I don’t have an exact date for this photo, but the Temple Bar Building, the three-turreted skyscraper in the center, was constructed 1899 to 1901, so 1900 to 1910 is my guess. (As for how difficult discussing timelines can be, the New York Times article on the building I discuss below states that the photo is from 1895. Can’t be.) The view is looking west down Fulton Street from Hoyt Street, towards downtown Brooklyn. To modern eyes, accustomed to big buildings, the elevated train over Fulton is in some ways the most prominent sight; to whomever wrote the caption, it wasn’t even worth mention ..read more

This map was sponsored by the “Committee of ‘92” and created by Rand McNally as a guide to the city for attendees of the Eleventh International Christian Endeavor Convention in 1892. About 40 percent of the index on the right is transportation related – railroads and ship lines – and the rest is public buildings of various types, including touristy points of interest. There’s a list of hotels on the left, correlated with the states of the attendees, and a comprehensive set of instructiona on getting to Madison Square Garden, where the convention was held. All quite ordinary. The peculiarities ..read more

The title of this 1958 photo by Angelo Rizzuto https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/70400.70474 is “Aerial view of street, possibly Park Avenue, with raised medians separating traffic in each direction, high-rise buildings lining both sides of the street.” That’s definitely Park Avenue looking north from approximately 89th Street: the slope down in the distance starts at 94th Street and the railroad tracks – the approach to Grand Central – emerge from underground at 96th Street. One the tracks are above ground, Park Avenue becomes a significantly less attractive place to live, and the low-rise tenement ..read more

There is absolutely nothing unique about a masonry flat arch serving as a window head, but it’s relatively rare on steel-frame buildings like this 1920s apartment house on the Upper East Side. There are two tip-offs that it’s a real arch and not just a cleverly-hidden lintel: first, the lack of any damage that could come from rust-jacking and, second, the brick joints visible on the underside of the arch, showing that there’s no steel shelf there. We don’t see this detail more often because it’s more expensive than providing loose steel-angle lintels in the masonry and because it requires a s ..read more

This 1952 photo by Angelo Rizzuto is titled “Bdwy winding all thru T-Sq.” and it definitely shows Broadway and Times Square, although I have some quibbles about “winding.” https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca. This view is looking north and a little bit west, probably taken from a window on a high floor of 1450 Broadway, which is at 41st Street. The somewhat gawky and ornate white building on the left is the old New York Times Building which, despite the “Times” signs on the tower, was entirely rental space since the newspaper moved out to a bigger building on 43rd Street in the 1910s. The be-cl ..read more

I like “Why we need a ‘structure first’ approach to existing buildings” by Penny Gowler, which is perhaps not surprising since I’m a structural engineer. I’m going to argue here that Ms. Gowler’s article and my position are just slightly more nuanced than that. Architectural design of new buildings does not start tabula rasa. There are constraints: the site geometry, the local weather, zoning and building codes, and so on. Within those constraints,, however, architects have some freedom to place functions where they want and arrange the future use based on their design concept. This freedom i ..read more

Another great photo from Angel Rizzuto, from August 1952. He was almost certainly looking from the Empire State Building; this is a view north past midtown, Central Park and the Upper East Side, and with Harlem and the Bronx in the distance. https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca. The east side of the park is Fifth Avenue, which emerges at the center bottom of the photo on 42nd Street, with 500 Fifth Avenue on the left. When I was a kid, that building had a big “500” painted on the rooftop bulkhead housing its water tank. That sign is now long gone, and it’s not visible in the photo, so it had a s ..read more

You can read about the building in the awards program: here. The short version: this was a very ornate police precinct house constructed in 1892, when Brooklyn was still an inexpedient city, and abandoned for quite some time. Here’s what the interior looked like the first time we saw it: The structure was pretty much what you’d expect for a low-rise public building of that era: exterior masonry bearing walls, mostly brick, interior steel beams and cast-iron columns, and wood-joist floors supported on the beams and walls. As you can see in the picture above. the interior finishes, wood-stud pa ..read more

Even without the Silvercup Bakery sign, I’d know this view, from an old Daredevil comic. The tracks are the 7 train, Flushing-bound, just west of the Queensboro Plaza station. This is the view you’d see looking off the west end of the platform, or from the rear window of an old-fashioned train (that had a rear window) as it pulled into the station. The westbound track is one level down, sort of visible in the lower left of the picture. The big structure sloping up left to right is one of the ramps to the upper level of the Queensboro Bridge, and you can just barely see the bridge structure on ..read more

For all you Lord of the Rings fans, remember: Brooklyn is not Mordor. No matter what similarities may exist ..read more