Urban Encounters: Places, People

An elegant bit of Neoclassic design completed in 1842, this building originally served as America’s first Customs House. John Frazee was its designer.
 

These two domes offer radically different structural solutions to attain stability. Frazee’s Dome is supported on a continuous ring wall of masonry and columns. In contrast, the dome directly above is supported on four points through the use of pendentives.

This rarely-seen interior, now used as a dining hall, was the main banking hall of York and Sawyer’s Federal Reserve Bank of 1924. Its exterior style may be Italian Renaissance Revival, but its interior cross-vaulting (or groin vaults) offer one of New York’s most elegant examples inspired by medieval Romanesque structures.

Although a barrel vault normally requires continuous support to counter its diagonal thrusts to each side. This one gives the appearance of simply being carried by widely-spaced Corinthian columns. More support is needed, whether masonry buttress walls outside and/or the likely use of steel, given that the building is a twentieth-century structure; yet that supplemental support is invisible from the interior. The result is a beautiful, light, airy space.

In response to incidents between the U. S. and Great Britain, the Second American system of fortifications was implemented in 1807. In New York, this led to  Colonel Jonathan Williams being brought in to refurbish the deteriorating defenses of Fort Jay. He  completed the task in 1809.A pentagonal-shaped star fort such as this dates back to designs from the fifteenth-century Italian Renaissance, which had to invent new defenses to counter the development of gunpowder and cannon. The larger corner stones, or quoins, which we see here, both reinforce and visually enhance the wall to create a utilitarian structure of exceptional beauty.Williams, a Harvard grad, was also chief engineer of the Army Corps of Engineers, the first superintendent of the USMA (West Point) and would later be elected to the Fourteenth United States Congress.

155th Street was the northernmost street to be drawn up in the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811, and we see here that, where the land dips sharply down to the Harlem River, it consists of an upper and a lower section.The lower section, seen directly above, is covered by a viaduct which, in turn, supports the upper section; that section feeds into the Macombs Dam Bridge. Both the viaduct and the bridge were designed and built in the early 1890s by the engineer, Alfred P. Boller.

The Polo Grounds, where the New York (baseball) Giants played until they moved to San Francisco in 1957, was located just to the left of where I stood to take the above photograph. Were we to stand directly above this spot, on the upper roadway, we would look across the bridge and see Yankee Stadium. Either team could have easily taken a warm-up jog across the bridge to the other’s stadium for an an inter-league game!

 

If only America’s major Wall Street bankers looked up to this pediment on their daily trek to work and paid homage to its main personification, Integrity, our economy and maybe our lives as well, would be in much better shape today.The pediment was designed by John Quincy Adams Ward (and Paul Bartlett). The figures were fabricated by Getullio Piccirilli of the Bronx. Although they appear to be carved from stone, the figures are actually sheet copper coated with white lead.

 

These are among the most beautiful hinges I have ever seen. Maybe someone can translate them for me and also identify the sacred text from which they surely quote.

Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine, is one of several terra cotta portraits of famous medical and scientific personages to decorate the façade of this walk-in clinic which opened in 1884. The sculptor was Aloys Loeher.

Puck, Puck Building, Houston Street, Manhattan, NYC

Famous Writers, National Arts Club, Gramercy Park South, Manhattan, NYC

Bowie & Buddies, Alamo Cenotaph, Alamo Plaza, San Antonio, TX

 

Balto, East Drive, Central Park, Manhattan, NYC

Sacred Mysteries, Main Altar, Our Lady of Pompeii Church, Carmine Street, Manhattan, NYC

Marquee, Paramount Building, Broadway, Manhattan, NYC

Art Deco Pilasters, East 86th Street, Manhattan, NYC

Renaissance Portal, Riverside Drive, Manhattan, NYC

Owl, Dog & Rabbit, Millan House, East 67th Street, Manhattan, NYC

 

Animal House, East 140th Street, the Bronx, NYC

Havemeyer & Payne Stables, East 66th Street, Manhattan, NYC

 

Hands Up, East 92nd Street, Manhattan, NYC

Not My Dentist’s Office, West Commerce Street, San Antonio, TX

Trusses, Macombs Dam Bridge, Harlem River, 155th Street, NYC