The architecture of Gramercy is eclectic. One can see Greek Revival, High Victorian Gothic, Renaissance Revival, Gothic Revival, Queen Ann and Arts and Crafts within a short walking distance from each other.

3 and 4 Gramercy Park West

• Architect: Alexander Jackson Davis
• Style: Greek Revival
• Built: 1845

Designed in 1845 by the eminent architect Alexander Jackson Davis in the unassuming Greek Revival style, the houses are adorned with elaborate ironwork—a detail that makes them stand out even in New York’s highly eclectic architectural landscape. Unusual for New York, the sunny verandas and outdoor porches are channeling breazy mood of the American South.

Characteristics of Greek Revival Architecture

• Greek temple-style façade with columns in wood or stucco
• White paint or construction materials: Many Greek revival homes are painted white to resemble the marble of expensive public buildings.
• Columns and pilasters: A staple in classical architecture, doric, ionic, or corinthian columns. Plain Doric order columns are most popular in Greek revival buildings.
• Front porch or covered portico entrances
• Simple moldings: most Greek revival homes have plain moldings and unadorned friezes.

Tilden Mansion/The National Arts Club

• 14-15 Gramercy Park South
• Architect: Calvert Vaux
• Style: Victorian Gothic
• Built: c. 1840s; altered extensively 1884

While working as an attorney in 1863, Samuel J. Tilden purchased a home in Gramercy—the most fashionable area in town at the time. When he became governor of New York in 1874, he bought a mansion at # 14 to complement his original home at #15. While busy with his civic responsibilities and political career, Samuel J. Tilden resided in this double-mansion on Gramercy Park South.

He hired Calvert Vaux—the famed architect known was his work on Central Park and Museum of Natural History—to “victorianize” his home. The two mansions, 14 and 15 Gramercy Park, were joined together by one facade in a High Victorian Gothic style, characterized by polychrome decoration, varying textures, asymmetry, and Gothic details.

Remodeling lasted for years and was finally finished in 1884, which sadly left very little time for Samuel J. Tilden to enjoy the house; he died in 1886. The stunning facade, with its busts of Shakespeare, Goethe, Dante, Milton, and Benjamin Franklin, point to Tilden’s love of literature. His extensive library (along with donations from Astor and Lenox) served as the foundation for the New York Public Library. The entrance to Tilden’s library at 14 Gramercy is adorned by a bust of Michelangelo—perhaps as a nod to Michelangelo’s great Laurentian Library in Florence.

Characteristics of High Victorian Gothic:

• Always executed in brick or stone.
• Heavy and substantial
• Polychrome decoration and use of varying textures
• “Constructural coloration,” aka the use of polychrome materials – red brick, black stone, white granite, yellow sandstone
• Pointed arches
• Decorative dormers and cross gables
• Round turrets and conical roofs
• Varied stone ornamentation including gargoyles, tympanums, etc

The Players

• 16 Gramercy Park South
• Architect: Stanford White
• Style: Renaissance Revival or Gothic Revival or Greek Revival
• Built: c. 1844

The Players was founded in 1888 by Edwin Booth, the widely-known American Shakespearean actor, along with 15 like-minded artists. Edwin Booth purchased the building and hired Stanford White, a club member and one of New York’s leading architects, to redesign it. Booth reserved an upper floor for his home, turning the rest of the building over to the Clubhouse. He lived in the house until his death in 1893.

Stanford White was one of the most prominent architects in New York and a partner in the architectural firm McKim, Mead & White, one of the most significant Beaux-Arts firms. Prolific architect, he designed quite a few structures but became famous for the the way he perished. The famed archited was shot and killed by a jelous husband of his ex-lover, Evelyn Nesbit. The story of the murder gripped New York and the trial went down in history as “The trial of the century.”

Stuyvesant Fish House @ 19 Gramercy Park South

• Style: Greek Revival
• Built: 1845

The house at 19 Gramercy Park South does not look like much from the outside. But do not be fooled by the modesty of the facade – a holdout from the Gilded Age era, it just might be “the Greatest Private House in New York.”

By the 1870s, the Gramercy Park neighborhood had become a very fashionable place to live. The house at 19 Gramercy Park South, built in 1845, was purchased in 1887 by Stuyvesant Fish, a prominent railroad executive and a direct descendant of Peter Stuyvesant. His wife, Mamie Fish, the most irreverent society hostess of the Gilded Age, remodeled the house to make it acceptable for lavish, elite entertainment. She poured in a substantial sum redesigning the house, with the finished product featuring a grand marble staircase and a majestic ballroom. 

34 Gramercy Park East

• Architect: George W. DaCunha
• Style: Queen Anne
• Built: 1883

“The Gramercy” has the distinction of being the oldest cooperative apartment building in the city. In the mid-1840s, mansions stood all around Gramercy Park, with the exception of the eastern side that housed a massive Gramercy Par House hotel. By the 1880s, when the hotel was demolished, a new concept evolved in urban development, namely, a cooperative apartment house. Multi-family dwellings were still a novelty, and 34 Gramercy Park East was a pioneer.

With all the trimmings of the popular Queen Anne style – the red brick exterior embellished with elaborate carvings, granite columns, opulent terra cotta trim, profusion of stained glass, and heavy beveled glass doors – the building was designed to attract wealthy residents. The lobby was designed to resemble a reception hall of a private mansion. Among other attractive amenities was a restaurant operated by the most famous society restaurateur of the time, Louis Sherry.

Out of ten stories in the building, six were sold to the stockholders, and four were available for rent, allowing stockholders to cover their expenses and even make some cash.

Characteristics of Queen Ann Style:

• Asymmetry
• Varied, steeply pitched roof with turrets and towers
• Varied shapes of windows, doors, and decorations
• Amassing
• Texture, the surface of the building is a collage of materials
• Ornamentation, elaborate trim, and latticework
• Eclecticism and excess

36 Gramercy Park East

• Architect: James Riely Gordon
• Style: French Gothic Revival
• Built: 1908

This apartment building is striking and was said to be emulating the French Gothic style. The resemblance to the French Gothic can be seen in elongated towers and a multitude of decorative details, including shields, cherubs, and gargoyles.

Its “U” shaped entrance makes it unique, and its white terra-cotta-clad walls make it exceptionally beautiful. At the time of its construction, the fireproofing of apartment buildings was a significant concern. Terra-cotta not only served as a cheap material but also was considered fireproof.

The building was home to several celebrities, like John Barrymore – a famous stage actor; Daniel Chester French – a prominent sculptor best known for the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial; Alfred Ringling of circus fame and playwright Eugene O’Neill.

Characteristics of Gothic Style:

• Elongated tall silhouette
• The flying buttress (projecting support built against a wall and forming an arch with that wall)
• Pointed arch
• Vaulted ceiling
• Tracery (an architectural solution by which windows are divided into sections of various proportions by stone bars or ribs of molding)
• Light, airy interior
• The gargoyles
• An emphasis on decoration and the ornate

Block Beautiful

• Architect: Frederick Sterner
• Style: Mediterranean/Arts and Crafts
• Built: 1908

The brownstones on the block, being built in the 1840s and ’50s, by the end of the 19th century were slowly deteriorating. Their fate changed unexpectedly in 1908 when Frederick Sterner, an English-born architect, bought one of them at #139. But instead of rebuilding and restoring it, he had it entirely remodeled! The facade was covered with a coat of light-colored stucco, with shutters, colored tiles, and other decorative elements giving the house light and an informal, custom look— quite a departure from the concept of uniform-looking brownstones. The effect was astounding as the house truly shone among the dark, aging townhouses. Sterner bought several more houses and gave them a similar treatment. The idea attracted other homeowners, and the block rapidly transformed into a unique collection of individually designed homes with a light Mediterranean feel. The hand-made look reflected the ideas of the Arts and Crafts movement popular in Europe at the time, which championed artisan individual design.

Artistically designed houses attracted quite a few artists, such as painter George Bellows (#146), actresses Lillian Gish and Ethel Barrymore (both in #132), and many others. The block had apparently became something of an artist commune in the 1920s, gaining notoriety for its wild parties attended by the likes of Emma Goldman, John Reed, and Eugene O’Neill.

Characteristics of Arts and Crafts Style:

• The idea that objects must be beautiful and well-made
• Unique individual designs
• Stress on good craftsmanship
• Use of high-quality materials
• Inspiration from nature as well as medieval art and Japanese art
• Simplicity: the patterns inspired by nature are stylized
• The colors used were natural tones

The Church Missions House

• Location: Park Ave at 22nd street
• Architect: Robert W. Gibson and Edward J. Neville Stent
• Style: Flemish Renaissance Revival or Northern Renaissance Revival
• Built: 1894

Even in the diverse landscape of Manhattan’s architecture, the intricate limestone building facing Park Ave at 22nd Street is striking. It’s striking because it’s unusual, it’s unusual because of its distinctive architectural style. If it looks like it was inspired by the medieval guild halls of Amsterdam and Haarlem, it’s because it was! Influenced by the 17th-century architecture of Northern Europe, especially Belgium, the style is described as Flemish, which stands for Flemish Renaissance Revival or Northern Renaissance Revival. 

The Flemish style was one of many revival styles used by 19th-century architects and gained popularity in the United States in the 1890s. It’s almost surprising that there are only a few Flemish Revival buildings in New York, given the city’s early history as a Dutch colony.

While the style abides by the principles of Renaissance architecture, aka symmetry and proportions, the main identifiable feature of the Flemish Revival is its stepped gabled roof. Even though, for all practical purposes, it’s just a parapet wall that hides a standard pitched gable roof, the stepped gable is responsible for creating the unique aesthetics of the Flemish Revival.

St. Augustine is preaching on the left, while Bishop Samuel Seabury, the first American Episcopal bishop, gives a sermon on the right. Both are delivering the word of God to the respective “barbarians” — English on the left, American on the right. 

Brownstones

• Style: Italianette
• Built: 1840s-1900s

The character of New York’s many residential streets is defined by the perfect rhythm and uniformity of adjacent houses lined up in rows right next to one another and forming a solid street facade. Combining Yankee practicality with the romantic old-world feel, the brownstones are the soul of 19th-century New York.

Built all over the city for upper-middle-class families, these single-family houses had to be practical and affordable. Since New York City has always been about real estate, the use of every inch of livable space produced the idea of row houses built right next to one another. To make the houses affordable, it was very important to use inexpensive materials, ruling out marble and limestone. Since brick was cheap and practical it became the material of choice. However, what good old brick had in practicality, it lacked in appearance. Local pinkish stone quarried in Connecticut and New Jersey that changed color to brown, called brownstone, provided the natural solution. It was used to cover the facades of brick houses ideally suited for a dignified family dwelling. Since the aesthetics of mid-19th century New York were inspired by the Romantic Movement, the feel was better expressed by dark colors conjuring images of romantic old looking homes darkened by age and history.

The architectural style of choice for a brownstone was the Italianate, inspired by the Renaissance-era Italian palazzo. Italianate-style brownstones featured heavy double doors distinguished by elaborate decorations, large projecting cornices, tall arched windows, and a stoop – its most distinctive feature. The word stoop originates from the word “stoep,” a Dutch word for “stair,” and signifies brownstone stairs which lead to the main entrance on the parlor level, always on the second floor. 

Characteristics of Italianate:

• A low-pitched or flat roof
• Usually, three or four stories
• Tall windows, often topped with arched projecting hood moldings
• Heavily molded, elaborate double doors
• Large panes of glass in the door
• Large projecting cornices
• A stoop in Italianate-style brownstones

Calvary Church

• Location: 277 Park Avenue South at 21st Street
• Architect: James Renwick Jr.
• Style: Gothic Revival
• Built: 1848

Calvary Church is one of the earlier works of New York’s own James Renwick Jr. – the architect who went on to design the St. Patrick’s Cathedral. When Renwick was commissioned to build Calvary, he was just 26 years old! As young as he was, he had already designed the Grace Church – one of the loveliest Gothic creations in New York.

For Calvary, the architect chose a sophisticated Gothic Revival double-spired design. However, it was not well-liked. Harshly, the diarist George Templeton Strong called it “a miracle of ugliness.” It’s hard to judge its looks now as the facade was altered in 1860 when the most essential visual element of a Gothic church – the spires – became unstable and were removed.

Despite relatively modest looks, the Calvary boasted the most elite congregation: it was the place of worship for families like Astors and Vanderbilts. Eleanor Roosevelt was baptized here, and Chester A. Arthur, the future 21st President of the United States, married here. Only Gilded Age enthusiasts would appreciate the significance of the fact that the wedding of Alva and William Kissam Vanderbilt took place at the Calvary.

Gramercy Square Apartments

• 81 Irving Place
• Architect: George Frederick Pelham
• Style: inspired by Northern Italian architecture
• Built: 1930

The most notable feature of this beautiful structure is the multitude of its whimsical gargoyes and grotesques. It was built in 1930 as an apartment building offering small size units of one to five rooms each.

It was the first multi-family building to be designed in accordance with the new multiple-dwelling law. The law required setbacks above a certain height, which the architect used to create quite a visual spectacle with terraces and balconies. Faced in brown brick and lavishly decorated with terra cotta, the building has the feel of the Northern Italian Renaissance style, which inspired its architect.