#LostNewYork: A Doge’s Palace in Manhattan?
The National Academy of Design in New York in 1894 (American Architect and Building News) New York used to have something like its own Doge’s Palace. The headquarters of what was then the National Academy of Design, now called the National Academy Museum and School, was housed in 1865 in a Venetian Gothic-style building designed by Peter Bonnett Wight. The lavish building had cost around…
#UnbuiltNewYork: National American Indian Memorial
Proposed National American Indian Memorial in New York City (Queens Museum) The National American Indian Memorial was a proposed monument to Native Americans to be built on the site of Fort Tompkins in Staten Island, near the entrance to New York Harbor. The project was the brainchild of Rodman Wanamaker, a department store magnate and patron of the arts. Congress set aside the federal land…
Between 1903 and 1913, New York’s Grand Central Station was torn down and replaced in phases by a Grand Central Terminal — still called “Grand Central Station” by most New Yorkers. Out of the many firms that vied to design the new railway station, two were selected: Reed and Stem of St. Paul, Minnesota, who were responsible for the overall design, and Warren and Wetmore of New York, who were responsible for the building’s Beaux-Arts style.
Other firms had different ideas.
McKim, Mead and White, who would later build the old Penn Station as well as the campus of Columbia University in Manhattan, proposed a sixty-story skyscraper, which would have been the tallest tower in the world at the time.
Samuel Huckle Jr. of Pennsylvania called for a baroque turreted building.
Reed and Stem, who would go on to design many more train stations across the United States, originally placed a wide courtyard in front of Grand Central that was never built.
#UnbuiltNewYork: The Grand Centrals That Could Have Been Between 1903 and 1913, New York’s Grand Central Station was torn down and replaced in phases by a Grand Central Terminal – still called “Grand Central Station” by most New Yorkers.#LostNewYork: The New York Tribune Building
The New York Tribune Building in 1900, flanked by the New York World building, left, and the New York Times building, now 41 Park Row, right (Library of Congress) New York City has an unfortunate history of tearing down its monuments. The most infamous example is the old Penn Station, which was demolished and replaced by the ghastly Madison Square Garden between 1963 and 1969. Another is the New…
#UnbuiltNewYork: North River Bridge
Gustav Lindenthal’s 1887 plan for a North River Bridge in New York (Metropolis Books) The view of Manhattan from New Jersey would have been quite different if Gustav Lindenthal had had his way. This Czech-born civil engineer called for an enormous, 1.8-kilometer bridge in 1887 that would have spanned the Hudson River. The “North River Bridge” would have been sixty meters wide and sixty meters…
#UnbuiltNewYork: Central Park Gates
Richard Morris Hunt’s 1863 plan for Central Park gates Around the same time Egbert Ludovicus designed his “Arcade Railway“, architect Richard Morris Hunt, fresh of a tour in Bonapartist France, took part in a competition to dress up the entrances of New York’s Central Park along 59th Street, which is where the avenues meet the park. His designs were a little over-the-top for park architect…
#UnbuiltNewYork: Arcade Railway
Proposed New York City arcade railway below Broadway This was essentially the first subway proposal for New York City. In the 1860s, Egbert Ludovicus Viele, an engineer, came up with a plan for what he called an “Arcade Underground Railway”. It involved replacing the roads with railways and building another street level on top for carriages and pedestrians. Owners of property along Broadway…
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