Rockefeller Center in Midtown Manhattan

2 June 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, New York City Reading Time:  21 minutes

Rockefeller Center's Landmark plaque © Sam Weber/cc-by-2.5

Rockefeller Center’s Landmark plaque © Sam Weber/cc-by-2.5

Rockefeller Center is a large complex consisting of 19 high-rise commercial buildings covering 22 acres (89,000 m2) between 48th and 51st Streets in New York City. Commissioned by the Rockefeller family, it is located in the center of Midtown Manhattan, spanning the area between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987. It is famous for its annual Christmas tree lighting. Rockefeller Center was named after John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who leased the space from Columbia University in 1928 and developed it beginning in 1930. Rockefeller initially planned a syndicate to build an opera house for the Metropolitan Opera on the site, but changed plans after the stock market crash of 1929 and the Metropolitan’s continual delays to hold out for a more favorable lease, causing Rockefeller to move forward without them. Rockefeller stated, “It was clear that there were only two courses open to me. One was to abandon the entire development. The other to go forward with it in the definite knowledge that I myself would have to build it and finance it alone.” He took on the enormous project as the sole financier, on a 27-year lease (with the option for three 21-year renewals for a total of 87 years) for the site from Columbia; negotiating a line of credit with the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and covering ongoing expenses through the sale of oil company stock. The initial cost of acquiring the space, razing some of the existing buildings and constructing new buildings was estimated at $250 million. The current Center is a combination of two building complexes: the original 14 Art Deco office buildings from the 1930s, one building across 51st Street built in 1947, and a set of four International-style towers built along the west side of Avenue of the Americas during the 1960s and 1970s.   read more…

West Village in Manhattan

31 May 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, New York City Reading Time:  16 minutes

West Village © flickr.com - heathbrandon/cc-by-sa-2.0

West Village © flickr.com – heathbrandon/cc-by-sa-2.0

The West Village is a neighborhood in Manhattan in New York City. Largely thought to constitute the western portion of the larger Greenwich Village neighborhood within Lower Manhattan, the area is roughly bounded by the Hudson River on the west and Sixth Avenue on the east, extending from West 14th Street south to West Houston Street. The Far West Village extends from the Hudson River to Hudson Street. Bordering neighborhoods are Chelsea to the north, Hudson Square – officially designated in 2009 – and the South Village to the south, and the East Village to the east. The neighborhood is primarily residential, with a multitude of small restaurants, shops, and services. Residential property sale prices in the West Village neighborhood are some of the most expensive in the United States, typically exceeding US$2,000 per square foot ($22,000/m²) in 2016. The neighborhood is distinguished by streets that are “off the grid”, being set at an angle to the other streets in Manhattan. These roads were laid out in an 18th-century grid plan, approximately parallel or perpendicular to the Hudson, long before the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811 which created the main street grid plan for later parts of the city. Even streets that were given numbers in the 19th century to make them nominally part of the grid can be idiosyncratic, at best. West 4th Street, formerly Asylum Street, crosses West 10th, 11th and 12th Streets, ending at an intersection with West 13th Street. Heading north on Greenwich Street, West 12th Street is separated by three blocks from Little West 12th Street, which in turn is one block south of West 13th Street. Further, some of the smaller east-west residential streets are paved with setts (often confused with cobblestones), particularly in Far West Village and the Meatpacking District. This grid is prevalent through the rest of Greenwich Village as well. Beginning in the early 1980s, residential development spread in the Far West Village between West and Hudson Streets, from West 14th to West Houston Streets, resulting in the area being given its own name.   read more…

Williamsburg in Brooklyn

3 May 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, New York City Reading Time:  10 minutes

Bedford Avenue © flickr.com - LWYang/cc-by-2.0

Bedford Avenue © flickr.com – LWYang/cc-by-2.0

Williamsburg is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, bordering Greenpoint to the north; Bedford–Stuyvesant to the south; Bushwick, East Williamsburg, and Ridgewood, Queens to the east; and Fort Greene and the East River to the west. Since the late 1990s, Williamsburg has undergone gentrification characterized by hipster culture, a contemporary art scene, and vibrant nightlife. During the early 2000s, the neighborhood became a center for indie rock and electroclash, and has been nicknamed “Little Berlin”. Numerous ethnic groups inhabit enclaves within the neighborhood, including Italians, Jews, Hispanics, Poles, Puerto Ricans, and Dominicans. Higher rents have driven out many bohemians and hipsters to other neighborhoods farther afield such as Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Cobble Hill, and Red Hook.   read more…

The Waldorf Astoria in New York

1 May 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Hotels, New York City Reading Time:  12 minutes

Park Avenue © Hennem08/cc-by-sa-3.0

Park Avenue © Hennem08/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Waldorf Astoria New York is a luxury hotel in Manhattan in New York City. The hotel has been housed in two historic landmark buildings in New York. The first, bearing the same name, was built in two stages, as the Waldorf Hotel and the Astor Hotel, which accounts for its dual name. That original site was situated on Astor family properties along Fifth Avenue, opened in 1893, and designed by Henry J. Hardenbergh. It was demolished in 1929 to make way for the construction of the Empire State Building. The present building, at 301 Park Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets in Midtown Manhattan, is a 47-story 190.5 m (625 ft) Art Deco landmark designed by architects Schultze and Weaver, which was completed in 1931. The current hotel was the world’s tallest hotel from 1931 until 1963, when it was surpassed by Moscow’s Hotel Ukraina by 7 metres (23 ft). An icon of glamour and luxury, the current Waldorf Astoria is one of the world’s most prestigious and best known hotels. Waldorf Astoria Hotels and Resorts is a division of Hilton Hotels, and a portfolio of high-end properties around the world, now operate under the name, including New York.   read more…

Chrysler Building on the East Side of Midtown Manhattan

1 January 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, House of the Month, New York City Reading Time:  18 minutes

© AngMoKio/cc-by-sa-2.5

© AngMoKio/cc-by-sa-2.5

The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco-style skyscraper located on the East Side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue in the Turtle Bay neighborhood. At 1,046 feet (319 m), the structure was the world’s tallest building for 11 months before it was surpassed by the Empire State Building in 1931. It is the tallest brick building in the world, albeit with a steel frame. After the destruction of the World Trade Center, it was again the second-tallest building in New York City until December 2007, when the spire was raised on the 1,200-foot (365.8 m) Bank of America Tower, pushing the Chrysler Building into third position. In addition, The New York Times Building, which opened in 2007, is exactly level with the Chrysler Building in height. Both buildings were then pushed into fourth position, when the under-construction One World Trade Center surpassed their height, and then to fifth position by 432 Park Avenue which was completed in 2015. The Chrysler Building has been shown in several movies that take place in New York. In the summer of 2005, the Skyscraper Museum in Lower Manhattan asked one hundred architects, builders, critics, engineers, historians, and scholars, among others, to choose their 10 favorites among 25 of the city’s towers. The Chrysler Building came in first place, as 90% of respondents placed the building among their top 10 favorite buildings. The Chrysler Building’s distinctive profile has inspired similar skyscrapers worldwide, including One Liberty Place in Philadelphia. The Chrysler Building is a classic example of Art Deco architecture and considered by many contemporary architects to be one of the finest buildings in New York City. In 2007, it was ranked ninth on the List of America’s Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects. It was the headquarters of the Chrysler Corporation from 1930 until the mid-1950s. Although the building was built and designed specifically for the car manufacturer, the corporation did not pay for the construction of it and never owned it, as Walter P. Chrysler decided to pay for it himself, so that his children could inherit it.   read more…

Museum of the Moving Image in Queens

25 November 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions, New York City Reading Time:  6 minutes

© NickCPrior/cc-by-sa-3.0

© NickCPrior/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Museum of the Moving Image is a media museum located in Astoria, Queens in New York City in a former building of what is now the Kaufman Astoria Studios. The museum originally opened in 1988 as the American Museum of the Moving Image. In March 2008, the museum broke ground for a $65 million expansion that doubled the museum’s size and added a new theater and educational space. While the museum remained open during most of the construction period, with its old theater demolished and the new ones yet to be built, screenings series and other events were held off site, although the collection was still available to scholars. The museum opened its redesigned and expanded building, designed by Leeser Architecture, on January 15, 2011.   read more…

Theme Week New York City – Queens

23 November 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, New York City Reading Time:  14 minutes

Long Island City © King of Hearts/cc-by-sa-3.0

Long Island City © King of Hearts/cc-by-sa-3.0

Queens is the easternmost and largest in area of the five boroughs of New York City. It is geographically adjacent to the borough of Brooklyn at the southwestern end of Long Island, and to Nassau County further east on Long Island; in addition, Queens shares water borders with the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. Coterminous with Queens County since 1899, the borough of Queens is the second-largest in population (after Brooklyn), with a census-estimated 2.3 million residents in 2015, approximately 48% of them foreign-born. Queens is the fourth-most densely populated county among New York City’s boroughs, as well as in the United States. If each New York City borough were an independent city, Queens would also be the nation’s fourth most populous city, after Los Angeles, Chicago, and Brooklyn. Queens was established in 1683, as one of the original 12 counties of New York and was named for the Portuguese Princess Catherine of Braganza (1638–1705), Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland. It became a borough of New York City in 1898, and from 1683 until 1899, the County of Queens included what is now Nassau County.   read more…

Tribeca in Manhattan

4 November 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, New York City Reading Time:  8 minutes

Spirit School at The Brandy Library © flickr.com - Jazz Guy/cc-by-2.0

Spirit School at The Brandy Library © flickr.com – Jazz Guy/cc-by-2.0

Tribeca, originally written as TriBeCa, is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Its name is a portmanteau from “Triangle Below Canal Street”. The “triangle”, or more accurately, a trapezoid, is bounded by Canal Street, West Street, Broadway, and either Chambers or Vesey Streets. The area was among the first residential neighborhoods developed in New York beyond the boundaries of the city during colonial times, with residential development beginning in the late 18th century. Tribeca is dominated by former industrial buildings that have been converted into residential buildings and lofts, similar to those of the neighboring SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the neighborhood was a center of the textile/cotton trade. During the late 1960s and ’70s, abandoned and inexpensive Tribeca lofts became hot-spot residences for young artists and their families because of the seclusion of lower Manhattan and the vast living space. Jim Stratton, a Tribeca resident since this period, wrote the 1977 nonfiction book entitled “Pioneering in the Urban Wilderness,” detailing his experiences renovating lower Manhattan warehouses into residences. By the early 21st century, Tribeca became one of Manhattan’s most fashionable and desirable neighborhoods, well known for its celebrity residents. Today there are many bars, restaurants and art galleries in Tribeca, among them are Robert De Niro‘s Tribeca Grill and the Greenwich Hotel.   read more…

Central Park in Manhattan

16 September 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, New York City, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  35 minutes

Central Park, seen from Rockefeller Center © Alfred Hutter

Central Park, seen from Rockefeller Center © Alfred Hutter

Central Park is an urban park in middle-upper Manhattan, within New York City. Central Park is the most visited urban park in the United States, with 40 million visitors in 2013. It is also one of the most filmed locations in the world. The Park was established in 1857 on 778 acres (315 ha) of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, a landscape architect and an architect, respectively, won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they titled the “Greensward Plan”. Construction began the same year and the park’s first area was opened to the public in the winter of 1858. Construction continued during the American Civil War farther south, and was expanded to its current size of 843 acres (341 ha) in 1873. Central Park was designated a National Historic Landmark (listed by the U.S. Department of the Interior and administered by the National Park Service) in 1962. The Park was managed for decades by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, and is currently managed by the Central Park Conservancy under contract with the municipal government in a public-private partnership. The Conservancy is a non-profit organization that contributes 75 percent of Central Park’s $65 million annual budget and is responsible for all basic care of the 843-acre park.   read more…

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