With an estimated population in 2022 of 8,335,897 distributed over 300.46 square miles (778.2 km2), the city is the most densely populated major city in the United States. New York has more than double the population of Los Angeles, the nation's second-most populous city. New York is the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the U.S. by both population and urban area. With more than 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York City is one of the world's most populous megacities. The city and its metropolitan area are the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. In 2021, the city was home to nearly 3.1 million residents born outside the U.S., the largest foreign-born population of any city in the world. (Full article...)
The Villard Houses, arranged in a U-shaped plan, consist of three wings surrounding a central courtyard on the east side of Madison Avenue. The houses' center wing serves as a lobby, while the south wing serves as an event space. Behind the Villard Houses to the east is the modern skyscraper addition. , the hotel has 909 rooms and suites. The top floors of the skyscraper are known as the Towers, which consist of 176 luxury units. Among the units in the Towers are four ornate triplex suites, each with their own decorations, as well as four other specialty suites.
The Helmsley Palace Hotel opened in 1981 and was operated by Helmsley until 1992. As part of a bankruptcy proceeding, it was sold in 1993 to the Sultan of Brunei, who completely renovated the hotel and Villard Houses. The government of Brunei took over the hotel from the royal family in the late 2000s. Northwood Investors, an American real estate investment firm, bought the hotel from the government of Brunei in 2011 and renovated it. The hotel was sold again in 2015 to Korean luxury hotel operator Lotte Hotels & Resorts, which renamed it the Lotte New York Palace Hotel. (Full article...)
Originally a project of real estate developer and former New York State Senator William H. Reynolds, the building was commisioned by Walter Chrysler, the head of the Chrysler Corporation. The construction of the Chrysler Building, an early skyscraper, was characterized by a competition with 40 Wall Street and the Empire State Building to become the world's tallest building. The Chrysler Building was designed and funded by Walter Chrysler personally as a real estate investment for his children, but it was not intended as the Chrysler Corporation's headquarters. An annex was completed in 1952, and the building was sold by the Chrysler family the next year, with numerous subsequent owners.
Shostakovich's music had been well known in the United States since the local premiere of his Symphony No. 1 in 1928. His opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District was celebrated and criticized upon its American premiere in 1935; the fallout from its censure by Soviet authorities in 1936 was reported on across the country. The fortunes of his Symphony No. 5 and resulting political rehabilitation were also extensively covered in the press.
The Symphony No. 7 was completed on December 27, 1941, followed by the first American news reports about it in January 1942. Its origins in the siege of Leningrad, during which Shostakovich briefly worked in a local firefighting brigade, generated levels of public interest and press coverage considered unusually high for a modern musical composition. Leopold Stokowski and Toscanini, co-music directors of the NBC Symphony Orchestra, competed for the first broadcast rights to the symphony, which were ultimately won by the latter. Koussevitzky was granted the right to conduct the first performance in concert. (Full article...)
The original Waldorf Hotel opened on March 13, 1893, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 33rd Street, on the site where millionaire developer William Waldorf Astor had previously built his mansion. Constructed in the German Renaissance style by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh, it stood 225 feet (69 m) high, with fifteen public rooms and 450 guest rooms, and a further 100 rooms allocated to servants, with laundry facilities on the upper floors. It was heavily furnished with antiques purchased by founding manager and president George Boldt and his wife during an 1892 visit to Europe. The Empire Room was the largest and most lavishly adorned room in the Waldorf, and soon after opening it became one of the best restaurants in New York, rivaling Delmonico's and Sherry's.
The Astoria Hotel opened in 1897 on the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street, next door to the Waldorf. It was also designed in the German Renaissance style by Hardenbergh, at a height of about 270 feet (82 m), with sixteen stories, twenty-five public rooms and 550 guest rooms. The ballroom, in the Louis XIV style, has been described as the "pièce de résistance" of the hotel, with a capacity to seat 700 at banquets and 1,200 at concerts. The Astor Dining Room was faithfully reproduced from the original dining room of the mansion which once stood on the site. (Full article...)
The congregation went through difficult times during the Great Depression, and the bank almost foreclosed on its buildings in 1946. Membership dropped significantly in the 1930s because of the Depression, grew after World War II, and dropped again in the 1960s and 1970s as a result of demographic shifts. Programs for young children helped draw Jewish families back into the neighborhood and revitalize the membership. (Full article...)
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Art Garfunkel (left) and Paul Simon performing in Dublin, 1982
Simon and Garfunkel met in elementary school in Queens, New York City, in 1953, where they learned to harmonize and began writing songs. As teenagers, under the name Tom & Jerry, they had minor success with "Hey Schoolgirl" (1957), a song imitating their idols, the Everly Brothers. In 1963, aware of a growing public interest in folk music, they regrouped and were signed to Columbia Records as Simon & Garfunkel. Their debut album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. (October 1964), sold poorly; Simon returned to a solo career, this time in England. In June 1965, "The Sound of Silence"—an acoustic song on the duo's debut album—was overdubbed with electric guitar and drums (without the duo's knowledge) and in late 1965 became a US AM radio hit, reaching number one on Billboard's Hot 100 in the issue dated January 1, 1966 (initially keeping the Beatles' "We Can Work It Out" off the top spot). The duo reunited to release a second studio album, Sounds of Silence (January 1966)—featuring the remixed "The Sound of Silence"—and toured colleges nationwide. For their third release, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (October 1966), the duo assumed more creative control. Their music (mostly old material) featured prominently in Mike Nichols's blockbuster film The Graduate (released December 1967), including "The Sound of Silence", "Scarborough Fair" (a winter/spring 1968 film tie-in hit single) and two very short acoustic versions of "Mrs. Robinson". Across 16 consecutive weeks between April and July 1968, the film's soundtrack album and the duo's next studio LP, Bookends (April 1968)—featuring the hit version of "Mrs. Robinson"—alternated at number one on the Billboard 200.
The Lexington Avenue Line station was built for the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) as part of the city's first subway line, and opened on January 16, 1905. The Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line station, built for the IRT as part of the Dual Contracts, opened on July 1, 1918. The Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT)'s Nassau Street Line station was also built under the Dual Contracts and opened on May 29, 1931. The Independent Subway System (IND)'s Eighth Avenue Line station, originally known as the Broadway–Nassau Street station, was the latest in the complex to be completed, opening on February 1, 1933. Several modifications have been made to the stations over the years, and they were connected within a single fare control area in 1948. The station was renovated during the 2000s and early 2010s, becoming part of the Fulton Center complex, which opened in 2014.
The building is shaped like an irregular pentagon, with a chamfer cutting diagonally across what would typically be the southwest corner of a rectangular slab. The facade is made of gray-green glass and polished granite, which Barnes intended would give the building the appearance of a prism. The northeast corner of the tower is cantilevered over the main entrance, and there are no setbacks throughout the building's height. Adjacent to 590 Madison Avenue's southwest corner is a privately owned public space covered by a glass structure, which contains chairs, tables, and bamboo trees.
From 1938 to 1964, IBM was headquartered at one of the previous structures on the site. Despite relocating its headquarters to a suburb of New York City, IBM retained office space at multiple locations in the city and proposed the current skyscraper to consolidate some of its operations. IBM owned the tower until May 1994, when it sold the building to Edward J. Minskoff and Odyssey Partners. Until the sale, IBM occupied most of the building's space; the firm continues to maintain offices in the building, though most space has been leased to other tenants. (Full article...)
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View from the southbound platform, with a southbound R142A 4 train departing
The station opened in 1905 as an extension of the Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT)'s original subway line to South Ferry. At the time, there was a single island platform with one exit at Battery Park and another in Bowling Green. When the Lexington Avenue Line was expanded to Brooklyn in 1908, some trains continued going to South Ferry, resulting in the creation of a short island platform at the Bowling Green station for the Bowling Green–South Ferry shuttle. The shuttle operated until 1977. During the 1970s, the station was completely renovated, a new exit was built, and a third, side platform was created for northbound trains.
19 East 54th Street, originally the Minnie E. Young House, is a commercial building in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It is along 54th Street's northern sidewalk between Madison Avenue and Fifth Avenue. The building was designed by Philip Hiss and H. Hobart Weekes of the firm Hiss and Weekes. It was constructed between 1899 and 1900 as a private residence for Minnie Edith Arents Young.
The house was designed as a palazzo in the Italian Renaissance Revival style. The 54th Street facade was designed as a four-story structure with a rusticated first story and decorated windows on the upper stories. Because 19 East 54th Street was wider than other houses in the area, the architectural details were designed to be more imposing. The penthouse at the fifth and sixth stories is recessed from the street. The interior was ornately outfitted with a coffered ceiling, a stained-glass conservatory, and staircases with oak paneling.
Young commissioned the house after her uncle Lewis Ginter, the founder of the American Tobacco Company, died in 1897 and left her a large bequest. Young leased the home to "Lucille" Lady Duff Gordon in 1920. The house was subsequently occupied by antiques trader Arthur S. Vernay from 1925 to 1943, then by the English-Speaking Union until 1956. Hairdresser Mr. Kenneth operated a salon in the building from 1963 until 1990, when the house's interior was severely damaged by fire. The building was then renovated and has served as Bank Audi's U.S. headquarters since 1993. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated 19 East 54th Street as an official landmark in 2016. (Full article...)
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Beth Hamedrash Hagodol façade in 2008, before the 2017 fire and subsequent demolition
Founded in 1852 by Rabbi Abraham Joseph Ash as Beth Hamedrash, the congregation split in 1859, with the rabbi and most of the members renaming their congregation Beth Hamedrash Hagodol. The congregation's president and a small number of the members eventually formed the nucleus of Kahal Adath Jeshurun, also known as the Eldridge Street Synagogue. Rabbi Jacob Joseph, the first and only Chief Rabbi of New York City, led the congregation from 1888 to 1902. Rabbi Ephraim Oshry, one of the few European Jewish legal decisors to survive the Holocaust, led the congregation from 1952 to 2003.
The congregation's building, a Gothic Revival structure built in 1850 as the Norfolk Street Baptist Church and purchased in 1885, was one of the largest synagogues on the Lower East Side. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. In the late 20th century the congregation dwindled and was unable to maintain the building, which had been damaged by storms. Despite their obtaining funding and grants, the structure was critically endangered. (Full article...)
Morris Berg (March 2, 1902 – May 29, 1972) was an American professional baseball catcher and coach in Major League Baseball who later served as a spy for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. He played 15 seasons in the major leagues, almost entirely for four American League teams, though he was never more than an average player and was better known for being "the brainiest guy in baseball." Casey Stengel once described Berg as "the strangest man ever to play baseball."
Berg was a graduate of Princeton University and Columbia Law School, and he spoke several languages and regularly read ten newspapers a day. His reputation as an intellectual was fueled by his successful appearances as a contestant on the radio quiz show Information Please, in which he answered questions about the etymology of words and names from Greek and Latin, historical events in Europe and the Far East, and ongoing international conferences.
The R was originally the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation's 2 service, running along the BMT Fourth Avenue Line in Brooklyn then traveling through the Montague Street Tunnel to Manhattan, then running local on the BMT Broadway Line. The 2 became the RR in 1961. The RR ran local along the BMT Astoria Line in Queens, terminating at Astoria–Ditmars Boulevard until it switched terminals with the N in 1987. The RR became the R in 1985. After 1987, the R ran via the IND Queens Boulevard Line to Forest Hills, Queens. A variant of the RR/R, from Bay Ridge to Chambers Street in Lower Manhattan via the BMT Nassau Street Line, ran from 1967 until 1987. From August 2, 2013, to fall 2014, the tunnel was closed again so that extra repairs could be completed, bringing back similar storm changes to the R train. On weekdays, the divided R ran in two sections: one section between Forest Hills and Whitehall Street–South Ferry, and the other between Court Street and Bay Ridge–95th Street. On weekends, the R train ran its full route via the Manhattan Bridge, skipping all stations between Canal Street and DeKalb Avenue. Beginning on November 5, 2016, late-night R service was extended north to Whitehall Street-South Ferry in order to provide a one-seat ride into Manhattan. This eliminated the need for northbound trains to skip 45th Street and 53rd Street in order to reverse on the express tracks at 36th Street. During late weekend evenings, every other R train short turned at Whitehall Street, resulting in waiting time doubling along the entire Brooklyn portion of the route. As part of the changes, these short-turns were extended to 95th Street. (Full article...)
Grand Central Terminal arose from a need to build a central station for three railroads in present-day Midtown Manhattan. In 1871, the magnate Cornelius "Commodore" Vanderbilt created Grand Central Depot for the New York Central & Hudson River, New York and Harlem Railroad, and New Haven railroads. Due to rapid growth, the depot was reconstructed and renamed Grand Central Station by 1900. The current structure, designed by the firms Reed and Stem and Warren and Wetmore, was built after a 1902 crash between two steam trains had prompted a study of the feasibility of electric trains. The building's construction started in 1903 and it was opened on February 2, 1913.
The terminal continued to grow until after World War II, when train traffic started to decline. In the 1950s and 1970s, there were two separate proposals to demolish Grand Central, though both were unsuccessful. The terminal was given several official landmark designations during this period. Minor improvements occurred through the 1970s and 1980s, followed by an extensive rehabilitation in the mid- and late 1990s. (Full article...)
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Seen in 2024
The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower (colloquially known as the Met Life Tower and also as the South Building) is a skyscraper occupying a full block in the Flatiron District of Manhattan in New York City. The building is composed of two sections: a 700-foot-tall (210 m) tower at the northwest corner of the block, at Madison Avenue and 24th Street, and a shorter east wing occupying the remainder of the block bounded by Madison Avenue, Park Avenue South, 23rd Street, and 24th Street. The South Building, along with the North Building directly across 24th Street, comprises the Metropolitan Home Office Complex, which originally served as the headquarters of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (now publicly known as MetLife).
The South Building's tower was designed by the architectural firm of Napoleon LeBrun & Sons and erected between 1905 and 1909. Inspired by St Mark's Campanile, the tower features four clock faces, four bells, and lighted beacons at its top, and was the tallest building in the world until 1913. The tower originally included Metropolitan Life's offices, and since 2015, it has contained a 273-room luxury hotel known as the New York Edition Hotel. The tower was designated as a city landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1989, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. It was also made a National Historic Landmark in 1978.
The east wing was designed by Lloyd Morgan and Eugene Meroni and constructed in two stages between 1953 and 1960. The east wing is also referred to as One Madison Avenue. It replaced another building on the site, which was built in phases from 1893 to 1905, and which was also designed by LeBrun's firm. When the current east wing was built, the 700-foot tower was extensively renovated as well. In 2020, work started on an addition to the east wing, which will be designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox and be completed in 2023 or 2024. (Full article...)
The structure was originally 11 stories tall, but it was expanded to 14 stories in the early 1990s. The ornately decorated facade on 44th Street is made of brick, Indiana limestone, and terracotta; the first two stories are clad with rusticated limestone blocks, while the upper stories are largely clad with brick and terracotta. The mansard roof on the 11th story is topped by a three-story brick-and-limestone penthouse. When the building served as the Yale Club's clubhouse, it had club rooms on the lower floors, bedrooms in the intermediate stories, and dining rooms on the highest stories. The interiors have been modified significantly over the years. The modern clubhouse contains club rooms, bedrooms, and dining rooms for the Penn Club.
The Yale Club was founded in 1897 and, following rapid increases in its membership, acquired the 44th Street site in early 1900. The Yale Club Building officially opened on May 1, 1901, but it became overcrowded within a decade, prompting the club to relocate to 50 Vanderbilt Avenue in 1915. The building was next occupied by Delta Kappa Epsilon from 1917 to 1925 and by Army & Navy Club of America from 1925 to 1933. After standing vacant for a decade, the building was acquired by the federal government of the United States in 1943. The building contained offices for the United States Maritime Service during World War II, and it housed the Organized Reserve after 1948. The federal government sold 30 West 44th Street in 1971 to Touro College, which sold the building to the University of Pennsylvania in 1989. Penn hired David P. Helpern to renovate the building and add three stories for the Penn Club, and the building reopened in June 1994. The Columbia University Club of New York also uses the clubhouse under a reciprocity agreement with the Penn Club. (Full article...)
The hotel building was variously cited as having between 23 and 26 stories. The hotel had a facade of granite, limestone, brick, and terracotta. Most of its floor plan was U-shaped, with a light court facing west toward Madison Avenue. In the basement was a reception room that led directly from Grand Central Terminal. The public dining rooms, including the Palm Court and main dining room, were at ground level. There was a roof garden above the sixth story, facing east toward Vanderbilt Avenue. There were additional ballrooms and meeting spaces on the upper stories. In total, the Biltmore had 1,000 rooms and suites; the fourth floor included a private entertainment suite called the Presidential Suite.
Following the construction of Grand Central Terminal, the New York Central started planning a hotel on the city block in the early 1910s, and it officially opened on December 31, 1913. The hotel was originally operated by Gustav Baumann, who died in October 1914. The hotel's manager, John McEntee Bowman, then operated it until his own death in 1931, affiliating the Biltmore with the Bowman-Biltmore Hotels chain. Realty Hotels Inc., a subsidiary of the New York Central, took over the hotel in 1934 and operated it for four decades. Paul Milstein acquired the hotel in 1978 and began demolishing the interiors immediately after the hotel closed on August 15, 1981. Despite protests from preservationists, Milstein gutted the Biltmore and converted it into an office building called Bank of America Plaza, which reopened in May 1984. Bank of America relocated in 2010 and the building became 335 Madison Avenue. Following another renovation in 2019, the structure became The Company Building, which in turn was renamed 22 Vanderbilt in late 2022. (Full article...)
The Bronx is divided by the Bronx River into a hillier section in the west, and a flatter eastern section. East and west street names are divided by Jerome Avenue. The West Bronx was annexed to New York City in 1874, and the areas east of the Bronx River in 1895. Bronx County was separated from New York County (modern-day Manhattan) in 1914. About a quarter of the Bronx's area is open space, including Woodlawn Cemetery, Van Cortlandt Park, Pelham Bay Park, the New York Botanical Garden, and the Bronx Zoo in the borough's north and center. The Thain Family Forest at the New York Botanical Garden is thousands of years old and is New York City's largest remaining tract of the original forest that once covered the city. These open spaces are primarily on land reserved in the late 19th century as urban development progressed north and east from Manhattan. (Full article...)
Named after the Dutch town of Breukelen in the Netherlands, Brooklyn shares a border with the borough of Queens. It has several bridge and tunnel connections to the borough of Manhattan, across the East River, and is connected to Staten Island by way of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. With a land area of 69.38 square miles (179.7 km2) and a water area of 27.48 square miles (71.2 km2), Kings County is the state of New York's fourth-smallest county by land area and third smallest by total area. (Full article...)
With a population of 2,405,464 as of the 2020 census, Queens is the second-most populous county in New York state, behind Kings County (Brooklyn), and is therefore also the second-most populous of the five New York City boroughs. If Queens were its own city, it would be the fourth most-populous in the U.S. after New York City itself, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Queens is the fourth-most densely populated borough in New York City and the fourth-most densely populated U.S. county. About 47% of its residents are foreign-born. Queens is the most linguistically and ethnically diverse place on Earth. (Full article...)
Staten Island (/ˈstætən/STAT-ən) is the southernmost borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County and situated at the southern most point of New York. The borough is separated from the adjacent state of New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull and from the rest of New York by New York Bay. With a population of 495,747 in the 2020 Census, Staten Island is the least populated New York City borough but the third largest in land area at 58.5 sq mi (152 km2); it is also the least densely populated and most suburban borough in the city.
A home to the Lenape indigenous people, the island was settled by Dutch colonists in the 17th century. It was one of the 12 original counties of New York state. Staten Island was consolidated with New York City in 1898. It was formerly known as the Borough of Richmond until 1975, when its name was changed to Borough of Staten Island. Staten Island has sometimes been called "the forgotten borough" by inhabitants who feel neglected by the city government. It has also been referred to as the "borough of parks" due to its 12,300 acres of protected parkland and over 170 parks. (Full article...)
Image 3The Sunday magazine of the New York World appealed to immigrants with this April 29, 1906 cover page celebrating their arrival at Ellis Island. (from History of New York City (1898–1945))
Image 10Anderson Avenue garbage strike. A common scene throughout New York City in 1968 during a sanitation workers strike (from History of New York City (1946–1977))
... that Lucy Feagin founded the Feagin School of Dramatic Art in New York City, where talent scouts for radio, screen, and stage were always present to watch her senior students' plays?
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