243-245 W 30th St
1925, Arthur P. Hess

This 12-story structure is an example of a loft factory, a typology that appeared in the early 1910s as a response to the ban on tenement production. Their design considered adequate lighting and ventilation, therefore providing better working conditions. These buildings began to appear near the mansions and high-end clothing stores that lined Fifth Avenue, sparking opposition from residents. The design by Arthur P. Hess features a two-story base clad in terra cotta and carved panels. The main entrance is framed by a Roman arch with a carved keystone, and a large storefront with glass panels originally occupied the rest of the façade. Not much is known about Hess, except that he was born in Mobile, Alabama, and moved to Manhattan around 1910 with his parents. In 1925, he and architect J. Laying Mills entered the competition for the Bergen Branch of the Jersey City Free Public Library, but were not selected. He was active at least until the 1950s.

239-241 W 30th St
1923, Joseph C. Schaeffler

In 1922, J. M. Heatherton’s The Plumbers’ Trade Journal was an established publication, so he began plans for a new building. Local architect Joseph C. Schaeffler was commissioned for the design of this six-story Classical Revival structure, which features a base with a large central showroom window flanked by two entrances with bracketed pediments. The upper floors have a central bay with four stacked loggias, each one with four half columns supporting entablatures. Because of its location, several businesses involved in the fur trade were also housed in the Heatherton during the 1920s. By the mid-1960s, it was exclusively used by furriers, before giving way to medical offices which are still its major tenants. Currently, about 150 fur businesses remain in New York and employ around 1,100 people. Some still ocupy these buildings.

209-211 W 30th St
1872, Napoleon Le Brun & Sons

Founded in 1840, Saint John the Baptist is the second Catholic Church built by German immigrants in Manhattan. The congregation initially built a small frame structure that was destroyed by a fire in 1847 and replaced by a brick building. The arrival of a new pastor in 1870 and the congregation’s continuous growth prompted plans for a new larger church. The renowned firm of Napoleon LeBrun & Sons was commissioned for the design, and construction began in 1871. The French Gothic sandstone structure is set back from the street and raised above it on a base, with a main entrance marked by a Gothic-arch porch. Above it rises a spire added in 1890, which contained five swinging bells. St. Fidelis Monastery was built in 1872 adjacent to the church to house the Capuchin friars. Once a beacon among a mostly residential neighborhood, St. John the Baptist remains a community staple, open to the public and one of the few remnants of that 19th-century landscape.

232-248 W 31st St.
1908, McKim, Mead & White

This building is the sole remnant of the original Penn Station. It provided the electricity needed to bring trains through tunnels and into the station without steam, and supplied heat and light to the station. It was designed by the 1910 station’s architect, Charles McKim of McKim Mead & White, and was completed two years earlier to help power its construction. The five-story structure is clad in the same pink granite used for the station. It has Classical features, with a façade divided into a large three-story section set on a base, capped with a projecting stone cornice, and an attic story with windows. Double-height Roman Doric pilasters separate each bay, with windows secured with iron grills. The attic story has a stone cornice that is smaller and less elaborately molded than the one above the base. It still serves what remains of the original station, but no longer generates power. Its smokestacks have long since been removed.

361-363 Seventh Ave
1930-31, Emery Roth

Built by developer Louis Kleban, this 22-story brick structure housed offices and showrooms for manufacturers during most of the 20th century, especially those associated with the fur industry. Additionally, publishing companies and educational institutions were among its first tenants. This included the School of Jewish Woman, endorsed by Prof. Albert Einstein in 1933. The ground floor housed a restaurant, and was converted to a retail store in the 1970s. The design has Art Deco and Gothic influences, with a series of setbacks capped with geometric stone decorations. The entrances on the ground floor are framed by fluted pilasters with carved panels that feature foliate designs. It was the work of renowned architect Emery Roth, who began his career in Chicago and moved to New York after meeting Richard Morris Hunt at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. Roth soon established his own firm, developing some of the most influential examples of residential architecture in Beaux Arts style.

371 Seventh Ave
1929, Murgatroyd & Ogden with George B. Post & Sons

Originally the Governor Clinton Hotel, this 25-story brick and stone structure was the second hotel built in the vicinity of Pennsylvania Station. Like its predecessor, the Hotel Pennsylvania, it had an underground tunnel connecting it with the train station and subway. A mixture of Romanesque and Northern Italianate style, it features a stone base, double-height arcades, and setbacks with crenelated cornices on the upper floors. It was designed by Everett F. Murgatroyd and Palmer H. Ogden, in association with George B. Post, who established their firm in 1922 and specialized in hotels. One of their most renowned works is the Barbizon Hotel for Women, a NYC Landmark. The hotel also had two major event spaces on its second floor, the Governor’s Room and the Florentine Dining Room. Then-governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt inaugurated the Governor’s Room at the hotel’s opening dinner, which was also attended by his predecessor Al Smith, and New York Mayor Jimmy Walker.

165 W 31st St
1922-23, Starrett & Van Vleck

The first building of the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States was located at 120 Broadway. The company was founded in 1859 and provided financial services and insurance. After a fire destroyed this building, it was replaced in 1915 by the Equitable Building (NYC Landmark, 1996), but by the 1920s the company began to plan its relocation, purchasing land near Penn Station.The monumental 26-story structure has a 15-story base and three setbacks that create penthouse floors. It features Renaissance Revival influences, with showroom windows, panels carved with foliate designs, pictographs, and a balustraded cornice framing the first three floors. The main entrance has a stone arch with decorative spandrels and a cornice. It was designed by the firm of Starrett & van Vleck, known for their designs of flagship stores like Saks Fifth Avenue, Lord & Taylor and Bloomingdale’s.

401 Seventh Ave
1919, McKim, Mead & White

The 22-story, Classical Revival, 2,200-room Hotel Pennsylvania was the world’s largest hotel until 1927. It was built by the Pennsylvania Railroad and had a tunnel connection to Penn Station. Since it was planned to aesthetically and urbanistically complement both the station and the nearby General Post Office, William Symmes Richardson, a member of McKim, Mead & White, was in charge of the design. It featured a 62- foot limestone base, which matched the height of the station’s street façade, and a portico colonnade. The hotel opened in 1919, and was designed to meet the newly emerging need for businessmen’s hotels, which included function rooms. During the 1930s and 40s the hotel’s ballroom, Café Rouge, was a major venue for performers and big-bands like Count Basie, Duke Ellington, The Dorsey Brothers, Woody Herman, the Andrews Sisters, and the Glen Miller Orchestra. Despite repeated efforts made by community groups and preservation organizations to have the hotel designated a New York City Landmark, the building was demolished in 2023. Photo by David Holowka.

100 W 33rd St
1910, Daniel Burnham – 1926, Shreve & Lamb

Gimbel Brothers Department Store was established in Indiana in 1842 by Adam Gimbel and operated for over a century, with 35 stores in five cities. This 10-story building served as their flagship store in New York and was designed by one of the most influential architects and urban planners of his time, Daniel Burnham. Burnham was the chief architect for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and helped steer American architecture towards classicism, ushering in the City Beautiful Movement. He also designed another NYC icon, the Flatiron Building (NYC Landmark, 1966). In 1926, Gimbels erected an ornate, three-story Art Deco skybridge connecting the main store with their administrative offices across 32nd Street. It was designed by Shreve & Lamb, soon to be Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, architects of the Empire State Building. It was one of the most prominent aerial bridges ever built, at a time when New York’s skyline inspired futuristic images, films, and many other art forms.