Some of the faces carved into city buildings are beautiful and peaceful. Others, like these, seem pained and distressed. What’s the story behind their expressions and why they’re paired up? If only we knew.
In the West Village, this man and woman are locked in a gloomy stare:
Troubled spirits East of Union Square:
On the facade of the Camelot, a tenement in the South Bronx, these two have never actually seen each other:
As you walk along the street, that is. Carved into tenement apartment buildings put up around the turn of the last century, these two have been keeping an eye on things for the last 100 years.
This girl watches over a tenement in the East Village:
A warning from a dude with a pained expression and a terrific mustache stuck on a Bushwick brownstone opposite Maria Hernandez Park:
Not all New York tenements are guarded by mean-looking gargoyles. Case in point: an angel of Harlem, overseeing the front steps of a tenement on Fifth Avenue in the 120s:
And here, on the facade of a similar tenement in the South Bronx, a cute bugle boy alerts us to danger:
From the facade of a pre-war apartment building in Sheridan Square in the West Village.
They’re so unique and dynamic. Must be a story behind why the architect had them put up.
Ephemeral New York 
