City and Country, a historic progressive school in New York’s Greenwich Village, is housed in a collection of converted townhouses connected by internal yards. For more than a decade, Sage and Coombe has worked with the school to complete upgrades to its systems and accessibility, design new art, science and general classrooms, an open-air connecting passage with a planted roof and the integration of a new townhouse.

City and Country School

This project includes the design of a headquarters, event space and classrooms for the Greater Newark Conservancy and its Urban Environmental Center. Located in downtown Newark, the new facility will occupy a historic synagogue. The building addition, distinguished from the historic brick building, features a recycled urban hardwood rain screen and reflects the Conservancy’s mission and focus.

Greater Newark Conservancy

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history. It is dedicated to helping leaders and citizens of the world confront hatred, prevent genocide, promote human dignity, and strengthen democracy.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Santiago Calatrava's 'Oculus' opened with a price tag reported at $4 billion, one of the most expensive transit hubs ever built.

The first building completed at Ground Zero was the architecturally inspirational transportation hub with the Oculus as the iconic public entry to commect the disparate subway and PATH systems, and improve of east-west pedestrian connectivity. The goals also included a place for transportation, retail, and community in a way that had not been experienced in the past, while also providing simple and easy to navigate connections to the commercial components of the World Trade Center Site. The below-grade Concourses, transit entrances to Towers 1, 2 and 4, and the PATH Mezzanine with Platforms A and B, are now open to the public and achieving the civic goals established in the days when such things seemed almost insurmountable.&nbsp;

About 13,000 lighting fixtures have been installed throughout the Oculus to reduce energy consumption and increase the life expectancy of the lamps as part of a sustainability program. The program also brought a new feature to the Oculus that allows the rib-uplighting to be changed to any color.

The TEUPEN TL 156AX, or “Big Red” as it is affectionately known. It has an articulated arm that can reach the highest point of the Oculus skylight at 160 feet above the floor and can extend over 50 feet horizontally.

 Michael Mahesh/The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey

World Trade Center Transportation Hub

                                            
                                            
                                            
                                                Santiago Calatrava talks about September 11th and how it affected him and the design for the PATH station transportation hub.
                                            
                                        

The museum houses some of the memorial artifacts of the 9/11 attacks, including a salvaged staircase that was used to escape the fallen towers and the steel beam cross that inspired firefighters. The museum was dedicated on May 15, 2014, with remarks from Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg and President Barack Obama. Six days later, the museum opened to the public. 300,000 people visit the Snohetta / Davis Brody Bond designed museum in its 1st month

On the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the National September 11 Memorial opened in New York. Designed by the architect Michael Arad, the memorial features two 30-foot waterfalls that line the footprint of the Twin Towers and plunge into the earth, invoking a sense of void and absence where the looming towers once stood. The memorial opened to victims' families on September 11, 2011, and to the public the following day.

Snøhetta was commissioned to design the only building that actually sits on the memorial grounds and is slated to contain cultural activities. The idea of placing a cultural building on the actual memorial site is rare and it has been expected to garner considerable scrutiny. During the four years of working with the project, the program has changed several times, however it has remained a cultural facility that is dedicated to visitor comfort and orientation. The design for the building embodies a careful reaction to the horizontal character of the memorial design while also providing the area with a lively organic form that allows the visitor to imagine the site and city in a broader sense. The building will provide each visitor with the opportunity to engage in the act of remembering and to ponder the consequences of forgetting. Certain characteristics of the Museum Paviiion will seem reminiscent of the original towers, while at other times these notions are only alluded to. The alternating reflective treatment of the façade will mirror the changing seasons, revealing the Pavilion’s differing qualities throughout the year. Inside, a large atrium space has been designed to direct light deep into a subterranean museum, designed by a separate architect. Two structural columns rescued from the original towers will stand in the atrium that mark the site with their own profound aesthetic gesture.

&nbsp;in the Foundation Hall of the National September 11 Memorial Museum

National September 11 Memorial & Museum

                                            
                                            
                                            
                                                Steven Davis shares his experiences on September 11th and the inspirations behind the design of the Memorial Museum
                                            
                                        

                                            
                                            
                                            
                                                 Craig Dykers talks about his personal experience on the morning of September 11th and the arduous design process behind the 9/11 Memorial Museum Pavilion in New York City. Guided by a profound sense of empathy, the architect agreed to take the risk of designing the highly symbolic structure. His aim was to "reveal the present moment", the only thing we can be certain of, and connect it to both the past and the future. 
                                            
                                        

 Aaron Dorf, Project Director of Snohetta talks about the Museum and some of the design issues involved in creating it. 

Goodwin's inclination towards the traditional Beaux-Arts style and Stone's more modern approach came together to create a building of six stories made of sleek white marble and a type of insulated glass called Thermolux. This glass helped in diffusing the light in the galleries of the museum.The building stands true to its vision of popularising and democratizing modern art, with modern and contemporary architecture styles blending together with international styles. The sculpture garden of the museum was designed by the MoMA director Alfred H. Barr Jr. and MoMA architecture curator John McAndrew.

In the late 1990s, Yoshio Taniguchi, a popular Japanese architect, submitted his design for renovating MoMA architecture. After its completion in 2004, it was reopened to the public on its 75th birthday.Taniguchi added granite and glass facades to the entrance of the MoMA museum. He added minimal solutions to the museum’s design while maintaining its modernist roots. Yoshio restored the International style building and enlarged the Sculpture Garden. The architect achieved a minimal aesthetic look with the help of precision. Glass panes were added that surrounded the Sculpture Garden and the curtains walls were detached from the floors to ensure that the glass doesn’t deflect when there are lots of visitors. Taniguchi’s design made the garden the focus while the other buildings acted as the side characters. His design allowed visitors to enjoy NYC’s streets and skyline as they passed through the galleries. Several windows in the galleries and the stairways allow the visitors a look outside. Visitors would find contemporary works on the ground floor and older artworks on the higher floors. A huge sky-lit space for temporary exhibitions was made available on the top floor. An atrium was also added that connects the lobby to the Sculpture Garden. KPF was executive architect for this restoration, renovation and expansion, which included work on the MoMA’s galleries, east wing and education building. KPF restored the original curved canopy and courtyard, added theater, library, and office spaces, and increased the exhibition area by 30%.

A two-phased renovation, the first part involved the MoMA architecture and new walls whereas the second part focused on the new art that is getting installed on those new walls.

Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

Barry Bergdoll, Phillip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at MoMA talks about the intellectual origins of the museum building and the development of the sculpture garden. 

The Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, located on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., is one of the largest federal buildings in the United States and a key architectural anchor of the Federal Triangle. Completed in the late 1990s, it was designed by James Ingo Freed of Pei Cobb Freed &amp; Partners to blend classical materials like limestone with modern steel and glass, creating a structure that responds to the diagonal geometry of Pennsylvania Avenue. Its prominent rotunda and skylit atrium emphasize openness and civic accessibility, while its layout symbolically turns the street into the site—an architectural gesture that connects the ceremonial core of the capital with its downtown grid.Conceived as a mixed-use facility, the building houses federal offices, international trade organizations, cultural commissions, and public amenities. It includes conference and exhibit spaces, restaurants, retail areas, and a large underground parking garage. Among its tenants are the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and other institutions focused on diplomacy and global engagement. The building also features commissioned public art, including Martin Puryear’s monumental bronze sculpture Bearing Witness, which anchors its plaza.Beyond its functional scope, the Reagan Building plays a symbolic role as a gateway between government and the public. It hosts international forums, civic events, and trade initiatives, reinforcing its identity as a hub for dialogue, commerce, and cultural exchange. Developed under a lease-to-own model and later acquired by the General Services Administration, it stands as a modern expression of federal architecture and a living space for global engagement in the heart of Washington, D.C.

Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center

Technical support for architectural elements including full restoration of historic roofing, and promenade as well as new integrated lighting.

The sculpture is a monument to New York's Civil War martyrs. Twelve dome-topped Corinthian columns sit upon a massive base. In 1893, the New York State legislature established a Board of Commissioners for a monument to the soldiers and sailors who had served in the Union Army during the Civil War. However, no work was done on the planning of the memorial until 1897 when the Board held a design competition that the brothers Charles W. (1860-1944) and Arthur A. (1867-1955) Stoughton won. Their design was known as the “Temple of Fame.” Paul E. M. DuBoy, who also planned the Ansonia Hotel, designed the sculptures in and around the monument. Fifty-ninth Street and Fifth Avenue, which is now the site of the Pulitzer Fountain, was the original location chosen by the sponsors of the memorial. However, city officials raised concerns that prompted the committee to select Riverside Park at 89th Street as the site of the monument. In 1899, New York Governor Theodore Roosevelt laid the cornerstone of the monument, 6 years after the Board of Commissioners was formed, and 34 years after the surrender of the chief Confederate army under Robert E. Lee to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. The Soldiers` and Sailors` Monument stands 96 feet high, is made of marble and granite, and is patterned after the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens. Its ornamental stone terraces surround a marble cylinder capped by a pyramidal roof and ringed by a colonnade of 12 Corinthian columns. To the south of the monument are two mounted cannons, and to the west, the steps of the terraces offer views of the Hudson River. The monument was dedicated on May 30, 1902 in remembrance of individuals from New York State who fought in the Civil War. A New York City landmark, the monument has become a shrine for all those who have served in later wars as well, and is the site of an annual Memorial Day observance held by the Soldiers` and Sailors` Monument Association (SSMA) a Riverside Park Conservancy user group. A Grassroots Volunteer maintains the plantings in the area surrounding the monument.

Riverside Dr. at W. 89th St. In Riverside Park.

Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument (New York)

An art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located on Dundas Street West in the Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, the museum complex takes up 480,000 sq ft of physical space, making it one of the largest art museums in North America and the second-largest art museum in Toronto, after the Royal Ontario Museum. In addition to exhibition spaces, the museum also houses an artist-in-residence office and studio, dining facilities, event spaces, gift shop, library and archives, theatre and lecture hall, research centre, and a workshop.

Art Gallery of Ontario

The present building is the third site to house the National Gallery. Only the façade onto Trafalgar Square remains essentially unchanged from this time, as the building has been expanded piecemeal throughout its history. Wilkins's building was often criticised for the perceived weaknesses of its design and for its lack of space; the latter problem led to the establishment of the Tate Gallery for British art in 1897

Technical lead for the design team reconfiguring the entry and circulation sequence for the museum

National Gallery, London

This nine-story commercial office building with street-level retail will be part of The Yards, a 42-acre, mixed-use development from Brookfield Properties in Washington, DC. The 310,000 sq ft building features office space, ground-floor retail and amenities, including terraces, a courtyard, lounge and event space. On the waterfront of the Anacostia River, The Yards is a popular destination amid a lively, diverse neighborhood just east of the Nationals Ballpark. The building’s site is bounded by two of Washington’s original L’Enfant Plan streets, as well as a new pedestrian zone immediately to the east called Yards Place.

Near 1st and N Streets SE

Parcel F at The Yards

12-story office building with grade level retail, 155,000 sf ($77M) intended for TAMI tenant, LEEDv4-Gold expected.&nbsp;

799 Broadway

A converted 5,000-square-foot former loading facility (built in 1920, once used by the Old Dutch Mustard Company) featuring 24-foot ceilings and a 50' x 100' footprint. &nbsp;SLAM is famous for its street-level garage doors that remain open to invite passersby to watch rehearsals, take movement classes, or observe training.

SLAM – Streb Lab for Action Mechanics

Home to thirteen of NYC`s municipal agencies, the Municipal Building is one of the city`s most imposing presences, with an influence on civic architecture that reached as far as Stalinist Russia. Its tower is topped by Adolph Weinman`s statue “Civic Fame” and its grandly proportioned arch frames a tunnel once traversed by Chambers Street traffic.Manhattan Municipal Building resulted from 4 architectural competitions, of which the last was to design the building in conjunction with a subway and trolley terminal at the Brooklyn Bridge , finally won by McKim Mead and White, then the largest architectural firm in the world; it was their 1st skyscraper.

Provided CA Phase leadership and administration for DDC design excellence project for the renovation of 12,000 sf city agency office

The building is shaped like a ten-sided "C", in an irregular hexaagon shaped lot. The building accommodates the diagonal paths of Duane Street and Park Row, The orientation of the floor plan ensures that all of the building's windows would be able to receive direct sunlight and eliminated the need for an interior light court.At 580 feet and 34 stories tall; the main structure consists of 26 stories, and a tower, flanked by four circular turrets, rises 8 stories above. The circular section of the central tower is composed of two layers: an enclosed space surrounded by columns, atop which is a smaller peristyle. Atop the northern and southern wings of the "C" are pavilion roofs, which are connected to the central tower with roof decks and a stone cornice.&nbsp;The facade is made of ashlar granite below and terracotta above the 23rd floor. A three-story colonnade of Corinthian columns runs across the base along Centre Street. A large, arched vaulted terracotta corridor is located at the center of the building's base. On the roof is Civic Fame, a 25-foot-tall statue

In addition to Civic Fame, Weinman sculpted the rectangular allegorical bas-relief panels at the base of the building, which are located above the side arches. Civic Duty, above the smaller arch to the right (south) of the center arch, shows a female representation of the city alongside a child holding the city seal. Civic Pride, above the smaller arch to the left (north), depicted the city as a woman "receiving tribute from her citizens". There are heroic-scaled winged figures above the spandrels of the side arches: Guidance, a depiction of a female on the left arch, and Executive Power, a depiction of a male on the right arch. These are respectively topped by medallions representing Progress, a nude kneeling man with a torch in one hand and a winged sphere in the other, and Prudence, a half-nude kneeling woman holding a mirror while a serpent is curled around her right arm.

 This floor plan ensured that all of the building's windows would be able to receive direct sunlight and eliminated the need for an interior courtyard, which could not be lit by sunlight.  

 22nd-floor false colonnade, and elevators. The shields represent the historical New Amsterdam and the Province of New York, as well as the present-day county, city, and state of New York (the county of New York being coextensive with the borough of Manhattan).  

The David N. Dinkins Manhattan Municipal Building

Municipal Building

 Architectural historian Gail Cornell talks about the Manhattan Municipal Building. 

Originally the CUNY School of Law at Queens College located in Flushing, Queens. It moved to 2 Court Square in Long Island City at the end of May 2012. CUNY purchased a six-floor condominium interest in the 14-story environmentally green building. Citigroup will retain ownership of the remainder of the building. The move gave the school nearly 70,000 additional square feet of space. The building is within walking distance of seven subway lines (two within one stop of Manhattan), the Long Island Railroad, and eight bus lines. It is only a few blocks away from the Long Island City Courthouse. The move enabled CUNY School of Law to develop a new part-time program, which started in 2015. The building at 2 Court Square is LEED Gold certified, which means that its construction had a reduced environmental impact and its design increases occupants' health and well-being.

CUNY - School of Law

The City University of New York School of Law

 Sculptor Luis Sanguino celebrates the diversity of New York City and the struggle of immigrants in this heroic-sized bronze figural group. The sculpture depicts figures of various ethnic groups and eras, including an Eastern European Jew, a freed African slave, a priest, and a worker. The figures` expressive poses emphasize the struggle and toil inherent in the experience of the immigrant or dislocated person. 

1) "Dedicated to the people of all nations who entered America through castle garden in memory of Samuel Rudin 1896-1975 whose parents arrived in America in 1883"2) "Sanguino"

The piece was donated by Samuel Rudin (1896&amp;ndash;1975), who commissioned the sculpture in the early 1970s, intending it to be installed near Castle Clinton as a memorial to his parents, who, as it is noted on the plinth, emigrated to the United States in the late-19th century. Although Rudin died in 1975, Rudin&amp;rsquo;s family took up the campaign to install the sculpture at the park, and it eventually was dedicated on May 4, 1983.  

Battery Park

The Immigrants

Anne Lewison, architect and board member of cultureNOW, reads a selection from the book, Manhattan Outdoor Sculpture, by Margot Gayle and Michele Cohen, about The Immigrants, a sculpture by Luis Sanguino.

These works were executed by 8 different sculptors. Johannes Gelert: Denmark; Albert Jaegers: Belgium; Augustus Henry Lukeman: Genoa; Frederick Wellington Ruckstuhl: Phoenicia; Francois Elwell: Greece; Francis Michel Louis Tonett: Venice; Louis Saint-Gaudens: Holland and Portugal; Charles Garfly: France and England; and Karl Theodore Francis Bitter. Each sculpture depicts a different symbol of Government.Above the main cornice are a group of standing sculptures of personifications of seafaring nations. There are twelve such statues, which depict commercial hubs through both ancient and modern history. Each sculpture is 11 feet (3.4 m) tall and weighs 20 short tons (18 long tons; 18 metric tons). These sculptures were arranged in chronological sequence from east to west, so that the easternmost sculptures were of ancient Greece and Rome, while the westernmost sculptures were of the more recent French and British empires.One of these sculptures, Germania by Albert Jaegers, was modified in 1918 to display Belgian insignia rather than German insignia.

Seafaring Nations

 Anne Lewison, architect and board member of cultureNOW, reads a selection from the book, Manhattan Outdoor Sculpture, by Margot Gayle and Michele Cohen, about Seafaring Nations, a group of sculptures at the US Custom House. 

 French performed the commissions with associate Adolph A. Weinman, sculpted by the Piccirilli Brothers. Each sculptural group costing $13,500. From east to west, the statues depicted larger-than-life-size personifications of the continents Asia, America, Europe, and Africa. The primary figures were female, but there were also auxiliary human figures flanking each primary figure. In addition, Asia's figure was paired with a tiger, and Africa's figure was paired with a lion.

Four Continents

 Anne Lewison, architect and board member of cultureNOW, reads a selection from the book, Manhattan Outdoor Sculpture, by Margot Gayle and Michele Cohen, about The Four Continents, by Daniel Chester French, located at the US Customs House. 

This memorial commemorates those Americans who fought in Vietnam. Excerpts from letters written by men and women who served during the war are etched into the memorial’s glass block and granite wall.

Vietnam Veterans Plaza 

New York Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Anne Lewison, architect and board member of cultureNOW, reads a selection from the book, Manhattan Outdoor Sculpture, by Margot Gayle and Michele Cohen, about the New York Vietnam Veterans Memorial at 55 Water Street.

This 1903 statue by Jonathan Scott Hartley (1845&ndash;1912) depicts the esteemed Swedish-American engineer and inventor John Ericsson (1803&ndash;1889), who helped to revolutionize military-maritime technology with his ironclad warship, the Monitor.The Monitor was Ericsson`s response to the Confederacy`s intent in early 1861 to ironclad its warship, the Merrimac. Ericsson built the Monitor at the Continental Iron Works foundry in Greenpoint, Brooklyn; its engine and machinery were fabricated in Greenwich Village at the Delamater Iron Works. He died on March 8, 1889, in New York City. Less than four years after his death, the distinguished sculptor Johnathan Scott Hartley was commissioned by the state to create a larger-than-life bronze portrait of Ericsson, which was dedicated April 26, 1893 in Battery Park. The pedestal was designed by architect Frank Wallis.Ten years later the sculptor, dissatisfied with his first version, crafted a modified statue, cast at the local Roman Bronze Works, and dedicated on August 1, 1903, a day after the centennial of Ericsson`s birth. In 1939 a monument to Ericsson and the Monitor was unveiled in McGolrick Park, Brooklyn. The sculpture in Battery Park depicts the bearded Ericsson holding a boat model in his hand. The pedestal features inset bronze bas-reliefs, which illustrate significant naval battles involving the Monitor and Princeton, as well as an array of Ericsson`s mechanical inventions. Over time the monument suffered extensive damage, the result of weathering, vandalism, and even a fire. In 1996 the sculpture was conserved by Parks` monuments crew, and as part of overall improvements to Battery Park, the sculpture is slated to be moved from its present location to a more prominent site near a perimeter entrance.

John Ericsson

 Jonathan Kuhn, Director of Arts and Antiquities of NYC Parks, sheds light on the John Ericsson sculpture in Battery Park. The sculpture depicts Ericsson, a Swedish-American inventor and engineer, who was important in revolutionizing maritime and military technology and travel. 

 Anne Lewison, architect and board member of cultureNOW, reads a selection from the book, Manhattan Outdoor Sculpture, by Margot Gayle and Michele Cohen, about the statue of John Ericsson, noted inventor, by Jonathan Scott Hartley. 

Anne Lewison is a Senior Technical Architect. Previously, she has been the senior architect and Project Manager for the World Trade Center Museum Pavilion by Snøhetta, New York. She directed the team on all aspects of this project from 2007 to the public opening in May of 2014. Prior projects include Pei, Cobb Freed and Partners, The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC for which she integrated the permanent exhibitions into the architecture, as well as designing the settings for all the commissioned art for the building. &nbsp; More recently her work took her to Toronto, representing the Museum of Contemporary Art's Board of Directors during the construction of their fit-out of 50,000sf over five floors of a 100-year-old former factory on the west side of Toronto.

On the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, cultureNOW and Lower Manhattan Historical Association have organized a walking tour of the rebuilt New York World Trade Center. The tour includes the September 11 Memorial Plaza and the surrounding towers that comprise the 16 acre site that had been part of the WTC designed by Yamasaki in the 1970's. The evening tour will be primarily at street/plaza level and include the Tribute in Light, illuminating the night sky in advance of September 11 and the memorial events of that day. &nbsp;Tour leader: Anne Lewison AIA is a practicing architect in New York City. &nbsp;She worked on several key projects at the site over ten years including the September 11 Memorial Plaza and Museum Pavilion as well as the &nbsp;PATH Oculus.

Federal Hall National Memorial

The Lower Manhattan Historical Association ("LMHA") holds a parade through Lower Manhattan every year starting 2015.This parade is part of a resurgence of patriotic activities in Lower Manhattan on July 4, after a long hiatus from 1976 to 2015. It is in recognition of the recent growth of Lower Manhattan as one of the City's fastest growing residential neighborhoods and as one of the City's major centers of historical tourism.The parade, which traverses Wall Street and passes many of the historic monuments in Lower Manhattan - is designed to provide marchers and spectators with an understanding of the tremendous historic importance of Lower Manhattan.

World Trade Center Site Tour

RSVP here

Everyday over 700,000 New Yorkers pass through Midtown along Park Avenue to and from Grand Central Terminal. This is a part of the City where in a few blocks you can see many of the forces that have shaped our city. There are icons of architecture (Midtown Modernism) and capitalism such as Lever, Seagram, and the Chrysler building. There are icons of real estate such as the Grand Hyatt and Helmsley. Under construction is one of the city’s tallest office buildings Chase. There are great clubs and great churches. This walk will showcase some of the art and architecture along Park Avenue and tell some of the stories about its past, its present, and perhaps future.The tour is available as a guided tour, as well as a virtual tour.

Penn Central Transportation Company v. New York City was a landmark decision which ruled that New York City could prohibit the construction of a 53- story office building above Grand Central Terminal because the tower would significantly alter the terminal's status as a historic landmark.“The Committee to Save Grand Central Station,” was organized by the Municipal Art Society and led by several notable New Yorkers, including former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and architect Philip Johnson.

A competition to develop innovative proposals to strengthen the resiliency of regions affected by Hurricane Sandy was launched by HUD, &nbsp;Rockefeller Foundation, Institute for Public Knowledge at NYU, Municipal Art Society, Regional Plan Association, Van Alen; it was won by the Dryline which received $335 million to implement the project&nbsp;

The Art & Architecture of Park Avenue from Lever to Grand Central 2026

Abby Suckle received her Master of Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and her undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to opening her own architectural firm, she practiced architecture with Pei Cobb Freed &amp; Partners. She has an architectural practice in New York City with work ranging from residential to public buildings. As the President of cultureNOW, she leads the Museum Without Walls project, which is an attempt to expand beyond gallery walls to create an acoustiguide to the environment blending art architecture and history. She has curated two recent exhibitions on Mapping in New York and Boston. She has taught at Parsons, the Boston Architectural Center and Harvard where she is currently collaborating on a course about Design for Resilience post Sandy. Ms. Suckle is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. In 2012 she received the AIA NY State President Award and the National AIA Collaborative Achievement Award. She also received the 2009 AIA NY State Fellows Award and serves on the board of the NY Chapter of the AIA.

RSVP is required and capacity is limited. Meeting location, ending location, and directions will be provided via email before walk date.

RSVP

Everyday over 700,000 New Yorkers pass through Midtown along Park Avenue to and from Grand Central Terminal. This is a part of the City where in a few blocks you can see many of the forces that have shaped our city. There are icons of architecture (Midtown Modernism) and capitalism such as Lever, Seagram, and the Chrysler building. There are icons of real estate such as the Grand Hyatt and Helmsley. There are great clubs and great churches. There are stories about Grand Central and its construction, the viaduct which may have been the first limited access highway. This walk will showcase some of the art and architecture along Park Avenue and tell some of the stories about its past, its present, and perhaps future. It can be accessed through the cultureNOW MuseumWithoutWalls app for the iPhone or Android.

The Art & Architecture of Park Avenue from Lever to Grand Central Virtual Tour 2026

Park Avenue at the Seagram Buillding

Jane's Walk: The Art & Architecture of Park Avenue from Lever to Grand Central

In person

Virtual

Every day, over 700,000 New Yorkers pass through Midtown to and from Grand Central Terminal. This is a part of the city where, in a few blocks, visitors can explore architecture that reflects the wide variety of people and forces that have shaped New York City.Join Abby Suckle, FAIA and President of cultureNOW to learn about icons of modernism including Lever House, the Seagram Building, the Chrysler Building, and private clubs, churches, and cultural institutions.With the Then and NOW map, the key points on this tour can also be explored virtually or as a self-guided experience—a map, image slideshows, and accompanying audio descriptions allow viewers to enjoy it both from home and on-site.

The Art and Architecture of Park Avenue - Open House New York

Reservation Required. Book Here

The Commons has effectively been America’s town square since the Dutch landed. Virtually every major event of local, national and global significance has played out in some way on this stage. This tour captures the multiple and overlapping stories that are woven throughout our city’s life. It takes a look at the issues that New Yorkers were preoccupied with and how they solved them: their politics, religion, social protest, health and safety, commerce, disasters and defense, scandals and crime, education, publications, art and culture, parades and celebrations, architecture and engineering.

City Hall R Subway Stop - Broadway & Warren Street

The Commons : The Heart of New York City

The Commons has effectively been America’s town square since the Dutch landed. Virtually every major event of local, national and global significance has played out in some way on this stage. This tour captures the multiple and overlapping stories that are woven throughout our city’s life. It takes a look at the issues that New Yorkers were preoccupied with and how they solved them: their politics, religion, social protest, health and safety, commerce, disasters and defense, scandals and crime, education, publications, art and culture, parades and celebrations, architecture and engineering.The tour is available as an in-person guided tour, as well as a virtual tour.

Jane's Walk: The Commons - The Heart of New York City

In Person

Jane's Walk: The Art and Architecture of Park Avenue

cultureNOW - Vice President

Anne Lewison

 Anne Lewison, an architect and board member for cultureNOW, reads a selection from Manhattan's Outdoor Sculpture, by Margot Gayle and Michele Cohen, about the statue Giovanni da Verrazano, located in Battery Park. 

Everyday over 700,000 New Yorkers pass through Midtown along Park Avenue to and from Grand Central Terminal. This is a part of the City where in a few blocks you can see many of the forces that have shaped our city. There are icons of architecture (Midtown Modernism) and capitalism such as Lever, Seagram, and the Chrysler building. There are icons of real estate such as the Grand Hyatt and Helmsley. There are great clubs and great churches and very tall buildings (JP Morgan, One Vanderbilt)There are stories about Grand Central and its construction, the viaduct which may have been the first limited access highway. There are cultural institutions such as New York Public Library and Scandinavia House. New Yorkers from Commodore Vanderbilt to JP Morgan influenced this neighborhood. This walk showcases some of the art and architecture along Park Avenue and tells some of the stories about its past, its present, and perhaps future.

The Art & Architecture of Park Avenue from Lever to Grand Central

Architectural historians&nbsp;and authors Andrew S. Dolkart and Anne Walker talk about the architectural firms Warren &amp; Wetmore and Schultze &amp; Weaver.

Carol Willis, museum director of the Skyscraper Museum and curator of the exhibition The Invention of Park Avenue, launched the series with an online lecture TRA(I)NSFORMATION. The talk will illustrate how the New York Central Railroad transformed its right of way into Manhattan via Fourth Avenue into a spectacularly successful infrastructure project that linked rail and real estate, not only as a revenue stream, but as what became an engine of urban development.

Managing Partner of MdeAS Architects, Dan Shannon, explained the major issues postwar glass boxes on Park Avenue have faced and how their owners seek to update their aging curtain walls, lobbies, and mechanical systems to compete in the current market.&nbsp;

Foster + Partners – has so far dominated the new activity on the avenue and skyline.

 Barry Bergdoll, Phillip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at MoMA speaks on how the interaction between the Seagram Building, Lever House, and Tennis and Racquet Club activates the urban environment at 53rd Street and Park Avenue. 

 Architectural historian Carol Krinsky explains how zoning laws shaped the development of Midtown Manhattan in the mid-twentieth century. 

There is no better place to begin this tour than the corner of 53rd and Park where all these themes intersect. Here is where the train tracks below Park Avenue were covered, and Vanderbilt began to develop the newly created land. Here you can see the impact of zoning and its creative interpretations on the skyline with Lever and Seagram. And you can witness the history of McKim Mead and Whites Racquet Club which continued to refuse to admit women as recently as 1986.&nbsp;

Vanderbilt expanded the New York and Harlem Railroad tracks to 4 when he constructed the Grand Central Depot to accommodate its busy schedule. The grade level tracks not a problem when this part of the city was fairly rural. Needless to say, as the area got more congested and the Railroad began to run as many as 80 trains a day, the situation changed. Not only was Fourth Avenue very noisy, but it was covered with steam and cinders from the trains' engines. There were many accidents to the point that Vanderbilt was accused of bribing the coroners office to conceal the number of deaths. Neighbors convened many protest meetings were called for covering the tracks. Vanderbilt's first inclination was to build fences which were not that effective. The situation was at an impass until the protesters discovered that the original agreement with the city permitted closing the rail line if it interfered with ordinary use of the streets. Costing $6 million, a trench was created below 56th that depressed the train tracks. It was covered by a series of planted platforms to allow for ventilation. This enabled Fourth Avenue to become a desirable residential location attracting such notables as Edith Wharton. After the electric trains were buried underground, a new Terminal opened and the area around Park Avenue in its vicinity was developed into prime real estate called Terminal City &nbsp;

Park Avenue 

The era of steam trains below Park Avenue came to an abrupt halt on January 8 1902 at 8:20 a.m. when an inbound express from South Norwalk, Conn., stopped in the tunnel at 56th Street, waiting for clearance into Grand Central. It was snowing again, and a local from White Plains, despite warning signals as far back as 63rd Street, crashed into it, shredding its two rear passenger cars. Firefighters who climbed the walls down into the tunnel found a panorama of horrors including three men hanging out a window in mid-escape, but scalded to death by escaping steam. In all fifteen were killed and 36 injured.  The Engineer, John M Wiskar said he could not see the signals due to the steam.  No railroad officials were punished, but in 1903, the State Legislature mandated the conversion from steam to electric power. The first electric engine went into service in 1906, and the change was completed in 1907. 

This building was actually designed by WS Richardson since by 1917 Charles McKim and Stanford White had died and William Mead had retired. Twice as high as Park Avenue was wide and adorned by a frieze of racquets, this was one of New York`s great gilded age clubhouses. Naturally, the Club only admitted gentlemen of a certain social pedigree who smoked cigars, swum naked in its pool, and snoozed in the oversize furniture in the baronial fourth floor after a challenging game of racquets or court tennis. It still has the distinction of never admitting women.According to the NY Times, “in the late 1970s the club was the scene of another contest, perhaps the biggest game of real estate ''chicken'' ever played in New York. The Fisher Brothers acquired the midblock site behind the Racquet Club for a new office building, Park Avenue Plaza. The developers approached the club about a possible entrance through its building, but no deal was consummated. “The Racquet Club retaliated by planning to construct a 38 story hotel over its building effectively blocking the views from the office building. It ended when the air rights were sold for $5 million to the Fisher Brothers.&nbsp; &nbsp;

Racquet and Tennis Club

Three of the most notable people involved with the project include Gordon Bunshaft, the design Principal at SOM, and Natalie de Blois who assisted him as the Project Designer, and Charles Luckman. Trained as an architect, his first job was drafting for Pepsodent Toothpaste's marketing department. He turned out to be so gifted as sales, that in short order he became the President of Pepsodent landing on the cover of Time Magazine as the 'Boy Wonder of American Business' at the ripe old age of 30. He became the US President of Unilever, decided to move the company from Boston to New York, and secured the block on Park Avenue. The UN had just been completed and he wanted to commission the modern office of the future. He commissioned Skidmore Owings and Merrill; and met with the partners in a hotel room so no one at Unilever would catch whiff of his plans.The design breakthrough was a reading of the zoning code that allowed the building to be a rectangular tower it occupied less than 25% of its site instead of a ziggurat. This was a the first time anyone had done this. Additional amenities included a ground floor Art Gallery, a computer room on the second floor, and the plaza. Due to cost overruns, Luckman was actually fired prior to move in. He called his former Architecture School roommate, William Pereira who invited Luckman to join his small office in Los Angeles. They build a practice in LA before splitting. The renovation begun in 1998 added the Isamu Noguchi sculpture garden which had been planned but never installed.

The Seagram Building is recognized as one of the world's great architectural masterpieces. &nbsp;Clad in 1500 tons of bronze, it was noted for the metal vertical columns affixed the the curtain wall to express structure. Window shades operated in only 3 positions. Its plaza caused the NY City Zoning ordinance to be changed in 1961 to allow ten additional square feet of interior space for each square foot of street-level open space. With that provision, plazas soon appeared at office building sites throughout the city.&nbsp;Charles Bronfman had made his fortune in bootlegging and had a dubious reputation which he was anxious to redeem. So he bought the block on 53rd Street. He actually commissioned Charles Luckman to do a design. His daughter was travelling in Italy at the time; he sent it to her and she wrote back 'NO NO NO NO'. She took on the role of hiring the architect. She ended up hiring Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, then Architecture Curator at the new Museum of Modern Art. The building's elegant simplicity juxtaposed against its constructional rigor embodies Mies van der Rohe's famed dictum "less is more" and personifies modern architecture.

The Four Seasons Restaurant came about when Bronfman hired Joseph Baum Restaurant Associates to make a restaurant to add value to the building. He decided to highlight American cuisine. Mimi Sheraton was on the research and testing team for the menu. The restaurant cost $4.5 million to open. It should be compared to the Guggenheim Museum which cost $3 million and was built at roughly the same time. It was the first restaurant to offer meals that changed with the seasons and was famous for its power lunches &ndash; JFK`s 45th Birthday dinner was held there. More recently there was a new renovation by Annabelle Seldorf in 2018.

After the restaurant was sold in 1973, a new group took over. The grille room was established and they hired a new chef, ma&icirc;tre d &ndash; But the restaurant was not noted for the food. Nora Ephron often came for lunch, she brought the publishers in and bit became known as a power lunch setting. Philip Johnson held a round table there. Henry Kissinger and Tom Wolfe were regulars. They were not alone. Other regulars Henry Grunwald, Clay Felker, Bess Myerson, Gene Shalit, Richard Snyder, Gloria Steinem, James Beard, and you, Michael Korda, Calvin Klein, Edgar Bronfman, and you, Jackie Onassis, Nelson Doubleday, Mark Goodson, and you, too, Oscar de la Renta, Louis Auchincloss, Alex Liberman. The Grille Room attracted New York's thinkers, movers and shakers all immortalized in Lee Eisenberg's Esquire article.

The Four Seasons Restaurant

 After removing all traces of Philip Johnson`s original interior, the gutted shell is resurfaced with thin liners of varying materials that sometimes lift away to become structural, spatial, and functional elements. While the Seagram Building is considered to be the quintessential modernist glass tower, the restaurant is lodged in its stone base and is without glass, view or connection with the street. This irony prompted a series of alternate responses to the relation between glass and vision. A plasma monitor at the entry, back-to-back with a video camera to the street, produces a virtual transparency. Like a remnant of past construction, a 50-foot long sheet of lenticular glass is propped against an interior wall to support 24 seated diners. It sheaths artifacts on display and teases a direct view of them. The ritual of making an entrance is split into two events. A sensor above the revolving door triggers a video snapshot with the entry of every new patron and his or her image is added to a continuously changing video display over the bar. At the same time, entry into the main space one-half level below the street is made theatrical: a glass stairway of unusually gradual proportions prolongs the descent and deposits each patron into the center of the dining room. 

Originally painted as a section of the curtain for the Serge Diaghilev's Ballet Russe over three weeks in London, the painting was was acquired by Phyllis Lambert for the Four Seasons. It depicts a Spanish bullring. It hung on the Four Seasons Wall for many years until Aby Rosen bought the building. He undertook a renovation of the restaurant and decided to remove the curtain in order to 'preserve' it in the middle of the night. Many people were concerned; articles were written; and the curtain ended up at the New York Historical Society.

Four Seasons Restaurant

Dinoceras, meaning dynamic wax in Latin, is titled after a horned mammal that populated North America during the Eocene period.  The sculpture is one of the largest wax sculptures ever made to date. Cook used a wax casting technique that employed bees wax and a bamboo framework to build the bronze piece. 

At 50th and Park the highlights are two of New Yorks most significant cultural institutions. Not only is St Barts a beautiful building decorated with significant artworks, but it is also equally as infamous for the court case about its air rights which made it to the Supreme Court which said the designation of the church, the buildings that make up its grounds and a garden there as landmarks did not violate the churchs constitutional rights either to religious exercise or to the use of its property. Across the street is the Waldorf Astoria which was the first hotel to become the social center and townsquare of a city.

This Byzantine-style church incorporates a 1903 French Romanesque portal from its previous Madison Ave. location. Designed by Stanford White and funded as a memorial for Cornelius Vanderbilt II, the portal features Renaissance-inspired sculpture and ornate brass doors. There are stained glass windows by Hildreth Meire and the city's largest pipe organ. The community house was constructed later by Goodhue's firm after he had died. It cost $5.4 million in 1930. Famous congregants included Lillian Gish and her mother. But by the 1980's many of the parishioners had moved away. The Church needed money and collaborated with a developer who was going to purchase the air rights and erect a tower over the Community House. The case made it all the way to the Supreme Court.

2nd Location

In 1981 St. Bart's decided to tear down its six-story community house, attached to the church, and lease the land for a skyscraper to be built by British real estate magnate Howard Ronson. The income of $9.5 million a year for 10 years, plus higher annual amounts for 90 years afterward, would fund the church's building maintenance, community activities, as well as the diocese's soup kitchens and shelters in Harlem and the South Bronx. The Reverend Thomas Bowers said the church, a large sanctuary with burnished pews, exquisite stained glass and a small garden, would have to close without the funds from the skyscraper. But opponents say the church's $11 million endowment, plus funds that could be raised in the community, would allow it to continue its programs.Sabers were drawn as the fight became a holy war pitting the religious establishment against the preservationists. City Comptroller Harrison Goldin decried the 'Canyonization of Madison Avenue'. Philip Johnson, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Brooke Astor and Brendan Gill philanthropist Brooke Astor, New Yorker critic Brendan Gill and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis have lined up to fight the proposal on the grounds that it would, as Gill put it, "mutilate one of the most beautiful churches in the city just to make a real estate killing." At stake was the question of whether churches were exempt from City Landmarks Laws. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court establish then precedent that they were not. However, the story is not over. In 2018 with the new East Midtown Zoning plan, about 50,000 sf of the air rights for St Barts (and St Patricks) were purchased by JP Morgan Chase for $20 million allowing the bank to begin tearing down the Union Carbide Building.

Transfiguration was her first collaboration with Bertram Goodhue. They would go on to work on other projects together.

St Barts Church

Sculpted by Lee Lawrie, the large marble figure on the left of the pulpit is St. John the Baptist. Words are written underneath him: "The goodly fellowship of he prophets praise thee." To the right side of the pulpit is the figure Isaiah. Underneath him, words state: "In thy light shall we see light."Lawrie's collaborations with Ralph Adams Cram and Bertram Goodhue brought him to the forefront of architectural sculptors in the United States. German born and Yale educated, he trained on the Columbian Exposition of 1893. He collaborated with many of the famous names of his day on many of the most significant projects. They include Augustus Saint Gaudens and Philip Martiney. He worked on the Nebraska State Capitol and Rockefeller Center where his Atlas is in the Plaza at 50th St.

Located inside St. Batholomew's Church   

The original Waldorf–Astoria was built in two stages, as the Waldorf Hotel and the Astoria 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. &nbsp;Built on the site of the millionaire mansions of the Astor family, two separate, but connected structures– the 13-story iron-framed Waldorf and the later steel-framed 16-story Astoria–were joined to become the Waldorf-Astoria, the world's largest hotel. Illustrating the cycle of Manhattan's rising land values, the great hotel was demolished in 1929 and replaced by the Empire State Building.<a href="https://culturenow.org/people/the-skyscraper-museum?name=The_Skyscraper_Museum">[1]</a>&nbsp;Particularly after its relocation, the Waldorf Astoria gained international renown for its lavish dinner parties and galas, often at the center of political and business conferences and fundraising schemes involving the rich and famous. Particularly after World War II it played a significant role in world politics and the Cold War, culminating in the controversial World Peace Conference of March 1949 at the hotel, whose Stalinism was widely denounced. Conrad Hilton acquired management rights to the hotel on October 12, 1949, and the Hilton Hotels Corporation finally bought the hotel outright in 1972. It underwent a $150 million renovation by Lee Jablin in the 1980s and early 1990s, and in October 2014 it was announced that the Anbang Insurance Group of China had purchased the Waldorf Astoria New York for US$1.95 billion, making it the most expensive hotel ever sold. Anbang then converted the Waldorf's upper-floor hotel rooms into 375 condominiums, closing the hotel for a three-year renovation on March 1, 2017.

Bradley – Martin costume party was reputed to be the most expensive party of modern times costing approximately $9.7 million today. Coming at the end of the depression from the Panic of 1893, the extravagance of the ball generated great publicity throughout the country.Guests were required to come in historic costumes. Invitations were sent on short notice so that they would have to buy their attire in New York which was supposed to stimulate local business. And the Waldorf was transformed into a version of Versailles. Nearly 800 members of the New York Society showed up.A guest list was compiled and published in the New York Times three days and the historical characters they were going to impersonate and what costumes they were going to wear. Mrs. Bradley-Martin's was Mary Stuart and her husband was attired as Louis XV. The event was a great success socially. However, there was considerable political fallback as the authorities raised Bradley-Martins taxes; they ended up leaving New York and retiring to a castle they owned in Scotland.

Waldorf-Astoria Hotel

There were many food innovations at the Waldorf Astoria that became widely popular. Chop Suey was supposedly invented for a dinner for the Chinese Ambassador in 1896. Oscar Tschirky the long time Maitre D invented Waldorf Salad which originally contained just apples, celery and mayonnaise. Other innovations included Eggs Benedict and Thousand Island Dressing A story circulated that a guest at the upscale Waldorf-Astoria Hotel dining at the hotel`s eminent restaurant, ordered a slice of fudge cake for dessert. The woman enjoyed it so much that she asked the waiter for the recipe, with which he complied. Upon receiving her hotel bill in the mail, however, there was a hefty charge for the recipe. To obtain revenge, she began to widely distribute the specifications for making the cake. The original cake was actually chocolate. The hotel also became famous for its version of the chocolate cake with red food coloring or Red Velvet Cake which was wildly popular.

The Waldorf Astoria Hotel

At this corner, one can see the effects of continued development on the city for with the recent rezoning of Midtown, JP Morgan Chase was able to demolish the much loved but never landmarked Union Carbide Building by using the air rights finally sold by St Barts. The replacement is slated to be one of the largest office buildings in the City designed by Norman Foster.

The Union Carbide Building, or 270 Park Avenue, was completed in 1960 and is credited to the office of Skidmore Owings &amp; Merrill with Natalie de Blois, FAIA, as its senior designer. Gordon Bunshaft, SOM NY Partner-in-Charge of Design, approved her designs and the work of the rest of the project`s design team. The building, which now functions as JP Morgan Chase headquarters, employs the curtain-walled corporate high-rise style for which SOM was famous. The exterior design includes a plaza on Park Avenue; a 13-story wing that extends to Madison Avenue, matching the neighboring buildings in height; vertical mullions running the 52-story height of the tower, providing a pin-stripe effect; and SOM`s mid-century signature, the curtain wall fa&ccedil;ade. Inside, the building is supported by isolated structural columns which allow an open office plan. De Blois`s task also required finding solutions to the design issues incurred by planning a 700 foot building to be erected over pre-existing train tracks.Never landmarked, the building was the first victim of New Yorks East Midtown Rezoning as JP Morgan scooped up all the newly available air rights from St Barts and St Patricks and tore the building down. They are in the process of replacing it with an even taller building by Foster + Partners which will clock in at nearly 1400 feet tall and will consolidate all Chase's employees under one roof.

With the passage of the Midtown East Zoning Plan, JP Morgan Chase was able to scoop up 680,000 sf of air rights from St Barts and Grand Central Terminal enabling it to build the tallest, greenest tower in New York to house 14,000 employees. &nbsp;Chase established a plethora of amenities with biometric scanners to enter the building’, and&nbsp;whip out our phones to activate coffee machines with a QR code. &nbsp;There are 19 restaurant food hall. &nbsp;Emergency bathroom locks will instantaneously alert building security should anyone be acousted.&nbsp; At Chase, lighting mimics our circadian rhythms.&nbsp; Temperatures inside the rooms at Chase are smartly&nbsp;monitored, and fresh air is cleaned.&nbsp;&nbsp; The building is all-electric and is carbon net neutral.&nbsp;Most of the gymnastics to even erect the JP Morgan tower take place underground, as the structure is threaded between the tracks leading to Grand Central Terminal. It turns out that there were at most 13 possible foundation points.&nbsp; Even to use them required robust technical developments by the engineering team: concrete was made very dense and very strong. &nbsp;Which is partially why the open space of the ground floor structural system is so ‘welcoming’.&nbsp; The space above it hides the massive bracing trusses.&nbsp; Those of us who are engineering buffs and night owls who didn't have weekend dates had the opportunity to witness the journey they&nbsp;took as they were carefully maneuvered from New Jersey to Park Avenue. &nbsp;

In 1925 the railroad leased a 200 x 400 block extending to Lexington Avenue to investors who hired McKim, Mead &amp; White for what was then one of the biggest apartment houses in New York. Most of the 300 or more apartments, at $200 to $400 per month, ran from two to seven rooms, arranged in a rectangular doughnut shape around a centrally planted driveway area. With such a large structure, there were inevitable imperfections in tenant screening. In 1933 a police raid found a dozen men and women around a roulette table and $2,500 in chips; they were, however, in evening clothes. The 2001 book &ldquo;Letters From the Editor,&rdquo; an anthology of correspondence from Harold Ross, editor of The New Yorker, includes one from 1934 objecting to an eviction notice for &ldquo;having persons of the opposite sex&rdquo; in his apartment overnight. Mr. Ross was between marriages, and noted that he had rented a three-bedroom apartment for just such a purpose, not &ldquo;to sleep in each one successively for two or three hours each night.&rdquo; John F Kennedy's father also leased an apartment to serve as campaign headquarters in New York.The building was demolished to make way for an office building now housing J. P. Morgan Chase's Investment Banking division.

By 2015 landlords were complaining about the lack of Class A Office Space around Grand Central which prompted the NY City Planning Department&nbsp;to do something. &nbsp;They came up with&nbsp;Midtown East Zoning,&nbsp;which they hoped would drive development. &nbsp;21 blocks were encircled in this new zoning district. &nbsp;Buildings that met certain criteria were allowed to purchase unused air rights from any other building in the district, rather than a contiguous building, as had been the case in the past.&nbsp; Only certain sites qualified, and additional civic improvements, which mostly meant providing higher quality pedestrian areas and better access to public transit, were required. &nbsp;Needless to say, the beneficiaries of the money were the Park Avenue churches and the Terminal

East Midtown

On this corner we see Capitalism at work and meet Leona Helmsley aka the Queen of Mean who wrote a will that left $12 million to her dog Trouble and nothing to her offspring. The Helmsley Building also was the real setting for Taggert Transcontinental which featured prominantly in Ayn Rands Atlas Shrugged. Behind it is the Metlife Tower where every major architect of significance tripped over their scruples about plonking large skyscrapers on top of Grand Central Terminal to secure the commission to do just that. The Winner was Gropius at the time Dean of Harvard.

The Helmsley Building is a 35-story building at 230 Park Avenue between East 45th and 46th streets in Midtown Manhattan, just north of Grand Central Terminal in New York City. It was built in 1929 as the New York Central Building and was designed by Warren &amp; Wetmore in the Beaux-Arts style. It was the tallest structure in the "Terminal City" complex around Grand Central prior to the completion of what is now the MetLife Building.Located to the north of Grand Central Terminal, this building was the center of a series of hotels and office buildings sponsored by the New York Central Railroad. Once visible for miles away along Park Avenue, this building served as a powerful reminder of the dominance of railroads in the era.

Trouble became the world's second richest dog when his owner Leona Helmsley died. &nbsp;In her will she had disinherited two of her four grandchildren who she felt did not visit their father's grave and left her Maltese $12,000,000. &nbsp;Since it only cost about $1200 a year to feed him, Trouble's expenses included money for his caregiver, security and a vet. &nbsp;The grandchildren contested the will; the bequest was lowered to $2 million making him still quite wealthy. &nbsp;He lived well but 4 years later died of old age in 2011.

 Ayn Rand spent a lot of time in this neighborhood when she lived in New York.  She spent about 6 months sitting at a desk in Ely Jacques Kahn's Architectural firm researching for The Fountainhead.  In fact he was the model for Guy Francon.  Similarly, Atlas Shrugged was set nearby.  Grand Central Terminal was rechristened the Taggert Terminal in the book and the NY Central Building became Taggert Transcontinental.    

Grand Central Terminal becomes the Taggart Terminal. and New York Central Railroad Co becomes the Taggart Transcontinental Railroad Building

After emigrating from Sicily to New York in the 20's, Salvatore became involved in bootlegging. That led to prostitution and narcotics and he built up a large gang. With Vito Genovese, Albert Anastasia, Joe Adonis and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, he organized the Mafia into the Five Families with Lucky Luciano as his lieutenant. This arrangement didn't last all that long.By September 1931, Maranzano realized Luciano was a threat, and hired Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll, an Irish gangster, to kill him. However, Tommy Lucchese alerted Luciano that he was marked for death. On September 10, Maranzano ordered Luciano and Genovese to come to his office at 230 Park Avenue. Convinced that Maranzano planned to murder them, Luciano decided to act first. He sent to Maranzano's office four Jewish gangsters whose faces were unknown to Maranzano's people. They had been secured with the aid of Lansky and Siegel. Disguised as government agents, two of the gangsters disarmed Maranzano's bodyguards. The other two, aided by Lucchese, who was there to point Maranzano out, stabbed the boss multiple times before shooting him.

One of the largest leases ever signed to that date was the $115,000,000 lease to build a skyscraper above Grand Central Terminal for was was to become the largest commercial space in the world.  The building was crowned with a large Pan Am Sign; the visual impact caused the New York City Zoning Law to be changed to keep permanent signs off of buildings.  On top of the building was a heliport which whisked first class passengers off of the roof to Idlewild (now JFK) which was about 10 minutes away.  

The MetLife Building is a skyscraper in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed in the International style by Richard Roth, Walter Gropius, and Pietro Belluschi, the MetLife Building is 808 feet (246 m) tall with 59 stories. It was advertised as the world's largest commercial office space by square footage at its opening, with 2.4 million square feet (220,000 m2) of usable office space. As of 2021, the MetLife Building remains one of the 100 tallest buildings in the United States. Originally built as the headquarters for Pan American Airways, this 59-story octagonal-plan skyscraper straddles Park Ave. and dominates the air space of Grand Central and the Helmsley Building. At the time of its opening, the PanAm building had the most square-footage of office space in the world.

On May 16 a rotor blade broke off a helicopter on the roof of Manhattan`s Pan Am Building after the copter`s landing gear failed, causing it to turn sideways. The blade killed four people and then plunged over the side, broke some windows and killed a woman on the ground. The helipad was reopened in February 1977, just three months before the accident. The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the accident was caused by &ldquo;metal fatigue&rdquo;. The Pan Am helipad was shut down following the accident and has not reopened.

 This Constructivist sculpture was commissioned by Walter Gropius originally for the Pan Am Building. The building is now owned by MetLife. 

Located in the Vanderbilt Avenue entrance lobby of the MetLife building.

Met Life Building

In 1928 Albers was experimenting with stenciling and sandblasting on glass at the Bauhaus which enabled him to be very precise in his craftsmanship. &nbsp;The first iteration of City was damaged, and he remade it as a masonite painting at Black Mountain College in 1936. &nbsp;

MetLife Building

Grand Central Terminal has it all: the romance of the 20th Century Limited and the Clock, the loving and gorgeous renovation, the hidden corners such as the whispering gallery, an upstairs library and the Campbell Apartment, the architectural innovations of Gustavinos Oyster Bar Vault and the food of the Great Northern.

With the advent of electricity to power trains, a new station was needed to accommodate the additional traffic. William L Wilgus, VP and Chief Engineer of NY Central &amp; Hudson River held a competition between 4 firms including McKim Mead &amp; White and Reed &amp; Stem (relatively unknown but had done a lot of railroad terminals; Wilgus was married to Reed`s sister May). They were made to associate with Warren &amp; Wetmore possibly because Whitney Warren was the cousin of William K Vanderbilt. After Reed died in 1909, there were a few design changes and Whitney Warren became the architect. The final design produced 44 platforms on two levels making it the largest train station in the world.It became the hub of New York for decades. Movies were filmed there. Couples proposed under the great clock. It housed an art school, a library (which still exists) and even an apartment (which is now a bar). The Terminal fell into disrepair in the late 70's prompting multiple planning studies and proposals for its restoration. This finally happened in the late 90's and the terminal was lovingly restored and brought up to date. Retail was added in the former waiting rooms.

 When this bronze statue of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt was first unveiled, it was the largest portrait statue in the United States. Originally located at the Hudson River Railroad Freight Depot, it was moved to its current location in 1913 with the completion of Grand Central Terminal.

Modeled after Roman sculpture, this facade was placed above the southern entrance to Grand Central Station to mark the importance of the railroad. The gods depicted on the facade symbolize power--Hercules and Minerva represent moral and mental strength, and Mercurius is the god of commerce; these gods were an appropriate personification of the importance of the railroad in early 20th century New York City. Behind the statue is a 13' diameter clock with a Tiffany glass face. Behind the numeral 6 on the clock is a window that allows access to the sculpture.

Grand Central Terminal

Originally the ceiling was to be a skylight, but funds ran out and Paul Helleu was commissioned to paint the night sky on the vaulted ceiling. &nbsp;He conceived of the constellations, complete with the zodiac signs. He took the imagery from a Medieval manuscript. Centuries before, travelers looked to the stars in order to find their traveling path. When Grand Central Station was built, trains and railroads replaced the need to travel by the stars. The constellations, however, remain fixed on the ceiling of Grand Central; they remind travelers of the way things were and the progress that has come. &nbsp;Despite the fact that there were multiple astronomers involved, somehow the actual depiction of the celestial sky was not very accurate, a fact pointed out shortly after it was installed. &nbsp;By the 20's the roof had begun to leak. &nbsp;The mural faded and was covered by soot. &nbsp;By 1944 it had been covered by a cement and asbestos hung ceiling. &nbsp;When the terminal was restored in 1998, the asbestos ceiling had to be carefully removed and the original ceiling was carefully restored.&nbsp;

Grand Central Terminal Main Concourse Vaulted Ceiling

 A banquet was held the night before Grand Central Terminal opened for 100 people invited by the building's architects Warren and Wetmore.  The subterranean space is noted for its white tiled Gustavino Vaults.  The vaults have an unusual acoustic property in that they amplify sounds as a 'Whispering Gallery'.  

The space had an interesting history. First rented out in 1923 by William Kissam Vanderbilt II, whose family built the terminal. It was once the ornate private office of early 20th century railroad executive and financier John Williams Campbell, and later a studio for CBS Radio and a jail used by Metro-North Railroad. In its current incarnation it is a bar. It is known for its soaring ceilings, mahogany paneling, frescoes, and leaded-glass windowsIt is not the only hidden space in the Terminal. Hidden inside the Annex, is a 65-foot-long indoor ski slope and tennis courts. The athletic complex was first installed in the 1960s by Geza A. Gazdag, an immigrant from Hungary. The club hit the skids in the `80s, and in 1984 it was scooped up with some real estate deals by Donald Trump, who leased the space, renovated and turned the third-floor annex into an exclusive $155-an-hour ($130 on weekends) cash-only court for the well-heeled and well-connected. The pristine clay courts remained in semi-secrecy until Trump`s lease ended in 2009 and the space became a lounge and rest area for MTA workers and the Athletic Club moved to the Fourth Floor.

Located in the southwestern corner of the Grand Central Terminal building—above the northeastern corner of 42nd Street and Vanderbilt Avenue—the space is reached by a staircase from the terminal's balcony level.

The historic ceiling in the main concourse at Grand Central Terminal reveals the night sky with golden stars that form the constellations. Grand Central becomes a metaphor for our connection with the wider world beyond New York City and As Above, So Below takes the viewer around the world to the night sky above five different continents, representing myths, civilization, heavens, and the underworld. These scenes bring to life ancient tales that demonstrate how the stories told about the heavens reflect the way we live on earth. A close look at any of the faces in the work reveal their diversity, as indeed, the people in these mosaics represent many different backgrounds. However, the artist has altered them to take on the attributes of mythical figures. The work summons the everlasting and the ephemeral, reminding us of our spiritual and worldly past while we hurry through the station.

This delicate collage on the walls of the Station Master's Office depicts flowers, fruit, and garlands. The view could represent the scene a viewer would see out the window of a slow-moving train. The lush garden-scape is calm and serene despite its location in a busy subway station.


Grand Central Terminal was the setting and subject of many movies. The first Grand Central Station was an American anthology radio series which had a long run on the major networks from 1937 to 1954. Produced by Himan Brown, Martin Horrell and others, the story content ranged from romantic comedies to lightweight dramas.Each program opened with an announcer intoning that Grand Central was "the crossroads of a million private lives, a gigantic stage on which are played a thousand dramas daily."

One of the most iconic places within the terminal is the center clock above the information desk. This is the clock which figured in many of the movies set in the Terminal. Despite some wishful thinking to the contrary, it was made out of opal glass and not unfortunately and actual opal. &nbsp;So it is not nearly worth the 10-20 million dollars that have been estimated. &nbsp;It was designed by Henry Edward Bedford, a sculptor and executive of the Self Winding Clock Company which built the clock with assistance from the Seth Thomas Clock Company, which made the movements. &nbsp;Over the years it has been somewhat eccentric in its mechanism and has needed some repair. &nbsp;In 1968 it was shot by a bullet from a ‘yippie’. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Main Concourse; atop the information booth

The MTA is in the process of extending the Long Island Rail Road service to the east side of Manhattan, supplementing existing service to Penn Station on Manhattan`s west side and Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn. The East Side Access megaproject is one of the largest transportation infrastructure projects currently underway in the United States with a history that reaches back to the 1950`s when discussions were first held regarding regional transportation planning.The project encompasses work in multiple locations in Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx and includes more than 8 miles of tunneling. When completed, East Side Access will serve approximately 162,000 customers a day, providing a faster and easier commute from Long Island and Queens to the east side of Manhattan in a new 8-track terminal and concourse below Grand Central Terminal. The revised budget for the East Side Access project is $10.333 billion with a current estimate at completion of $11.1 billion.

The early railroads needed to have printed schedules so that people would know when the trains were running. Up to that point, time was told locally. Of course, there were multiple accidents including a major one in August 1853 when two trains collided on the same track killing 14 people because their engineers didn't coordinate their watches. This led to a General Time Convention of Railway companies which in turn led to multiple petitions for Congress to have time zones throughout the US. They were not interested. So, the railroads went ahead and owned their own time zones. So, when Vanderbilt built Grand Central he established Eastern Standard Time and embedded a large clock off of the main waiting room.

Carved on the ceiling just before you head into the main terminal 

 Jackie Ferrara takes basic geometric forms--like the ones that make up Grand Central station itself--and iterates them in a mosaic band along platform and passageway walls. The extremely simple design is almost mathematical in its purity and rigor. This is a MTA Arts for Transit project. 

On walls of S platfrom, passageway to 7 platform, and upper passageway to 4 5 6 7 and Grand Central Terminal

Grand Central

In Sirshasana, a sculptural chandelier in the shape of a golden-rooted olive tree suspended above the street-level entrance to the Grand Central Market, Donald Lipski drew upon Hindu and Greek lore. "To the ancient Greeks the olive tree symbolized freedom and purity," he explains. "And the name Sirshasana refers to a yoga headstand posture - the inverted tree ...." With branches that span twenty-five feet and 5,000 brilliant crystal pendants, the tree dominates the area, bringing the feel of an outdoor market. The space was designed so that morning sun bathes the tree and floods the market with light. The form has writhing, enticing, and unexpected elements, with the base of the tree finished in gold and crystals dangling in place of olives In addition to alluding to the decorative chandeliers in Grand Central, the tree is a comment on the allure of the exotic and tempting wares sold in the marketplace. This is a MTA Arts for Transit project.

at 43rd Street in Grand Central Market Chandelier

42nd and Lexington is noteworthy for having 5 major buildings within a few feet crowned by the Chrysler Building which was briefly the Worlds Tallest Building.

This was Donald Trump's first renovation project outside of Queens. By the late 70's the Commodore Hotel was very down on its heels. Grand Central was sheltering many of the city's homeless who were hanging around the adjacent hotel. It was funded by Hyatt who would be the operators of the hotel. There was another scheme for him to get $40 million tax abatement from the City. In order to get it, he had to show the City that he had a signed option agreement for $250,000 from Penn Central to secure the option to purchase the hotel. It appears that he didn`t have the money because he sent forms with no signature. Nevertheless, Trump's father, Fred Trump, had a long time political connection through the Brooklyn Democratic machine to then-Mayor Abraham Beame. Despite the city being in the midst of the worst fiscal crisis in its history, Beame's deputy mayor, Stanley Friedman, The abatement moved forward as if the agreement had been signed and as if Trump had paid to secure the option.Trump was then able to convince the Hyatt hotel chain to partner with the Trump Organization and purchase the Commodore.They became the operator for the hotel. The existing hotel was reclad in bronze glass and it opened in 1980. Trump and Hyatt parted ways acrimoniously which ended in court some years later.

The Grand Hyatt New York

The Chanin Building is a 56-story office skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. The building is named for Irwin S. Chanin, its developer. The structure was designed in the Art Deco style by John Sloan and T. Markoe Robertson of the firm Sloan &amp; Robertson, with the assistance of Chanin's architect Jacques Delamarre. It incorporates architectural sculpture by Rene Paul Chambellan, as well as a facade of brick and terracotta. The skyscraper reaches 680 feet, with a 649-foot-tall roof topped by a 31-foot spire. The Chanin Building includes numerous setbacks to conform with the 1916 Zoning Resolution. The Chanin Building was constructed on the site of a warehouse, one of the last remaining undeveloped sites around Grand Central Terminal. Upon opening, the building was almost fully rented, and it was the third-tallest building in New York City. Art deco allegorical figures are carved into the facade of the Chanin Building.

Designed as the original world headquarters for Alcoa, Inc., this 30 story skyscraper was a showpiece for the use of aluminum in building construction, HVAC systems, furnishings and modern ornament.  In the 1990s the building became the home for non-profits as the Regional Enterprise Tower.   

One Vanderbilt has the significance of being the first addition to the Midtown office skyline after Midtown East was rezoned. It clocks in at 67 stories featuring 1.7 million square feet of office space over 9 stories of office space.

In the first building to be built after the Midtown East Rezoning of 2013 which was supposed to enable the construction of Class A office buildings by transferring air rights from the landmarked buildings in the 73 block area. Additional access to Grand Central enabled SL Green to build 58 stories atop a 7 story podium arising 1401 feet in total.

Charles Luckman was fired as the President of Unilever just before Lever House opened. Ever resourceful, he called up his former roommate from architectural school William Perreira who invited him to join his Los Angeles Architectural practice. He moves and gets immediately tapped by Charles Bronfman to design the Seagram Building. Bronfman showed the design to his daughter Phyllis who did not approve and wrote a much quoted letter 'NO, NO, NO, NO, NO). &nbsp;She ended up taking over the design process and hires Mies Van Der Rohe and Phillip Johnson to design the building.

Many people of note lived in 277 Park Avenue including John F Kennedy. Harold Ross, former editor of The New Yorker, objected to an eviction notice for “having persons of the opposite sex” in his apartment overnight. Mr. Ross was between marriages, and noted that he had rented a three-bedroom apartment for just such a purpose, not “to sleep in each one successively for two or three hours each night.” he wrote in his 2001 book of letters.

Anne Lewison

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