1849Charlie Parker ResidenceArchitect: UnknownLocation: 151 Avenue B I have to squint my third ear to hear Charlie Parker’s music as the seething garble of traditionalist imagination. To me, it runs a perfectly relatable gamut of emotions, a knottiness tending towards sad reflection; in other words, it just sounds like jazz. But if whatever made Parker revolutionary is hard for me to capture, I sometimes think I feel his respectable side, his with-strings side, his friendly-with-Varèse side. (This shouldn’t be a surprise, I suppose: I was practically born bourgeois in thought and act.)This house is where Parker briefly got respectable with Chan Richardson and settled into a kind of family life, at least as much as addiction and a music career would allow. And what an odd site for it, too. This is a Gothic Revival townhouse in a city where few were built and fewer survive. Keyed to the Romantic idea of nature, Gothic style was thought to need a performance in nature — or a reasonable stand-in like in a large, green lot — and a townhouse in an assembly-line row of townhouses in a city full of such rows seemed mighty antithetical to that idea. Perhaps apologetically, then, it lays claim to Gothic in a few, bare gestures: an ogive-shaped, colonnetted entrance; pencil-thin hood moldings over the windows; a little trefoil molding below the cornice. They’d look as glib as a portico in front of a McMansion were they not so expertly done and expertly cared for.
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1849
Charlie Parker Residence

Architect: Unknown
Location: 151 Avenue B

I have to squint my third ear to hear Charlie Parker’s music as the seething garble of traditionalist imagination. To me, it runs a perfectly relatable gamut of emotions, a knottiness tending towards sad reflection; in other words, it just sounds like jazz. But if whatever made Parker revolutionary is hard for me to capture, I sometimes think I feel his respectable side, his with-strings side, his friendly-with-Varèse side. (This shouldn’t be a surprise, I suppose: I was practically born bourgeois in thought and act.)

This house is where Parker briefly got respectable with Chan Richardson and settled into a kind of family life, at least as much as addiction and a music career would allow. And what an odd site for it, too. This is a Gothic Revival townhouse in a city where few were built and fewer survive. Keyed to the Romantic idea of nature, Gothic style was thought to need a performance in nature — or a reasonable stand-in like in a large, green lot — and a townhouse in an assembly-line row of townhouses in a city full of such rows seemed mighty antithetical to that idea. Perhaps apologetically, then, it lays claim to Gothic in a few, bare gestures: an ogive-shaped, colonnetted entrance; pencil-thin hood moldings over the windows; a little trefoil molding below the cornice. They’d look as glib as a portico in front of a McMansion were they not so expertly done and expertly cared for.

Listicle Without Commentary*: Destroyed New York City Buildings, In Order

100. Hotel Granada (Unknown Architect, 1927-1994)

99. Hudson Terminal (Clinton & Russell, 1909-1971)

98. City Investing Tower (Francis H. Kimball, 1908-1968)

97. El Teddy’s (Louis Bellini/Antonio Miralda/Christopher Chestnutt, ca. 1920s-2004)

96. Grand Central Hotel (Henry Engelbert, 1871-1973)

95. Columbia Building (Youngs & Cable, 1890-1930)

94. All Angels Church (Samuel B. Snook, 1890-1979)

93. St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church (Unknown Architect, 1832-2001)

92. Ellis Island Immigration Station (Unknown Architect, 1892-1897)

91. London Terrace (Alexander Jackson Davis, 1845-ca. 1930)

90. Fulton Theatre (Herts & Tallant, 1911-1982)

89. Alexander Macomb House (Unknown Architect, 1788-????)

88. Hotel Brighton (John G. Prague, 1878-1924)

87. Elmwood (Unknown Architect, 1764-1891)

86. St. Nicholas Collegiate Church (W. Wheeler Smith, 1872-1949)

85. Equitable Building (Edward H. Kendall & Arthur Gilman, 1870-1912)

84. Madison Square Presbyterian Church (McKim, Mead and White, 1906-1913)

83. Morosco Theatre (Herbert J. Krapp, 1917-1982)

82. Eastman Kodak Pavilion (Will Buntin, Inc., 1964-1965)

81. Bowery Theatre (Ithiel Town & John Trimble, 1826-1929)

80. Brick Presbyterian Church (John McComb Sr., 1768-1856)

79. Brooklyn Mercantile Library (Peter B. Wight, 1868-1960)

78. 71st Regiment Armory (Clinton & Russell, 1905-1976)

77. Astor Opera House (Isaiah Rogers, 1847-1890)

76. Academy of Music (Alexander Saeltzer, 1854-1926)

75. Brokaw Mansion (Ross & Stone, 1888-1965)

74. Shea Stadium (Praeger-Kavanagh-Waterbury, 1964-2009)

73. Manhattan Life Insurance Building (Kimball & Thompson, 1894-1963)

72. Government House (James Robinson, 1789-1815)

71. Polo Grounds (Henry B. Herts, 1890-1964)

70. Hotel New Netherland (William Hume, 1893-1927)

69. McGurk’s Saloon (Unknown Architect, 1895-2005)

68. Broadway Tabernacle (Unknown Architect, 1836-1857)

67. Barnum’s American Museum (Unknown Architect: 1841-1868)

66. Chatham Garden Theatre (George Conklin, 1824-after 1836)

65. New York Herald Building (McKim, Mead & White, 1894-1921)

64. Lüchow’s (Unknown Architect, 1882-1995)

63. Hotel Astor (Clinton & Russell, 1910-1968)

62. William H. Coventry Waddell Villa (Alexander Jackson Davis, 1845-1856)

61. Middle Dutch Church (Unknown Architect, 1729-1882)

60. Delmonico’s (James Brown Lord, 1897-1923)

59. Lewisohn Stadium (Arnold Brunner, 1915-1973)

58. Manhattan House of Detention (Withers & Dickson, 1902–1941)

57. Astor House (Isaiah Rogers, 1836-1926)

56. New York Cotton Exchange (George B. Post, 1885-1923)

55. National Academy Building (Peter B. Wight, 1865-ca. 1899)

54. Richmond Hill (Unknown Architect, 1760-1849)

53. Savoy-Plaza Hotel (McKim, Mead & White, 1927-1964)

52. Episcopal Church of the Holy Trinity (Leopold Eidlitz, 1874-1895)

51. Fulton Fish Market (Douglas Smyth, 1882-ca. 1949)

50. Temple Emanu-El (Leopold Eidlitz & Henry Fernbach, 1868-1927)

49. Ziegfeld Theater (Joseph Urban, 1927-1965)

48. Fort Amsterdam (Unknown Architect, 1625-1790)

47. Bank of the United States (Martin E. Thompson, 1823-1915)

46. St. John’s Chapel (John McComb Jr., 1803-1918)

45. Trinity Church (Unknown Architect, 1698-1776)

44. Grand View Hotel (Unknown Architect, ca. 1875-1893)

43. Hippodrome (Thomas W. Lamb & J.H. Morgan, 1905-1939)

42. Temple Beth-El (Arnold Brunner, 1891-1947)

41. Croton Distributing Reservoir (John B. Jervis, 1842-1900)

40. Coney Island Elephant (James V. Lafferty, 1885-1896)

39. New York Halls of Justice and House of Detention (John Haviland, 1838–1902)

38. Tammany Hall (Unknown Architect, 1867-1927)

37. Shakespeare Tavern (Unknown Architect, ????-1836)

36. Ebbets Field (Clarence Randall Van Buskirk, 1913-1960)

35. Century Theatre (Carrère & Hastings, 1909-1931)

34. Samuel Osgood House (Unknown Architect, 1770-1856)

33. World Trade Center (Minoru Yamasaki, 1973-2001)

32. Park Theater (Joseph Mangin & Mark Isambard Brunel, 1798-1848)

31. Park Avenue Hotel (John T. Kellum, 1878-1926)

30. Merchants’ Exchange Building (Martin E. Thompson, 1827-1835)

29. Eccentric Mill Works (James Bogardus, 1849-1859)

28. Coulthard’s Brewery (Unknown Architect, 1792-1852)

27. 418-426 Lafayette Place (Alexander Jackson Davis, Ithiel Town, & James Dakin, 1832-1902)

26. Niblo’s Garden (Unknown Architect, 1835-1895)

25. Rhinelander Sugar House (Unknown Architect, 1763-1892)

24. New York Produce Exchange (George B. Post, 1884-1957)

23. A.T. Stewart Store (John Kellum, 1862-1956)

22. Columbia College Library (Charles C. Haight, 1883-ca. 1897)

21. Tontine Coffee House (Unknown Architect, 1793-1855)

20. Cornelius Vanderbilt II Mansion (George B. Post, 1883-1927)

19. Charles M. Schwab Mansion (Maurice Herbert, 1906-1947)

18. William K. Vanderbilt House (Richard Morris Hunt, 1880-1924)

17. William A. Clark House (Lord, Hewlett & Hull, 1904-1927)

16. Grand Central Depot (John B. Snook, 1871-1913)

15. Western Union Building (George B. Post, 1875-1890)

14. Charles L. Tiffany House (McKim, Mead & White, 1885- 1936)

13. Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (Henry J. Hardenbergh, 1893-1929)

12. New York Tribune Building (Richard Morris Hunt, 1875-1955)

11. Yankee Stadium (Osborn Engineering Corporation, 1923-2010)

10. Stadt Huys (Unknown Architect, 1642-1699)

9. New York World Building (George B. Post, 1890-1955)

8. Trylon, Perisphere, and Helicline (Wallace Harrison & J. Andre Fouilhoux: 1939-1940)

7. City Hall Post Office (Alfred B. Mullett, 1878-1938)

6. Metropolitan Opera House (J. Cleaveland Cady/Carrère & Hastings, 1883-1967)

5. Madison Square Garden (McKim, Mead & White, 1890-1925)

4. Singer Building (Ernest Flagg, 1908-1967)

3. Federal Hall (Unknown Architect/Pierre Charles L’Enfant, 1699-1812)

2. New York Crystal Palace and Latting Observatory (Georg Cartensen & Charles Gildemeister: 1853- 1858)

1. Pennsylvania Station (McKim, Mead & White, 1910–1963)

*Ain’t got nothing to do with The Awl, awesome as it is.

1848High BridgeArchitect: John B. JervisLocation: Over the Harlem River, from the Highbridge Park in Manhattan to West 170th Street in the Bronx Does the High Bridge have the most lopsided importance-to-fame ratio of all city landmarks? I hadn’t heard about it until about five years ago, and only saw it a few months ago. Even if you live in Harlem, to see it requires a real hoof down through its park, down its staircases, to get a look. (The other option is driving underneath it.) And even then, you can’t get on it. It’s blocked off, uncrossable since the 1960s, thanks to folks dropping debris from it onto Circle Line boats fording the Harlem River. Its glory, though, was premised on its ability not to carry traffic, but to keep the city wet. As I’ve detailed before, some of the best sources of water had already been polluted or overtaxed thanks to short-sighted growth, and many of the wells and cisterns yielded a brackish drink. The solution lay in tapping the resources of the Croton River in Westchester. Bringing that water to New York City required the construction of a massive complex of dams, reservoirs, and piping called the Croton Aqueduct. When it was finally functional in 1842, it was forty-one miles, longer than anything extant, longer than anything produced by the engineering genius of the Romans. And with each mile, it dipped thirteen inches, propelling water this great distance through simple gravity, not pumps. (Water spilled from source to use, in other words.) The water crossed the Harlem River into Manhattan via the High Bridge, the grandest feature of the whole system, and an obvious quotation of historical precedent. (It should be noted that the aqueduct was functional six years before the bridge was completed; temporary piping was used in the interim.) John Jervis, the chief engineer for the aqueduct, saw it as unnecessarily magnificent, a sop to landowners who wanted a tourist attraction. But a low bridge would have blocked off future river traffic (which at the time was blocked by Macomb’s Dam further south), and the technology for an underground tunnel was judged to be not quite there yet. Thanks to the growing city and rising standards in sanitation, the Croton Aqueduct faced the prospect of obsolescence almost as quickly as it was built. In 1864, another 90” pipe was installed above the other two, and it still wasn’t enough. Starting with the New Croton Aqueduct (built nearly parallel to the original), other water systems were constructed to supplement and eventually supercede Old Croton, which finally went offline in 1955. The High Bridge was shut down earlier than that, thanks to fears of German sabotage in the wake of World War I. (Too familiar, all too familiar.) As it now carried no water, and the small width between the bridges’ piers was deemed unsuitable for large modern ships fording the Harlem River, there was some call to demolish the bridge entirely. Luckily, a compromise was set up to remove some of the piers and arches with a steel arch, leaving the rest intact. Today, New York City uses over a billion gallons a day — and a single tunnel in the 2011 water system leaks up to three times as the entire 1842 system supplied.
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1848
High Bridge

Architect: John B. Jervis
Location: Over the Harlem River, from the Highbridge Park in Manhattan to West 170th Street in the Bronx

Does the High Bridge have the most lopsided importance-to-fame ratio of all city landmarks? I hadn’t heard about it until about five years ago, and only saw it a few months ago. Even if you live in Harlem, to see it requires a real hoof down through its park, down its staircases, to get a look. (The other option is driving underneath it.) And even then, you can’t get on it. It’s blocked off, uncrossable since the 1960s, thanks to folks dropping debris from it onto Circle Line boats fording the Harlem River. Its glory, though, was premised on its ability not to carry traffic, but to keep the city wet.

As I’ve detailed before, some of the best sources of water had already been polluted or overtaxed thanks to short-sighted growth, and many of the wells and cisterns yielded a brackish drink. The solution lay in tapping the resources of the Croton River in Westchester. Bringing that water to New York City required the construction of a massive complex of dams, reservoirs, and piping called the Croton Aqueduct. When it was finally functional in 1842, it was forty-one miles, longer than anything extant, longer than anything produced by the engineering genius of the Romans. And with each mile, it dipped thirteen inches, propelling water this great distance through simple gravity, not pumps. (Water spilled from source to use, in other words.)

The water crossed the Harlem River into Manhattan via the High Bridge, the grandest feature of the whole system, and an obvious quotation of historical precedent. (It should be noted that the aqueduct was functional six years before the bridge was completed; temporary piping was used in the interim.) John Jervis, the chief engineer for the aqueduct, saw it as unnecessarily magnificent, a sop to landowners who wanted a tourist attraction. But a low bridge would have blocked off future river traffic (which at the time was blocked by Macomb’s Dam further south), and the technology for an underground tunnel was judged to be not quite there yet.

Thanks to the growing city and rising standards in sanitation, the Croton Aqueduct faced the prospect of obsolescence almost as quickly as it was built. In 1864, another 90” pipe was installed above the other two, and it still wasn’t enough. Starting with the New Croton Aqueduct (built nearly parallel to the original), other water systems were constructed to supplement and eventually supercede Old Croton, which finally went offline in 1955. The High Bridge was shut down earlier than that, thanks to fears of German sabotage in the wake of World War I. (Too familiar, all too familiar.) As it now carried no water, and the small width between the bridges’ piers was deemed unsuitable for large modern ships fording the Harlem River, there was some call to demolish the bridge entirely. Luckily, a compromise was set up to remove some of the piers and arches with a steel arch, leaving the rest intact.

Today, New York City uses over a billion gallons a day — and a single tunnel in the 2011 water system leaks up to three times as the entire 1842 system supplied.

184713th Street Presbyterian ChurchArchitect: Attributed to Samuel ThompsonLocation: 141-145 West 13th Street I used to be puzzled as to why this church never bothered to update its bulletin board, listing the same psalm numbers — 141, 143, 145 — for years on end. The joke was on me: it’s not a church anymore. Oh, it was one for nearly 130 years. For nineteen of them, it was used as both a church and synagogue until the Yom Kippur War sharpened pre-existing frictions and the Jewish congregation left; the Presbyterian congregation was dissolved soon after. Now it’s apartments. Really, apartments! You’d think a church wouldn’t be amenable to that kind of conversion, but in spite of the impiousness of the gesture and the distinctly un-residential qualities of most ecclesiastical architecture, it happens. All the time. Oh, and the psalm numbers? They’re address numbers. Should I mention that the columns aren’t even stone but made from wood, or would that tear one veil too many from your eyes?
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1847
13th Street Presbyterian Church

Architect: Attributed to Samuel Thompson
Location: 141-145 West 13th Street

I used to be puzzled as to why this church never bothered to update its bulletin board, listing the same psalm numbers — 141, 143, 145 — for years on end. The joke was on me: it’s not a church anymore. Oh, it was one for nearly 130 years. For nineteen of them, it was used as both a church and synagogue until the Yom Kippur War sharpened pre-existing frictions and the Jewish congregation left; the Presbyterian congregation was dissolved soon after. Now it’s apartments. Really, apartments! You’d think a church wouldn’t be amenable to that kind of conversion, but in spite of the impiousness of the gesture and the distinctly un-residential qualities of most ecclesiastical architecture, it happens. All the time. Oh, and the psalm numbers? They’re address numbers. Should I mention that the columns aren’t even stone but made from wood, or would that tear one veil too many from your eyes?

1846Trinity ChurchArchitect: Richard UpjohnLocation: 79 Broadway The first Trinity Church (1698) burned in the Great Fire of 1776, which was apt (if not pleasant) given its connections to the Loyalist cause; the second was replaced awfully tardily (1790), had a good forty-year run until it was pulled down on purpose on account of heavy snows. So this is the third. The picture’s abstract, sure, but you know what it looks like. It’s the dark eminence at the end of Wall Street, God’s vacation home in the land of Mammon. Comprehend its shadows and you comprehend the building: the church is a signpost for the windswept Romanticism of the Gothic Revival, coming into in its own in America at this time, with its emphasis on natural passion and irration, great contrasts of darkness and light, both on building facades and in men’s souls. But for all its buttresses and crocketing and ogive, its authenticity — that is, its likeness to those spooky old churches in Europe once called Gothic as a slur — does not go all the way. Its massing is symmetrical. It’s faced with brownstone, something the Europeans didn’t know. In fact, it’s not even made entirely of stone: the ceiling is made of wood and plaster. In other words, it makes concessions to the rational and the pragmatic. Why these half-measures? Was New York too damned practical? (Too damned money-driven?) Or wasn’t pure, true Gothic sort of redundant in New York once the city passed a certain threshold of size and complexity? Didn’t it feel impossibly old even when it was actually rather young? Wasn’t it already filled with extremes of light and shade in every imaginable sense?
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1846
Trinity Church

Architect: Richard Upjohn
Location: 79 Broadway

The first Trinity Church (1698) burned in the Great Fire of 1776, which was apt (if not pleasant) given its connections to the Loyalist cause; the second was replaced awfully tardily (1790), had a good forty-year run until it was pulled down on purpose on account of heavy snows. So this is the third. The picture’s abstract, sure, but you know what it looks like. It’s the dark eminence at the end of Wall Street, God’s vacation home in the land of Mammon. Comprehend its shadows and you comprehend the building: the church is a signpost for the windswept Romanticism of the Gothic Revival, coming into in its own in America at this time, with its emphasis on natural passion and irration, great contrasts of darkness and light, both on building facades and in men’s souls. But for all its buttresses and crocketing and ogive, its authenticity — that is, its likeness to those spooky old churches in Europe once called Gothic as a slur — does not go all the way. Its massing is symmetrical. It’s faced with brownstone, something the Europeans didn’t know. In fact, it’s not even made entirely of stone: the ceiling is made of wood and plaster. In other words, it makes concessions to the rational and the pragmatic. Why these half-measures? Was New York too damned practical? (Too damned money-driven?) Or wasn’t pure, true Gothic sort of redundant in New York once the city passed a certain threshold of size and complexity? Didn’t it feel impossibly old even when it was actually rather young? Wasn’t it already filled with extremes of light and shade in every imaginable sense?

1845Mariners TempleArchitect: Attributed to Isaac LucasLocation: 12 Oliver Street I rush down Worth Street, expecting nothing. Every time I’ve come here it’s been quiet. I even assumed it was defunct. But cars out front are double-parked—a sign of real activity, a rarity. Of the Sunday services for downtown churches, only Trinity’s could be considered well-attended; turn-outs for the others were never commensurate with church prestige. And with those low numbers was a sense of…embarrassment? Futility? The front door is blocked by a lady with her back towards me. Dressed all in white, I think she’s a nurse. Did it already start? No. She turns around, forgetful, and opens the door. I come in apologetically.  I am an outsider here, but I am always an outsider at these things. I come to churches, any and all of them, feeling fraudulent, a mere spectator, a voyeur, not a participant. The church is Baptist, and I was raised with Roman Catholicism, and my sympathies towards it remain, old and unweedable, ready to horrify unsuspecting boyfriends. And yet..and yet…the rituals of Catholic mass escape me. I can never cross myself right. I mumble the words, refuse communion—not because I don’t want the Church but because I sense the Church doesn’t want me. Also salient: I AM SHY. Like, I-would-rather-claw-the-skin-off-my-bones-than-talk-to-you-shy. It is a vast expenditure of mental energy to make eye contact with complete strangers. I take a seat in a pew all the way in the back, next to a column, hoping I’m ignored. I’m not ignored. About midway through the three-hour-and-fifteen-minute service, the pastor (I think it was the pastor) asks if the church has any visitors today. I don’t say anything. And everybody turns their heads, as in a slow wave, towards me. A kid comes up to me with a microphone. Great. What is my church? I don’t have a church. Not something I want to admit in a church, much less in front of a score of believers, much less in a church in front of a score of believers. I have to repeat it again, louder, because mumbled it the first time.Maybe half the church comes up and welcomes me. That crappy apologetic feeling I wear like a tattoo isn’t mutual. And that kinda makes it hurt worse.
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1845
Mariners Temple

Architect: Attributed to Isaac Lucas
Location: 12 Oliver Street

I rush down Worth Street, expecting nothing. Every time I’ve come here it’s been quiet. I even assumed it was defunct. But cars out front are double-parked—a sign of real activity, a rarity. Of the Sunday services for downtown churches, only Trinity’s could be considered well-attended; turn-outs for the others were never commensurate with church prestige. And with those low numbers was a sense of…embarrassment? Futility?

The front door is blocked by a lady with her back towards me. Dressed all in white, I think she’s a nurse. Did it already start? No. She turns around, forgetful, and opens the door.

I come in apologetically.  I am an outsider here, but I am always an outsider at these things. I come to churches, any and all of them, feeling fraudulent, a mere spectator, a voyeur, not a participant. The church is Baptist, and I was raised with Roman Catholicism, and my sympathies towards it remain, old and unweedable, ready to horrify unsuspecting boyfriends. And yet..and yet…the rituals of Catholic mass escape me. I can never cross myself right. I mumble the words, refuse communion—not because I don’t want the Church but because I sense the Church doesn’t want me. Also salient: I AM SHY. Like, I-would-rather-claw-the-skin-off-my-bones-than-talk-to-you-shy. It is a vast expenditure of mental energy to make eye contact with complete strangers. I take a seat in a pew all the way in the back, next to a column, hoping I’m ignored.

I’m not ignored. About midway through the three-hour-and-fifteen-minute service, the pastor (I think it was the pastor) asks if the church has any visitors today. I don’t say anything. And everybody turns their heads, as in a slow wave, towards me. A kid comes up to me with a microphone. Great. What is my church? I don’t have a church. Not something I want to admit in a church, much less in front of a score of believers, much less in a church in front of a score of believers. I have to repeat it again, louder, because mumbled it the first time.

Maybe half the church comes up and welcomes me. That crappy apologetic feeling I wear like a tattoo isn’t mutual. And that kinda makes it hurt worse.

1844170-188 Sullivan StreetArchitect: UnknownLocation: 170-188 Sullivan Street So intact, so streamlined: apart from the poppy colors, it looks as if it was floated in from a cloud from an earlier time, a speckless row in a city with so many compromises made between the past and present. But it is no such thing. A company bought up this and another row on the other side of the block, both of which had been owned by a family who’d kept them in rundown condition for a couple of decades. Rather than demolish the rows and put up something bigger, as was custom then and now, the company developed them into homes for the middle class, “modernizing” them by removing Greek-Revival-and-after-details, and fashioning the interior space in the block into a communal garden area invisible from the street. As such, the Sullivan and MacDougal rows serve as very early examples of New York gentrification. And just as with nearly every other gentrification story the city has to offer, the middle class can’t touch the things now: Richard Gere lived on this row until a few years ago, and Anna Wintour still lives on the MacDougal side.
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1844
170-188 Sullivan Street

Architect: Unknown
Location: 170-188 Sullivan Street

So intact, so streamlined: apart from the poppy colors, it looks as if it was floated in from a cloud from an earlier time, a speckless row in a city with so many compromises made between the past and present. But it is no such thing. A company bought up this and another row on the other side of the block, both of which had been owned by a family who’d kept them in rundown condition for a couple of decades. Rather than demolish the rows and put up something bigger, as was custom then and now, the company developed them into homes for the middle class, “modernizing” them by removing Greek-Revival-and-after-details, and fashioning the interior space in the block into a communal garden area invisible from the street. As such, the Sullivan and MacDougal rows serve as very early examples of New York gentrification. And just as with nearly every other gentrification story the city has to offer, the middle class can’t touch the things now: Richard Gere lived on this row until a few years ago, and Anna Wintour still lives on the MacDougal side.

184347 Irving PlaceArchitect: UnknownLocation: 47 Irving Place Not many options available for this year. There is Ithiel Town’s Leake & Watts Orphan Asylum Building: a good subject, woefully under-appreciated, not even landmarked, but we’ve just covered Town. This paucity of 1843 buildings might be explained by a lingering depression triggered by the Panic of 1837, not that you’d never know from the opulence of the last couple entries. So we have this modest Greek Revival townhouse, built just south of Gramercy Park. Oscar Wilde may have lived here on his American tour, so there’s that. Next door (and next year) is what’s known as the Washington Irving House, even though Washington Irving — who Americans remember for penning “Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle” and treat a little condescendingly as a kind of American literary superstar who came before the real heavyweights like Hawthorne, Melville, Poe — never actually lived here, this being the fiction of awesome crazy-lady Elsie de Wolfe.
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1843
47 Irving Place

Architect: Unknown
Location: 47 Irving Place

Not many options available for this year. There is Ithiel Town’s Leake & Watts Orphan Asylum Building: a good subject, woefully under-appreciated, not even landmarked, but we’ve just covered Town. This paucity of 1843 buildings might be explained by a lingering depression triggered by the Panic of 1837, not that you’d never know from the opulence of the last couple entries. So we have this modest Greek Revival townhouse, built just south of Gramercy Park. Oscar Wilde may have lived here on his American tour, so there’s that.

Next door (and next year) is what’s known as the Washington Irving House, even though Washington Irving — who Americans remember for penning “Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle” and treat a little condescendingly as a kind of American literary superstar who came before the real heavyweights like Hawthorne, Melville, Poe — never actually lived here, this being the fiction of awesome crazy-lady Elsie de Wolfe.

1842Federal Hall National MemorialArchitects: Ithiel Town and Alexander Jackson DavisLocation: 26 Wall Street “From both an architectural and historical point of view,” Nathan Silver writes, “Federal Hall might have been the greatest national landmark had it survived.” Silver’s referring to the Federal Hall that came before this Federal Hall, the building that for about a century was the City Hall before our City Hall, and then for a brief time was the US Capitol before the US Capitol, back when New York was the temporary capital of the country — the Washington, DC before Washington, DC. The Bill of Rights was passed here. George Washington was inaugurated as our first President on its balcony. And, in 1812, it was torn down and sold as scrap. This building, first a custom house, replaces it a tardy thirty years later. Before the income tax, the Federal government got most of its money from custom duties — basically taxes on imports — and custom houses were where such transactions were processed. Sitting in the country’s biggest port, this custom house had an international audience, and thus had to speak loudly to that audience. Its exterior echoes the Parthenon; the interior, with its magnificent rotunda, the Pantheon. Even more, much more than the porticoed row houses popping up all over the city, these borrowings are not merely concessions to a fashion for classical looks. With more than a little presumptuousness, they say to the world that the Americans are the inheritors of the Greeks and the Romans. The exterior was designed bt Alexander Jackson Davis and Ithiel Town. They dropped Greek temples just like this one all over the country. Together and separately, they are responsible for three state capitol buildings (Connecticut, Indiana, North Carolina, and partly Ohio; only the latter two remain). Later, Davis specializes in country villas and in the process kinda invents the suburban ideal, or at least one of them. After the custom offices were moved down to 55 Wall Street, the hall was for a time as sub-treasury where some of the government’s gold and silver was kept. Today it’s a museum that details its past uses: a memorial to itself.
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1842
Federal Hall National Memorial

Architects: Ithiel Town and Alexander Jackson Davis
Location: 26 Wall Street

“From both an architectural and historical point of view,” Nathan Silver writes, “Federal Hall might have been the greatest national landmark had it survived.” Silver’s referring to the Federal Hall that came before this Federal Hall, the building that for about a century was the City Hall before our City Hall, and then for a brief time was the US Capitol before the US Capitol, back when New York was the temporary capital of the country — the Washington, DC before Washington, DC. The Bill of Rights was passed here. George Washington was inaugurated as our first President on its balcony. And, in 1812, it was torn down and sold as scrap.

This building, first a custom house, replaces it a tardy thirty years later. Before the income tax, the Federal government got most of its money from custom duties — basically taxes on imports — and custom houses were where such transactions were processed. Sitting in the country’s biggest port, this custom house had an international audience, and thus had to speak loudly to that audience. Its exterior echoes the Parthenon; the interior, with its magnificent rotunda, the Pantheon. Even more, much more than the porticoed row houses popping up all over the city, these borrowings are not merely concessions to a fashion for classical looks. With more than a little presumptuousness, they say to the world that the Americans are the inheritors of the Greeks and the Romans.

The exterior was designed bt Alexander Jackson Davis and Ithiel Town. They dropped Greek temples just like this one all over the country. Together and separately, they are responsible for three state capitol buildings (Connecticut, Indiana, North Carolina, and partly Ohio; only the latter two remain). Later, Davis specializes in country villas and in the process kinda invents the suburban ideal, or at least one of them.

After the custom offices were moved down to 55 Wall Street, the hall was for a time as sub-treasury where some of the government’s gold and silver was kept. Today it’s a museum that details its past uses: a memorial to itself.

1841Merchants’ Exchange BuildingArchitect: Isiah RogersLocation: 55 Wall Street After I’ve already written an entry for the John Street Methodist Church, I stumble upon an entry in Philip Hone’s diary proving that the building I originally wanted to use for 1841 was, in fact, completed in 1841 and not 1842 like multiple sources says it was. So take that, Landmarks Preservation Commission. Before this, on this site, was a pioneering Greek Revival building, Merchants’ Exchange Building. Made of marble, and thus supposedly fireproof, it went up with the rest of lower Manhattan in the Great Fire of 1835. Its replacement was even more of a vision: a colonnade a block long, with columns fashioned out of single blocks of granite, and inside, a vast rotunda, one of the city’s great feats of engineering. When the exchange failed, the building’s history became one of endless refashionings and repurposings; old buildings in Wall Street seem to exchange organizations the way viruses exchange strands of DNA. It housed the New York Stock exchange before it left for slightly more modest quarters, then the US Custom House before it moved to even nicer quarters. The National City Bank (a precursor to Citibank) purchased the building and asked McKim, Mead & White to add several new stories, complementing the Ionic colonnade below with a Corinthian colonnade above. Then the bank moved to more Mad-Men modern digs, leaving it as a branch. Luxury restaurant operators Cipriani swooped it up late in the 20th century, and turned it into apartment buildings because nearly every single fucking building on Wall Street is an apartment building now, real estate matching stocks and futures in terms of speculative insanity. Oh, and also a club. It looks beautiful, but I wouldn’t know first-hand, I’m not Cipriani’s crowd.
Pop-upView Separately

1841
Merchants’ Exchange Building

Architect: Isiah Rogers
Location: 55 Wall Street

After I’ve already written an entry for the John Street Methodist Church, I stumble upon an entry in Philip Hone’s diary proving that the building I originally wanted to use for 1841 was, in fact, completed in 1841 and not 1842 like multiple sources says it was. So take that, Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Before this, on this site, was a pioneering Greek Revival building, Merchants’ Exchange Building. Made of marble, and thus supposedly fireproof, it went up with the rest of lower Manhattan in the Great Fire of 1835. Its replacement was even more of a vision: a colonnade a block long, with columns fashioned out of single blocks of granite, and inside, a vast rotunda, one of the city’s great feats of engineering. When the exchange failed, the building’s history became one of endless refashionings and repurposings; old buildings in Wall Street seem to exchange organizations the way viruses exchange strands of DNA. It housed the New York Stock exchange before it left for slightly more modest quarters, then the US Custom House before it moved to even nicer quarters. The National City Bank (a precursor to Citibank) purchased the building and asked McKim, Mead & White to add several new stories, complementing the Ionic colonnade below with a Corinthian colonnade above. Then the bank moved to more Mad-Men modern digs, leaving it as a branch. Luxury restaurant operators Cipriani swooped it up late in the 20th century, and turned it into apartment buildings because nearly every single fucking building on Wall Street is an apartment building now, real estate matching stocks and futures in terms of speculative insanity. Oh, and also a club. It looks beautiful, but I wouldn’t know first-hand, I’m not Cipriani’s crowd.