole island will be densely desecrated by buildings of brick, with portentous of brownstone, or brown-stonn, as the Gothamites have it.”</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">Still, when the stone first appeared as trim on new row houses in today’s downtown neighborhoods—like on the entrance and <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2014/11/10/an-1838-east-village-townhouses-radical-history/">base of the Isaac Hopper House</a>, above, built in the Greek Revival style at 1838 at 110 Second Avenue—it made a fashionable impression.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-row-east-93rd-.jpeg"><img data-attachment-id="47411" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/01/27/how-19th-century-new-york-city-fell-in-love-with-brownstones-a-love-story-that-endures-today/brownstones-row-east-93rd/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-row-east-93rd-.jpeg" data-orig-size="1024,768" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"2.2","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 6s","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1577637154","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.15","iso":"200","shutter_speed":"0.041666666666667","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.785338888889","longitude":"-73.951133333333"}" data-image-title="BRownstones row East 93rd" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-row-east-93rd-.jpeg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-row-east-93rd-.jpeg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="768" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-row-east-93rd-.jpeg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47411" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-row-east-93rd-.jpeg 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-row-east-93rd-.jpeg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-row-east-93rd-.jpeg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-row-east-93rd-.jpeg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">It’s unclear where the first true brownstone residences were built. But a <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1926/01/10/100039034.html?pageNumber=176">1926 <em>New York Times</em> article</a> that prematurely eulogized brownstones gave the honor to a group of row houses on an unnamed block in Chelsea constructed in the late 1830s.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">Soon, brownstone fever hit Gotham. With the city’s population booming in the 1840s and 1850s, brownstone rows made their debuts in other upper middle class neighborhoods, such as Greenwich Village, Madison Square, and Murray Hill.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">The elegant look of brownstone was part of the attraction. “Brownstones were an architectural trompe l’oeil designed to give a faux sense of historic glamour,” wrote Osman. “In an era when stone was seen as more monumental than brick or wood, builders used sandstone as a cheap substitute for marble.”</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-ues.jpeg"><img data-attachment-id="47420" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/01/27/how-19th-century-new-york-city-fell-in-love-with-brownstones-a-love-story-that-endures-today/brownstones-ues/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-ues.jpeg" data-orig-size="1024,768" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1735749957","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.25","iso":"640","shutter_speed":"0.033333333333333","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.776111111111","longitude":"-73.961547222222"}" data-image-title="Brownstones UES" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-ues.jpeg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-ues.jpeg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="768" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-ues.jpeg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47420" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-ues.jpeg 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-ues.jpeg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-ues.jpeg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-ues.jpeg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">“The facing was carefully designed to give the illusion that the entire building was constructed of stone,” continued Osman. “Builders cut large slabs of stone to minimize any visible seams, giving the townhouse a solid brown and austere look.”</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">Builders found that brownstone had a practical appeal as well. The industrial revolution made it possible to quarry lots of it and mass produce design motifs that made each uniform row of new brownstones look slightly different than other rows in development.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">Brownstones also reflected “the mid-19th-century popularity of Romantic Classicism, which glorified picturesque nature,” states an <a href="https://www.brownstoner.com/architecture/brownstone-brooklyn-architecture-charles-lockwood/">article on Brownstoner.</a> “Brownstone echoed the dark browns, grays, and greens of the romanticized landscape.”</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstone-west-village-2020.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47422" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/01/27/how-19th-century-new-york-city-fell-in-love-with-brownstones-a-love-story-that-endures-today/brownstone-west-village-2020/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstone-west-village-2020.jpg" data-orig-size="2929,3905" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Brownstone West Village 2020" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstone-west-village-2020.jpg?w=225" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstone-west-village-2020.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="768" height="1023" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstone-west-village-2020.jpg?w=768" alt="" class="wp-image-47422" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstone-west-village-2020.jpg?w=768 768w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstone-west-village-2020.jpg?w=1536 1536w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstone-west-village-2020.jpg?w=113 113w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstone-west-village-2020.jpg?w=225 225w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /></a></figure> <p class="has-text-align-left">As the 19th century went on, different design styles supplanted the Greek Revival look of pre-Civil War brownstones. In the 1860s, Italianate architecture flourished, which brought more ornamentation and curvy lines (exemplified in the above West Village brownstone), according to Stefanie Waldek in <em><a href="https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/stunning-photographic-timeline-of-new-york-citys-iconic-brownstones">Architectural Digest</a></em>.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">Queen Anne and Renaissance Revival brownstones began to appear in the 1880s and 1890s. These fanciful, quirky homes often incorporated other types of building material as well as brownstone, like limestone and granite, per <em>Architectural Digest</em>. </p> <p class="has-text-align-left">Parts of New York City that were not developed until the late 19th century, like today’s Upper West Side (below photo) and Harlem, tend to feature brownstones that reflect these later design styles.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstone-row-bottoms-only-uws-2021.jpeg"><img data-attachment-id="47424" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/01/27/how-19th-century-new-york-city-fell-in-love-with-brownstones-a-love-story-that-endures-today/brownstone-row-bottoms-only-uws-2021/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstone-row-bottoms-only-uws-2021.jpeg" data-orig-size="1024,768" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1627061809","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.25","iso":"32","shutter_speed":"0.0040322580645161","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.788641666667","longitude":"-73.979333333333"}" data-image-title="Brownstone row bottoms only UWS 2021" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstone-row-bottoms-only-uws-2021.jpeg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstone-row-bottoms-only-uws-2021.jpeg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="768" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstone-row-bottoms-only-uws-2021.jpeg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47424" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstone-row-bottoms-only-uws-2021.jpeg 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstone-row-bottoms-only-uws-2021.jpeg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstone-row-bottoms-only-uws-2021.jpeg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstone-row-bottoms-only-uws-2021.jpeg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">All this brownstone love suddenly came to a halt as the 20th century began.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">Brownstones were now derided as gloomy, their interiors hopelessly dark and outdated. The typical brownstone layout had a formal parlor in the front and a more relaxed parlor in the back, then a kitchen and dining room on the lower garden level and bedrooms on the upper floors.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">The stone itself wasn’t always in great shape after decades of rain and snow, especially on the many smaller, more narrow brownstones rushed into development by 19th century speculators eager to sell to middle class families (like these below, in Bedford-Stuyvesant).</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-short-bed-stuy-1.jpeg"><img data-attachment-id="47426" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/01/27/how-19th-century-new-york-city-fell-in-love-with-brownstones-a-love-story-that-endures-today/brownstones-short-bed-stuy-2/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-short-bed-stuy-1.jpeg" data-orig-size="1024,768" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1734277340","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.25","iso":"125","shutter_speed":"0.01219512195122","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.693672222222","longitude":"-73.951369444444"}" data-image-title="Brownstones short Bed-Stuy" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-short-bed-stuy-1.jpeg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-short-bed-stuy-1.jpeg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="768" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-short-bed-stuy-1.jpeg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47426" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-short-bed-stuy-1.jpeg 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-short-bed-stuy-1.jpeg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-short-bed-stuy-1.jpeg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstones-short-bed-stuy-1.jpeg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">The New York brownstone, once so prized, was now regarded as a relic. Rows were bulldozed to make way for lighter-colored limestone or marble Beaux-Arts townhouses. In the 1920s, others were razed in favor of handsome luxury apartment buildings. (Below, a row condemned to make way for Tudor City in the 1920s)</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">Those that didn’t meet the bulldozer were carved up into small apartments, their tall stoops removed and replaced by a street-level front door. Those that escaped demolition often stood alone, random remnants of the era of silk hats and showy equipages. Few mourned their passing.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">“The age of the brownstone front draws to a close,” proclaimed the 1926 <em>New York Times</em> article. “In almost every cross street of central Manhattan, from river to river, the dignity of brownstone gives way to shining new structures that rise higher. A hundred families come to live where but two or three have dwelt as the panorama of New York moves on.”</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/tudorcitytenements2025-1.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="47434" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/01/27/how-19th-century-new-york-city-fell-in-love-with-brownstones-a-love-story-that-endures-today/tudorcitytenements2025-2/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/tudorcitytenements2025-1.jpg" data-orig-size="1434,918" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="tudorcitytenements2025" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/tudorcitytenements2025-1.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/tudorcitytenements2025-1.jpg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="655" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/tudorcitytenements2025-1.jpg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-47434" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/tudorcitytenements2025-1.jpg?w=1024 1024w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/tudorcitytenements2025-1.jpg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/tudorcitytenements2025-1.jpg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/tudorcitytenements2025-1.jpg?w=768 768w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/tudorcitytenements2025-1.jpg 1434w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">The <em>Times’</em> obituary for brownstones turned out to be wrong, of course. By the 1960s, a new generation of urban dwellers were eager to take advantage of the space and historical cred of these dwellings.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">Trailblazers restored them to single-family use. Historic Districts came into existence, protecting brownstones within their borders from destruction. Wide swaths of Manhattan and Brooklyn owe their revitalization—or gentrification, depending on your point of view—to their newfound popularity.</p> <p class="has-text-align-left">The brownstone era wasn’t over; it simply entered a new phase of its love story with New Yorkers. Even the <em>Times</em>, in its 1926 eulogy, was wistful about the passing of a house type that was, and once again is, an emblem of the city. (Below, a lovely row in Yorkville)</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstonesyorkville-4-1.jpeg"><img data-attachment-id="47441" data-permalink="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2025/01/27/how-19th-century-new-york-city-fell-in-love-with-brownstones-a-love-story-that-endures-today/brownstonesyorkville-4-2/" data-orig-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstonesyorkville-4-1.jpeg" data-orig-size="1014,760" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 11","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1611333239","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.25","iso":"250","shutter_speed":"0.016666666666667","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"40.766463888889","longitude":"-73.958619444444"}" data-image-title="Brownstonesyorkville 4" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstonesyorkville-4-1.jpeg?w=300" data-large-file="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstonesyorkville-4-1.jpeg?w=450" loading="lazy" width="1014" height="760" src="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstonesyorkville-4-1.jpeg?w=1014" alt="" class="wp-image-47441" srcset="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstonesyorkville-4-1.jpeg 1014w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstonesyorkville-4-1.jpeg?w=150 150w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstonesyorkville-4-1.jpeg?w=300 300w, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/brownstonesyorkville-4-1.jpeg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1014px) 100vw, 1014px" /></a></figure></div> <p class="has-text-align-left">“The brownstone front was peculiarly and essentially the citadel of the home, the stronghold of an old-fashioned era before New York became such a vast hive,” the <em>Times</em> concluded. “In no other city did the brownstone front achieve greatness. It was respectable, prosperous, frock-coated New York at the best.” </p> <p class="has-text-align-left">[Ninth photo: unknown]</p> </div> <p class="postmetadata">Tags: <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/first-brownstones-in-nyc/" rel="tag">First Brownstones in NYC</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/history-of-brooklyn-brownstones/" rel="tag">History of Brooklyn Brownstones</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/history-of-brownstones-in-new-york-city/" rel="tag">History of Brownstones in New York City</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/how-new-york-fell-in-love-with-brownstones/" rel="tag">How New York Fell in Love With Brownstones</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/the-story-of-brownstones-in-new-york-city/" rel="tag">The Story of Brownstones in New York City</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/why-brownstones-are-so-popular-in-nyc/" rel="tag">Why Brownstones Are So Popular in NYC</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/why-new-yorkers-love-brownstones/" rel="tag">Why New Yorkers Love Brownstones</a><br /> Posted in <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/category/brooklyn/" rel="category tag">Brooklyn</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/category/chelsea/" rel="category tag">Chelsea</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/category/east-village/" rel="category tag">East Village</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/category/gramercymurray-hill/" rel="category tag">Gramercy/Murray Hill</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/category/midtown/" rel="category tag">Midtown</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/category/upper-east-side/" rel="category tag">Upper East Side</a>, <a href="https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/category/upper-west-sidemorningside-hts/" rel="category tag">Upper West Side/Morningside Hts</a>, <a 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