AND   BUILDERS'   GUIDE.





Vol. Yi:                      NEW YOEK, SATUKDAY, SEPTEMBEE  17, 1870.                    No. 131.-





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TEEMS.

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105 BROADWAY. COR.  OF PiSE STREET.





AN ARCHITECTURAL RAMBLE.

To tliose wlio have not visited New York for
the last three or four years, the changes which
have occurred in various portions of the city
during that brief period will api)ear perfectly
startling. Without alluding to the magnificent
structures which have been erected on Broad¬
way in its entire length, the improvements on
Union Square, the countless changes in and
around Central Park, and the houses springing
up by Avhole towns and villages in our imme¬
diate neighborhood, we shall for the present
confine ourselves to only one little district;
viz., that embraced in the narrow shp rvinning
only twenty blocks, from Thirty-second to Fifty-
second streets, and lying between Lexington
avenue on one side and Fifth avenue on the
other.

Starting from the comer of Thirty-second
street and Fourth avenue, the first object that
arrests our attention is the massive iron build¬
ing no iv in course of erection by A. T. Stewart
as a hotel. It occupies the whole block on the
west side of Fourth avenue, running from
Thirty-second to Thirty-third street, and in its
depth extends half way between Fourth and
MadisofiL avenues. The building is, we believe,
to be seven stories high, and is of very orna¬
mental character. Only one block farther up
we come to the " Church of the Messiah," com¬
pleted about two years ago—a handsome Byzan¬
tine edifice of broAvn and Ohio stone, standing
at the north-west corner of Fourth avenue and
Thirty-fourth street. On Madison avenue,
occupying the whole block between Thirty-
fourth and Thirty-fifth streets, on the west side,
Mr. Astor has just completed three stately
private family residences, of Amherst Ohio
stone, very chaste and simple, but ejffective in
design. In continuation of these, the whole
block, on the same side, between Thirty-fifth
and Thirty-sixth streets, is taken up by a fine row
of elegant dwelling-houses, newly erected, of the
same beautiful material. Returning to Park
avenue, we find the whole block between
Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth streets occupied
by a handsome new Byzantine church and
dwelling-houses of Ohio stone, in very peculiar
French style, not quite so pleasing as curious
to the spectator.. The next thing worthy of
notice—and very much so, for nobody passes it
without stopping to ask what that building





is intended for—is the G-othic residence of
Mr. James, on the south-west corner of Park
avenue and Thirty-niuth street, now in
course of completion, from the design of Messrs.
Renwick & Sands. This building is erected in
party-colored broAvn and Nova Scotia stone, with
a very rich entrance of polished marble columns
of variegated colors, and a large a'mount of
carved ornamental decorations. Although par¬
taking too much of a collegiate or semi-ecclesi¬
astic character for an ordinary dwelling-house,
it is undoubtedly a work of art, and abounds in
pleasing noA'^elties and fine artistic touches.
Right opposite to this building, on thenorthwest
corner of Park avenue and Thu'ty-ninth street, is
the First Baptist Church, now in course of erec¬
tion. The buHding is apparently of simple de¬
sign, and has not yet progressed far enough to give
an idea of its general appearance. Proceeding
a few steps farther, we find on the north-east
comer of Pork avenue and Fortieth street a num¬
ber of handsome new dwelling-houses of Ohio
stone. From this point bursts on the view the
monster "Union Depot," now in course of rapid
construction for the Hudson, New Haven, and
Harlem Railroads. This gigantic structure of
brick and iron occupies the west side of Fourth
avenue, all the way from Forty-second to Forty-
fifth street, a length of 694 feet by a width of 240
feet on Forty-second and Forty-fifth streets.
At the Forty-second street end a distance of
38 feet is taken off for offices, etc.—^the
whole of the space beyond being taken uji
for one vast depot, which Avill be 656 feet
long by 240 feet wide and 99 feet high. The
whole of this space will be vaulted over by one
span of iron roofing, without any intermediate
columns or supports AA'^hatever. The scaffold¬
ing alone, erected for putting these ponderous
masses of iron in place, is worth a Adsit; and the
roof, when completed, will be a triumph of me¬
chanical ingenuity. To the right of this great
building is seen the recently erected Hospital
for the Lame and Crippled, standing at the north¬
west comer of Lexington avenue and Thirty-se¬
cond street. It is a chequered, peculiar-look¬
ing structure, of far less pretension to architec¬
tural beauty than of judicious arrangements
intemaUv for the use of the occunants. On
Forty-ninth street, between Lexingbon and
Fourth avenues, stands the new "Orphans'
Home and Asylum of the Protestant Epis¬
copal Church," a very large and unpretend¬
ing, but handsome brick and stone edifice.
We next come to "The Woman's Hospital,"
a neat brick and stone building, of consid¬
erable dimensions, standing at the south-east
comer of Fiftieth street and Fourth avenue.
Close to this is Steinway's eminent piano man¬
ufactory, run-ning the whole block from Fifty-
first to Fifty-second street, and half way from
Fourth  to Lexington avenue.   . On the East





side of Madison avenue, occupying the whole
block from Fifty-first to Fifty-second street;
is the very beautiful Reman Cathchc Or¬
phan Asylum. This is a Gothic edifice of brick¬
work, ornamented with stone dressings, and
is unquestionably one of the most perfect and
satisfactory buildings, in this style of architec¬
ture, that has ever been erected in New York.
Opposite to this, and comprising the A%'hole block
from Fiftieth to Fifty-first street, and from Madi¬
son to Fifth avenue, is the famous St. Patrick's
Cathedral, now in course of erection, and destined
to be—in cost and enrichments—i^erhaps the
most gorgeous ecclesiastical edifice on this con¬
tinent. It is sufficiently advanced to give us a
taste of its quality. The great western door¬
way is splendid in design, and the execution of
the carved work throughout is excellent. One
very serious blemish, which was evident to
every artistic eye,that saw the lithographed
perspective of this building when it appeared
years ago, is already apparent, and will become
more so the further the works progress. We
allude to the unusual and altogether unneces¬
sary projection of the side buttresses on the
north and south elevations. These huge
masses of marble masonry, projecting all the
way from the main wall to the outer wall of side
chapels, and totally unrelieved by niches or
other ornamentation, present enormous unbro¬
ken surfaces that are painful in monotony.
But they produce a more serious result: they
so completely block out the view of the side
elevation, that in standing on Fifth avenue, and
attempting to get a perspective view of the
west and south fronts, if the spectator so places
himself as to get a fair vieAv of the western
doorway, he sees on the south front nothing
but a succession of buttresses, and the beautiful
intervening" Avindows, Avith their rich tracery,
are entirely hidden from view. If, to avert
this, he changes position so as to get a view of
these windows, then he finds that the Avestera
doorway is out of sight. There is consequently
no point of idew from which a spectator can
take in at a glance the detached beauties of any
two fronts together—a defect fatal to the artis¬
tic success of such a building when viewed in
perspective. Passing down Fifth avenue to
Forty-third street, we find ourselves standing in
front of the new Synagogue " El Emanuel," by
Leopold Eidlitz. This glorious edifice, more
sumptuous perhaps in its interior than even in
its exterior decoration, stands decidedly as far
ahead of all ecclesiastical structures yet seen
in this city, as the Equitable Life Insurance
Building does above all civil ones. People may
like or dislike Moorish architecture, ac¬
cording to their varied tastes; but most
assuredly the man who undertook to give
us this rich Moorish poem in stone knew the
language he employed, and has here produced