Eastward Bound - Manhattan’s East Side

City Walks

Mar 4

East Side of Manhattan

When I first wrote the posts on Greenwich Village and Chelsea, I thought it was a good idea to section off the city and do a separate post for each area, but after looking for photos to put together for the Upper Westside, I thought it would be cool to just do an “East Side” post to show the true diversity of the Big Apple.

Here is what caught my eye. I hope you enjoy!

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The Neo-Romanesque Benjamin Hotel, originally called the Beverly, designed by Emery Roth, was built in 1927. - Midtown

Apartment building decorative detail - Kips Bay

Birds on a lamppost in the morning light - Midtown

Decorative apartment building entrance - Tudor City

Mixed commercial and residential buildings - Gramercy

Handsome brownstones - Murray Hill

Colorful walk-up buildings - Kips Bay

Beautiful sunrise coming over Long Island City seen from the FDR Drive - Kips Bay

Vintage telephone booths - Kips Bay

Batman comes to the aid of East Siders.

The Beaux-Arts Chandler Hotel designed by Buckman & Fox, built in 1905, still retains interior and exterior period details. - Murray Hill

Fog surrounding the Empire State Building - Midtown

“Lunch Atop a Skyscraper” mobile sculpture by Sergio Furnari traveling down Third Avenue - Murray Hill

Outdoor dining in a neighborhood that is getting smaller and smaller - Little Italy

Eclectic style trio along 14th Street -East Village

The General Electric building, with Art Deco decorations of lightning bolts, on Lexington Avenue, was designed by Cross & Cross and completed in 1931. The crown of the building uses Gothic tracery to represent electricity and radio waves. - Midtown

Street art advertising On the Mark Barber Shop - East Village

Michael Jackson mural done by Eduardo Kobra - East Village

Sexy street art on the wall of the bar, Leave Rochelle Out of It - Lower East Side

Andy Warhol depicted in graffiti art - Freeman’s Alley - Lower East Side

King Kong Lives mural - East Village

First Street Green street art - Lower East Side

Gothic Revival Grace Church, designed by James Renwick Jr., opened its doors to worshipers in 1846.

First Street Green street art - Lower East Side

Gilded Lady mural by Tristan Eaton on Fifth Avenue - NoMad

Elegant townhouses - Upper East Side

The Metroplitan Museum of Art (aka The Met) - Upper East Side

This 27-room mansion was designed by C.P.H. Gilbert for Isaac Fletcher in 1898. Sinclair Oil Company founder, Harry F. Sinclair, was the second owner. The third owner was bachelor and recluse, Augustus Van Horne Stuyvesant, who lived out his final days in the six-story mansion with just a butler and footman. The building is now the Ukraine Institute of America. - Upper East Side

Completed in 1898, Ralph Lauren Men’s Flagship store at 867 Madison Avenue, was the five-story mansion built for abrasive heiress Gertrude Rhinelander Waldo. Francis H. Kimball and G. Kramer Thompson designed the mansion, including artwork, a ballroom that occupied an entire floor, a bowling alley and indoor pool. However, Mrs. Waldo chose not to move in to her expensively finished and furnished home. Gertrude’s eccentricities were often fodder for the local papers describing lawsuits, scuffles with a housekeeper, not paying a cook and maid and, of course, not moving into her luxurious new mansion. The mansion sat empty and fell into rapid decline. It changed hands a few times before Ralph Lauren took control of the building and opened the flagship store in the mansion in 1986. - Upper East Side

Ralph Lauren Woman’s Flagship store at 888 Madison Avenue was built in 2011 to resemble a Beaux Arts, Gilded Age mansion.

Classic entrance - Upper East Side

Decorative wrought iron work - Upper East Side

Former mansion - Upper East Side

View looking west on 42nd Street - Tudor City overpass

The Peninsula Hotel was built in 1905 and opened as the Gotham Hotel but went bankrupt in 1908, partly because they could not get a liquor license and it was competing with more luxurious hotels.

Essex House on East 41st Street was built in 1929 and is part of a unique complex of apartment buildings overlooking First Avenue that runs between 40th and 43rd Streets. - Tudor City

Grand Central Station - Midtown

The world comes together for meetings here at the United Nations. - Midtown

Hippo Ballerina by Bjorn Skaarup -Midtown

Rolf’s German Restaurant with their floor-to-ceiling Christmas decorations - Gramercy

This unique building at 160 Lexington Avenue was designed by Harvey Wiley Corbett in 1909 and was occupied by Touro College, but is now the high-end Dover Street Market with seven floors of shopping. - Kips Bay

Street message - Downtown

This is one of the Medieval figures, with its gargoyle detailed canopy, that is part of the Emmet Building located at Madison Ave and 29th Street. The highly ornate building was designed by John Stewart Barney and completed in 1912. Dr. Thomas A. Emmet was a prominent surgeon and owned four townhouses on the site. Although most of the tenants in the building were commercial, Emmet had a penthouse apartment. - NoMad

Marilyn Monroe’s subway grate that created the most iconic images in American cinema is unmarked at Lexington Avenue and 52nd Street. - Midtown

These glass circles, called vault lights, allow the sun into the basement. - Lower East Side

The ornate Beaux-Arts style Engine Company 14 firehouse located at 14 East 18th Street was built in 1895 and designed by Anatolian LeBrun. - Chelsea

Titled “Table of Love” by Gillie and Marc, located at 237 Park Avenue show Rabbitgirl and Dogman, sitting together at a table with two additional seats for visitors to use.

“Every law not based on Wisdom is a menace to the state” is inscribed below Wisdom, one of the sculptures at the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court building at Madison Avenue and 25th Street. Built in 1909, it contains many different interesting statuary.

“We must not use force til just laws are defied” is inscribed below Force, another of the sculptures at the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court building at Madison Avenue and 25th Street.

This stately red brick home is located on one of New York’s shortest avenues, East End Avenue. - Upper East Side

The area surrounding Rockefeller Center is worth exploring for its many works of art. - Midtown

St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church was designed by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue. Construction began in 1918 and was completed in 1930.

The restored and updated Freehold Hotel, at 23 Lexington Avenue, built in 1930, was originally the George Washington Hotel. Serving as both a hotel and boarding house, it was home to many poets and artists. Notable residents included artist Keith Haring and Dee Dee Ramone, the founding member of the Ramones.

If you are looking for a wide variety of tacos, Flats Fix Taqueria and Tequila Bar, located at 28 East 16th Street, is your place, with pastrami, duck, fish, chicken and pork. - Midtown South

Street art - Midtown

Colorful buildings with arched windows and original wrought iron balconies at 138 & 140 East 30th Street - Murray Hill

The iconic Art Deco Chrysler Building at 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue was commissioned by Walter Chrysler, completed in 1930, and designed by William Van Alen.

Grand townhouse - Upper East Side

This bronze sculpture of Atlas was created by Lee Lawrie in 1937, and stands 15 feet high, while the entire sculpture stands 45 feet high. Rockefeller Center - Midtown

150 East 38th Street is a unique property including gatehouse and townhouse. It was built in 1850 but is now separated and has different owners. - Murray Hill

149 East 38th Street is the George Bowdoin Stable, built in 1902 with stepped facade. - Murray Hill

This is one of a few surviving wood frame houses in the area. This particular one on 29th Street has an attached brick carriage house. - Kips Bay

Morton F. Plant sold his Fifth Avenue mansion to Cartier for $100.00 and two pearl necklaces for his wife, Maisie, in 1917. Mr. Plant wanted to relocate further uptown to escape the encroaching businesses moving into the area. The necklaces were valued at $1,000,000.00 and can be seen in Claudia Munro Kerr’s interpretation of a portrait of Maisie which hangs in the Maisie Plant Salon today.

Look closely at the railing pattern detail near the bottom step for the incorporated boot scraper. - Gramercy

One of the first ambulances in the city (and possibly the country) was from Bellevue Hospital in 1869. Bellevue, the oldest public hospital in the United States, originally opened in 1736, and contained the City’s first morgue. - Kips Bay

Nicknamed “the Showplace of the Nation”, Radio City Music Hall, home to the Rockettes, was designed by Edward Durrell Stone and Donald Deskey in the Art Deco style. - Midtown

Radio City interior with the futuristic Art Deco flair - Midtown

Steam chimney - Midtown

Outdoor seating - Koreatown

The Art Deco style Fred F. French Building at 551 Fifth Avenue was designed by Sloan & Robertson and completed in 1927.

Home to the largest Chinese population in America - Chinatown

Store window - Midtown

Beaux-Arts style building - Murray Hill

Fifth Avenue store window - Midtown

The Guggenheim Museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue was established by the Solomon Guggenheim Foundation in 1939 as the Museum of Non-Objective Painting. In 1952, three years after Mr. Guggenheim’s death, it adopted its current name. - Upper East Side

St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue is the largest Gothic Revival Catholic cathedral in the country. It was designed by James Renwick Jr., and dedicated in 1910. - Midtown

Subway entrance - East Village

Streamline trailer Taco stand near South Street Seaport - Downtown

Graffiti art - Midtown

Canal Street shopping - Downtown

Dog walking - Hell’s Kitchen

Art Deco detail on the Madison Belmont building at 181 Madison Avenue - Midtown

The Flatiron Building, originally called the Fuller Building, at 175 Fifth Avenue, is triangular and was designed by D.H. Burnham & Company and built by George A. Fuller in 1902. - Flatiron

Statue of Lin Ze Xu, Ching Dynasty pioneer of the fight against opium - Chatman Square - Chinatown

The George Washington Bridge, opened in 1931, is a suspension bridge spanning the Hudson River, connecting upper Manhattan to Fort Lee, New Jersey. - Washington Heights

Some notable residents of East Side of Manhattan have included Samuel J. Jackson, Mia Farrow, Madonna, Mariah Carey, Ricky Martin, Bill Murray, Woody Allen.

What you should know:

There are no real borders to each neighborhood.
Walking is a great way to get around, though traffic is usually crazy.
Sidewalks are usually busy places, so move aside when stopping.
Be aware of bicycles, motor bikes, and other motorized means of transportation that do not adhere to traffic signals.
There is a large amount of free public art, so enjoy it.

Locations: