An angel, calm and serene, is playing an instrument, perhaps heralding an arrival. Indeed, those worshiping inside the church where the angel is on the front exterior wall were awaiting a coming – the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. They believed it was going to happen imminently. The years of the 19th century came and […]
Entries Tagged as 'landmarks'
Terra Cotta Tales: Apostolic Church
November 20th, 2009 · 8 Comments · Explore New York
Tags: architecture·historic preservation·landmarks·manhattan·midtown·spiritual places·terra cotta
Terra Cotta Tales: The Rodin Studios
November 6th, 2009 · No Comments · Explore New York
f the artists who developed the Rodin Studios building on New York City’s West 57th Street or the architect who designed it had favorites among the structure’s terra cotta characters, we may never know. Was it the frog, the man reading his book, or the ancient character holding a palette? We do know that nearly […]
Tags: architecture·historic preservation·landmarks·manhattan·midtown·terra cotta
Lamartine Place: Saved for Posterity
October 16th, 2009 · 8 Comments · Explore New York
One hundred years from now, most of those who walk on West 29th Street in Manhattan may not know what Fern Luskin, Julie Finch, and a small group of local citizens did to preserve the block between Eighth and Ninth avenues. But in all likelihood they will see, largely intact, the mid-19th century row houses […]
Tags: architecture·historic preservation·landmarks·new york·women
Teach-In Set at Underground RR House
May 26th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Explore New York
In the mid-19th century, runaway slaves found protection in an Underground Railroad “safe house” on West 29th Street in New York, as they fled northward to freedom. A century and a half later, a group of Bronx high school students plan to take a journey of their own in defense of this house. The students, […]
Tags: architecture·historic preservation·landmarks·manhattan·midtown·new york·women
Sparks Over an Underground Railroad Site
May 11th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Explore New York
Is the architectural and historical integrity of a New York City mid-19th century row house that served as a “safe house” for the Underground Railroad during the Civil War being imperiled again? Neighbors and local historic preservationists certainly believe so, and they’re again fighting to stop construction at the Hopper-Gibbons House, at 339 W. 29th […]
Tags: architecture·historic preservation·landmarks·new york·women
Thirty-Minute Tour: Bowling Green
May 3rd, 2009 · 2 Comments · Explore New York
Stand in Bowling Green Park in New York City and look around at the park and the buildings on its perimeter. At one time or another over the centuries here, Native American tribes gathered in council, men and women bought tickets for ocean passage in a couple of the nearby buildings, and John D. Rockefeller […]
Prayers and Peace at St. Francis
January 6th, 2009 · 8 Comments · Explore New York
Outside, it was a post-Christmas, rush-hour frenzy, throngs crowding near the revolving doors and the holiday windows of Macy’s or walking speedily to Penn Station. Inside St. Francis of Assisi Roman Catholic Church in New York in the midst of all of this, you’d never know it. Two men were slowly and carefully placing flowers […]
Tags: architecture·art·cities·landmarks·manhattan·midtown·spiritual places·terra cotta
Bowery Savings: The World in a Building
November 11th, 2008 · 101 Comments · Explore New York
Tinos green marble is a vivid green-blue with wide white veins, mined from the quarries of a small mountainous Greek island in the Aegean Sea. Briar Hill sandstone is an earthy stone of warm red, rust, brown, and buff-colored tones taken from quarries in Glenmont, Ohio. Missouri is the source of Napoleon gray marble, while […]
Tags: architecture·art·landmarks·manhattan·midtown·new york·stone
Architects With the Right Touch
October 28th, 2008 · 3 Comments · Explore New York
H. Douglas Ives once placed swarms of bees in the midst of midtown Manhattan, but to inspire, not to sting. High above the thousands who scurry and stroll along Fifth Avenue sit two beehives surrounded by buzzing bees. But they’re not live – they’re part of the dazzling decoration atop the Fred F. French Building […]
Tags: architecture·art deco·cities·french building·landmarks·manhattan·midtown·new york·terra cotta
