1855

Manhattan: 5th Avenue - 22nd Street

Fifth Avenue at 22nd Street and north, showing at right the old Hotel St. Germain. On the S.E. corner of 22nd Street a small house has just been demolished. The brick house below it, in right foreground, is new. The hotel, built in 1853-54, is also new. The remainder of this triangular block, today (1935) the site of the Flatiron Building, will by 1859 be filled with four small houses facing on Fifth Avenue. The houses on the S.W. corner of 22nd Street are new. On the N.W. corner of 23rd Street stands the short-lived Franconi's New York Hippodrome, about to be torn down for the erection of the Fifth Avenue Hotel (at first called the Mount Vernon Hotel), 1859-1908. In the background may be seen the spire of the Marble Collegiate Church (Dutch Reformed), at N.W. corner of 29th Street. Some of the houses which may be seen on E. 26th Street across Madison Square were standing as late as 1912. Compare this early photograph with the same view in 1903 and 1925. 1855 or 1856. On front of photograph, in lower right corner: Old hotel St. Germain #71 Fifth Ave. ??? ? E 22nd St. N.Y.

Photo from the New York Public Library - Milstein Collection