The beautiful fortress near Gramercy Park

When plans were being drawn up for the new armory for New York’s fabled 69th Regiment in 1901, architects Richard and Joseph Hunt (sons of Richard Morris Hunt, who designed the great hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art) rejected the Medieval style of most city armories of the era.

Instead, they created something new, commanding, and beautiful.

This Beaux-Arts fortress, spanning Park and Lexington Avenues at 25th Street, still had a military feel, with its massive drill hall and gun bays along the Lexington Avenue side.

Twin plaques on the facade list the Civil War battlegrounds where the “fighting 69th” earned their nickname from Robert E. Lee.

It’s a solid, beautiful armory, one of a small group in Manhattan that still remains—used for shows, fairs, and of course, the famous 1913 Armory Show, where modern art made its startling New York City debut.

The men on the facade of the National Arts Club

New York City brownstones don’t come any lovelier than 14 and 15 Gramercy Park South, the combined home of The National Arts Club since 1906.

Flora, fauna, and other ornamentation decorate the warm, handsome buildings. But why are the heads of five literary giants carved into the facade as well?

The names are underneath their sculptural busts: Shakespeare, Dante, Franklin, Milton, and Goethe.

They were among the authors and thinkers whose books were featured in the library of the brownstones’ Gilded Age owner, former New York State governor and 1876 presidential candidate Samuel Tilden.

In the 1870s, Tilden, a wealthy lawyer, commissioned Central Park co-architect Calvert Vaux to combine the two 1840s brownstones into one incredible mansion complete with Gothic Victorian touches, stained glass, and bay windows.

After he died, Tilden’s library, as well as his fortune, helped create the New York Public Library. His homage to five literary legends lives on, greeting passersby on one of the prettiest blocks in the city.

The Peters of Second Avenue’s Peter’s Field

There’s a city park between First and Second Avenue and East 20th and 21st Streets that isn’t remarkable in any way—except for its curious name of Peter’s Field.

So who was Peter? Petrus Stuyvesant (right), the Dutch director-general of New Netherlands who ruled the city until 1664.

The park name is a play on the name of Stuyvesant’s sprawling farm, or Bouwerie, which once encompassed this location: Petersfield.

Of course, Stuyvesant graces a ton of other landmarks in the area: Stuyvesant Town, Stuyvesant High School (the original building), and Stuyvesant Square.

Peter’s Field also commemorates another famous Peter who lived in the neighborhood: Peter Cooper. He’s the Kips Bay glue manufacturer, founder of Cooper Union in 1859, and namesake of Peter Cooper Village.

Ah, but the little park pays homage to more Peters. Cast concrete plaques put up in the 1990s on the Second Avenue side honor Peter Rabbit, Peter Pan, Peter Piper, Peter Parker, and other fictional characters who share Stuyvesant and Cooper’s name.

A look at Manhattan’s first apartment building

For much of the city’s history, any New York household that could afford it lived in their own single-family home. The idea of sharing a residence with other people? Very declasse.

But in 1870, a developer named Rutherford Stuyvesant tried something new with his Stuyvesant Flats at 142 East 18th Street, near Third Avenue.

Inspired by new multi-family buildings that were all the rage in Paris, Stuyvesant spent $100,000 on his five-story structure, hiring architect Richard Morris Hunt to design 16 apartments and four artists’ studios.

First dubbed a folly, these middle-class rentals near chic Union Square caught on quick. They ushered in demand for more apartment-style dwellings.

“Although lacking an elevator, the building had running (cold) water, a novelty at the time,” states Changing New York, which features a photo of Stuyvesant Flats by Berenice Abbott in 1936 (above).

“Full occupancy followed, and “Parisian Flats” came into vogue. In later years, steam heat and electricity were added, and the building remained fully occupied until its 1958 demolition for Gramercy Green (above right), a 14-story building with 240 apartments.”

Obscure Manhattan phone exchanges

This one was spotted in a building on Park Place where some city agencies have offices. SW might stand for Swinburne—but why? The only Swinburne reference I’m aware of is Swinburne Island in New York Harbor.

On East First Street, a reminder of the East Village’s working class past, and the neighborhood’s proximity to GRamercy Park: