Brand new day!
In between photos of New York are all these little screenshots. The last thing I did Sunday night was map out the route to breakfast. Over breakfast, we decided to get tickets for the Top of the Rock Oberservation Deck for that evening, and added on an option to come back the following morning. (Tickets were available same day but sold out later that day.) And then we decided to skip another diner and have some authentic Chinese food from Chinatown after our morning tour of Midtown Art Deco buildings, so screenshot #3 is from the end of the tour (conveniently at Grand Central) to lunch. Google Maps is quite good at telling you which subway will get you closest to your destination.
And we did actually eat breakfast over all this planning. This morning, as the first photo might suggest, our diner was just down the street from the Empire State Building which is where our tour was scheduled to begin.
I tried to get a shot of the outside, which is attached to the New Yorker hotel, but on a Monday morning backing up in the crosswalk without getting into traffic, this is the best I could do. Subway stop at the hotel visible lower left, everybody with bags exiting the hotel, and the red jacket dudes on EVERY corner in midtown hawking tours. They're also crawling around Staten Island Ferry. One guy said, "Where you wanna go?" as I passed him and I quite philosophically and with a smile that said back.off replied, "Right where I am." I guess my dude at the diner thought I really wanted a picture of him.
After breakfast, we headed up the street towards Empire, past Macy's. I think next time I'll see if there's a Victorian Gothic/ Beaux Arts architecture tour.
side note and fun read here, as this is a little corner (literally) of one of the most stubborn holdouts in NYC rear estate history.
We were early (big surprise) and peeked around inside the lobby before going back out in the cold to find our tour guide, at which point we walked right back in.
from Empire, we wound north, past the Lord & Taylor building, Italian Renaissance style, which after more than a century as the original tenant (very rare) they are selling out to move to smaller quarters, just one more nail in the coffin of brick and mortar. WeWork, an urban office space sharing concept, will be moving its HQ here.
up a block and around the corner on 40th is a building, not Art Deco, that caught my eye, with its white marble lions.
This was the Carnegie Engineers' Club building, from 1907, which was a bachelors social club and apartment building. (Because women can't be engineers, ya know.) The first three stories are white marble and housed 66 bachelor pads, as well as dining rooms, a banquet hall, as well as club and billiard rooms. At 12 stories, it was considered a skyscraper of its day. It included members Andrew Carnegie, Herbert C. Hoover, Thomas Edison, Charles Lindbergh, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Henry Clay Frick, H.H. Westinghouse, and Nikola Tesla.
The Engineer's Club center with Radiator Building in the 1930s
Just down the street is the American Standard Building, originally American Radiator Building when it opened in 1924, in black brick with real gold accents, blending the older Gothic style with the new Art Deco influence with its stepped back levels and vertically-lined architecture.
The black brick, reminiscent of coal, worked well for a radiator building, as well as the bronze accents for the power of fire. (Georgia O'Keefe painted this one, too.) At 23 floors, you can see how exponentially the height of skyscrapers was growing between the 1907 neighbor and this 1924 beauty. I asked about the bronze sculpture progression, but Jeremy said I was the first person to ask that and he wasn't sure. It appeared to be a woman springing into life and growing into a dragon (which I thought I'd taken a photo of, but no). So . . . Google, right? No. Can't find anything specific.
So that's what we'll go with: the metamorphosis of energy is apparently a female power that becomes monstrous and fire-breathing and in need of harness. (Enter the radiator)
close
backed up
panoramic backed up
Across the street is Bryant park with its copper light posts.
This area was designated as a public space/park way back in 1686, when it was pretty much in the middle of nowhere north of the tiny little New York City, still south of the Wall. General Washington's troops passed over this ground in their retreat from Long Island in 1776. And, like so many public spaces, was designated a potter's field for the dead in the early 1800s. Military drills for Union troops were held here. Its neighbor was a water reservoir until 1899 when the New York Public library construction got underway in that space. Remaned Reservoir Square and designated a park in 1847, it was renamed again in 1884 after William Cullen Bryant (then editor of the New York Evening Post, founded by none other than Alexander Hamilton in 1801.)
It hosts an ice skating rink (under construction when we visited) in the winter and a great lawn over the summer, as well as a carousel and fountain, all efforts of the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation which has worked since the 80s to restore the park from its darkest 70s days.
The Radiator Building from mid-park
Radiator and Empire, looking significantly shorter thanks to the perspective
The Byrant Park bathrooms have been voted most beautiful public restrooms in the city.
Apparently that's actually a thing.
the ladies' room oval window from inside...
and from outside, behind the library
Approaching the library from the backside, we ducked into the Children's section first and then made our way through the interior of the library to the front steps.
The library's holdings include the original Christopher Robin stuffed animals that inspired A.A. Milne to write the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Christopher was presented with the stuffed bear on his first birthday in 1921. They made their way to America in 1947, donated by Christopher to the publishers of his father's work, E.P. Dutton Dutton transferred ownership to the library in 1987 after seeking a public entity who could afford to restore and care for them properly.
reportedly, little Roo never made it to America, having had a fatal encounter with a British bulldog
I really wished this water fountain was functional
even the marble figure on the side resembled a lion head hidden among leaves
it's entirely marble.
Since the 30s, the lions that guard the steps to the 5th Ave. Main Entrance have been known as Patience and Fortitude. Me with Fortitude, because me and Patience don't have much in common.
these fountains were dry for more than 30 years until their restoration in 2015
The figure of the man sitting on the Sphinx is entitled Truth
The Bowery Savings Bank Building was a marvel, although not Art Deco. It's interior has been converted into a high end event space that we were allowed to view but not photograph.
And next door was the Chanin, also no photography inside allowed.
And finally we reached the Chrysler Building. It was 1928 when plans were announced for what would have been the tallest building in the city. But around the same time, 40 Wall Street plans were changed to challenge that claim. The "Race to the Sky" in 1929 involved a bit of subterfuge, when the 125 foot spire that would grace the top of the Chrysler was constructed in secret inside the tower, unbenownst to its rival, and hoisted aloft at the last possible day, so its height could claim the title. The 40 Wall Street fellows argued the point (heh) as that final height was not "usable" but they held the tallest title for only a single day before the secret spire appeared and knocked them down to second.
The Chrysler held the title for only 11 months, lost to the Empire State Building.
This building is a bit insane in a lot of ways. It was constructed from the ground to the top, over the course of just a few months, averaging four floors A DAY. It has hubcabs and fenders and hood ornaments as well as gargoyles and eagles protruding from corners of the building. And Chrysler the company never had a single office inside of it.
Built to impress, it boasts red African granite and travertine floors.
every elevator bank (four in all) boasts a different inlaid design
the light columns are inlaid with Belgian blue marble and Mexican amber onyx
In the insane mosaic ceiling of the lobby, you can even find the building inside the building. It's really pretty proud of itself.
Reflected in its neighbor, the Grand Hyatt's mirrored glass
Our last stop on the tour was Grand Central Terminal.
The old Grand Central, made above ground for steam engines lived from 1871 until a disastrous train accident in 1902, after which plans to demolish the structure and build a new one for the underground electric trains. It opened in 1913. Also not Art Deco, but Beaux Arts.
With 44 platforms serving 63 tracks it is the world's largest, serving 750,000 passengers every day.
Mercury, Hercules, & Minerva, chosen to represent the marvel of the railroad for its speed, strength, and . . . intellect(? ) are positioned over the 14 foot clock made of Tiffany glass. The number six is a window that swings inward.
and it's tough to communicate the size of these figures from the ground.
The Penn Station eagle, all that remains of the gorgeous building demolished to erect Madison Square Gardens (not the first, not the last, and soon to move on itself) See what we missed here.
The great hall's celestial mural was painstakingly restored from decades of cigarette smoke. They couldn't do much about the fact that the night sky is actually backwards (unless you aren't seeing it from earth). Ooops.
They did, however, leave a single brick unrestored, a smoker's lung as a ceiling tile. This is what the entire ceiling looked like before the restoration work done in 1996-1997.
that clock, at straight up noon when we arrived, has an estimated worth of $15,000,000
Its four sides are made from extremely valuable opal glass.
35,000 naked lightbulbs -- done to show off the electricity that was so new in 1913
We ended the tour at the Whispering Gallery. That's me to the left and Marci in the opposing corner on the right. You can whisper into the corner and be heard as clearly and plainly as if the speaker is at your ear, thanks to the design of the Guastavino tiles and the parabolic ceiling, it's an acoustic marvel.
Up next: Chinatown and Lower Manhattan
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