NYC Facades

Tallest building in the city for some time

This one is pretty famous; just google.

Panorama facing west. Click for a much bigger version.

Steinman Hall from the eastern, St. Nicholas Terrace

Detail of the doorway to east entrance to Steinman Hall

The flagship campus of City University of New York is City College, at 137th Street and Convent avenue. Top is a panorama of the campus, with the North Academic Center at left, and Wingate, Harris, Compton & Goethals, and Baskerville Halls are the gothic buildings left to right from there. This picture is taken from in front of Steinman Hall; the bottom to pictures are from the east side of the campus on St. Nicholas Campus, and are of the other side of Steinman Hall.

The entire old campus has great curb appeal, and I found it a very inspiring setting.

Here is a map of City College I used; match it up to the Google map (you may need to zoom in).

Top cornice on the building

This is a little pipsqueak of a building flanked by much larger ones on 57 street with some great details (and apparently it dates to the 1890s). It makes me wonder – in particular on major thoroughfares, such as 57 street – why squat little buildings exist when much larger ones surround them. I am told it is partly a function of the way in which leasing works in New York; someone might lease the land for 100 years, which means improvements made at the end of the lease probably will not benefit the leaseholder, who is also the person who will build the building.

Front of the building

A sample window with decorations

A highly ornamented column; for a lamp?

A mid-building balcony

This building, located on 7th Avenue and 58th street, was just sensory overload. The level of detail is just completely overwhelming. If ever there was a strike against this gothic architecture, this would be it. However, the ecorations are quite evocative: there are dragons beneath the windows; the lamp column are decorated as the pulpit of a cathedral; the the standard columns have arms as though a spread eagle.

What depth of consideration goes into this decoration? Is there a palatte of gothic architecture, or does the symbolism run deep with every building, and unique to the object?

Also houses the Met's medieval collection

Note that I tagged this as “holy” although it is only an immitation; I felt that completeness in cross-referencing dicatated it.

The style, according to NYC Architecture is “french Cloisters”, which seems like a bit of a cop-out. What style are those in? Romanesque? Gothic?

26th street from Madison Square

Upper story detail

11 East detail

These are a great example of buildings with more to offer well above street level; the ground floors are devoted to storefronts with little detail. However the left one, #9, has lovely pillar decorations and a mansard with quatrefoil and peaked window caps.

The right building is suggestive of a factory, with its large window framing on the top three floors; however, I doubt it was a factory, given its location and size. I also included the statues midway up, which are called Atlas’s (as in, Atlas is holding up the building).

Decorative parapet

This building caught my eye well before I was looking carefully. It’s like a castle, don’t you think?

Upper detail

Lower detail

As many of the buildings on 23rd street near 7th avenue demonstrate, one need not go out of their way to find interesting buildings. (See also: Amsterdam Avenue).

Front on 79th and Broadway

Belltower

Rectory wing

This church is quite wonderful to see from both close and afar. Although many churches are quite distinct (as they are neither torn down or modified) in the city, this building feels very relevant and integral to the street corner; it is not overshadowed on all sides, nor does it crowd the sidewalk.

Take a look at the official website and also the wikipedia page, which gives a decent history. As they say on that page, the facade is imbued with symoblism, not incomplete.