Union Square - Gramercy Zigzag (Manhattan)

WHERE: Union Square north and east to Gramercy Park

START: 14 Street - Union Square subway station (L, N, Q, R, W trains - fully accessible; 4, 5, 6 trains - not accessible)

FINISH: 23 Street subway station (6 train), fully accessible

DISTANCE: 1.67 miles (2.7 kilometers)

Photographs by Michael Cairl except as noted. Map courtesy footpathmap.com.

*Route of this walk, reading from bottom to top.*

One of the delights of walking around New York City is that one can find a lot of interesting things to see just around the corner, or on a short walk. So it is on this walk in the neighborhood of my office.

The walk begins at the top of the elevator and escalator from the concourse of the 14 Street - Union Square subway station complex to East 14 Street. The complex encompasses three stations, two of which are fully accessible. The station that is not accessible, on the Lexington Avenue Line (4, 5, 6 trains) is part of the First Subway that opened in 1904. The layout of this station will make accessibility a major challenge.

The elevator and escalator to the street are part of Zeckendorf Towers, a mixed-use development from the 1980s on the site formerly occupied by the S. Klein department store. Klein’s motto was “On the Square,” an allusion to the Union Square location of its flagship store and a suggestion of fair prices.

*Nighttime view, S. Klein department store with the Consolidated Edison building in the background, 1935. Photo courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York via urbanarchive.org.*

Walking east on East 14 Street, one passes the site of a longtime and long gone German restaurant, Luchow’s, before coming to Irving Place. From urbanarchive.org:

Luchow’s was a German restaurant/beer garden. It opened in 1882 at 110 East 14th Street at a time when the East Village was known as “Little Germany”, or Kleindeutschland. The restaurant would expand over the years in size and prominence, eventually occupying a space eight times as large as the original venue. In its heyday, Luchow’s was the place to see and be seen if you were a part of the music, theater, or literary crowd. It imported 70,000 half-barrels of beer a year, a daily consumption of 24,000 liters. Famous diners included Theodore Roosevelt, Diamond Jim Brady, Oscar Hammerstein, John Barrymore, Enrico Caruso, Sigmund Romberg, Lillian Russell, O. Henry, Theodore Dreiser, Thomas Wolfe, and Edgar Lee Masters. Luchow’s was the first restaurant in the city to get its liquor license following Prohibition’s repeal in 1933.

*Luchow’s in 1975. Photo courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York via urbanarchive.org.*

Just across Irving Place is the headquarters of Consolidated Edison, which provides electric power and natural gas in New York City and Westchester County. The Con Edison building is on the site of the old Academy of Music (1867), a huge concert venue that could not compete with the Metropolitan Opera, which opened its opera house at Broadway and West 39 Street in 1883.

Walk up Irving Place one block, then right (east) on East 15 Street. At the northwest corner is the Irving Plaza music venue. Cross 3 Avenue, then stop at Rutherford Place. On either side of East 15 Street are buildings of the Friends Seminary, a private school founded by the Society of Friends (the Quakers) in 1786.

*Two buildings of Friends Seminary, across from each other on East 15 Street.*

According to The Street Book by Henry Moscow (Hagstrom Company, 1978), Rutherford Place was named for Colonel John Rutherford, “a member of the committee that laid out Manhattan’s streets and avenues beginning in 1807.” On the east side of this quiet little street is Stuyvesant Square, a park dating from 1836 that is bisected by 2 Avenue and is surrounded by a magnificent wrought iron fence. Along this walk one will see a lot of beautiful wrought iron work. The west side of Rutherford Place is dominated by the Friends Meeting House (1860), St. George’s Episcopal Church (1846 - 1856), and St. George’s Chapel (1911 - 1912).

*Looking north on Rutherford Place from East 15 Street.*

*Rutherford Place entrance to Stuyvesant Square.*

*Entrance to the Friends Meeting House.*

*St. George’s Chapel. Above the doorway is a bas-relief of St. George slaying the dragon and the words “Fight the Good Fight of Faith.”*

At the end of Rutherford Place, on the north side of East 17 Street, is a striking row of houses (1877 - 1883), the easternmost of which has statuettes of coachmen above the first floor, reminiscent of the old “21 Club” in Midtown.

Turning left (west) on East 17 Street, we pass more late 19th century brownstone and brick buildings, and decorative wrought iron. Crossing 3 Avenue, one sees a relic of the days when this was a German neighborhood and the Third Avenue Elevated thundered overhead: Scheffel Hall (1894), once the German-American Rathskeller (beer hall), later the club Fat Tuesday’s, now in need of a new use and a lot of tender loving care. At the southwest corner of East 17th Street and Irving Place is the onetime home of the American author Washington Irving (1783 - 1859), marked by a plaque.

*Washington Irving plaque, southwest corner Irving Place and East 17 Street.*

Continuing west on East 17 Street, we come upon the former Tammany Hall, by which name the regular Democratic Party (the “machine”) in Manhattan was long known. Tammany Hall is often associated with William Marcy “Boss” Tweed, its leader and de facto New York mayor, in the 1860s and 1870s, but Tammany Hall long outlasted Tweed. This, the last Tammany clubhouse, opened in 1928 and as of this writing is being converted to commercial use. The downfall of Tammany Hall occurred in the 1960s, led by progressives, one of whom was Edward I. Koch (1924 - 2013), who would go on to become a three-term Mayor.

Turning right onto Park Avenue South, on the right is the W Hotel Union Square, formerly the Guardian Life Insurance Company, formerly the Germania Life Insurance Company (1910 - 1911). Germania changed its name to Guardian in the wake of anti-German sentiment during World War I. Turn right on East 18 Street, then left on Irving Place. At the northeast corner is Pete’s Tavern, in a building dating from 1829. Legend has it that O. Henry wrote “The Gift of the Magi” here. Looking up Irving Place, note Gramercy Park in the near distance, and Midtown towers such as the Chrysler Building in the far distance.

Turn left on East 19 Street. On the north side of the street is 81 Irving Place, a building with a lot of bas-reliefs.

A bit farther along is 110 East 19 Street, a Beaux-Arts building with metal roll-down shutters. This is an electrical power substation for the subway, built by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company in 1904 for the First Subway. Cross Park Avenue South, and at Broadway turn right. On the opposite corner is the massive Arnold Constable building (1869), long home to the Arnold Constable and Company department store.

*IRT (now New York City Transit Authority) electrical substation, 110 East 19 Street.*

*Arnold Constable building, East 19 Street and Broadway.*

Turning right from Broadway onto East 20 Street, we pass on the right the birthplace and childhood home of Theodore Roosevelt (1858 - 1919), the twenty-sixth President of the United States (1901 - 1909). This house is maintained as an historic site and museum by the National Park Service.

*Theodore Roosevelt birthplace, 28 East 20 Street.*

Cross Park Avenue South and continue toward Gramercy Park. On the south side are two famous private clubs: the National Arts Club (1881 - 1884) and, next door, the Players’ Club (1845, remodeled 1888 - 1889). The Players’ Club was founded by Edwin Booth (the same Booth family as John Wilkes Booth) for people associated with the theatre and so it remains. Years ago I had dinner there as the guest of a theatre person who was a member of the club.

*The Players’ Club (left) and the National Arts Club (right)*

*Wrought-iron extravaganza in front of the Players’ Club.*

Gramercy Park is an inspired use of space even though it is a private park. Only people living in the buildings surrounding it, and members of the Players’ Club and National Arts Club, can use a key to enter the park. It was developed by one Samuel Ruggles in 1831, when this area was beginning to be developed. From The WPA Guide to New York City (1939):

The park’s creator, Samuel B. Ruggles, was among the first of New York’s early real-estate operators to offer for sale a development with building restrictions. He caught the fancy of the rich by guaranteeing to a selected group - those who bought his property - the exclusive us of a private park as a permanent privilege. Keys - no longer golden - to the iron gates are distributed to owners and tenants under the close scrutiny of the trustees of Gramercy Park. Residents in near-by streets who have been approved by the trustees are given keys for annual fees. All others must be satisfied with a glimpse through the gate.

Gramercy Park was a marsh in 1831 when Ruggles drained it, laid out the green and the streets on the model of an English square and offered sixty-six lots for sale. The privacy of Gramercy Park was violated only once, when troops encamped within this sacrosanct area during the Draft Riots in 1863.

*Detail of wrought-iron fence surrounding Gramercy Park.*

Turn left onto Gramercy Park East, then left again onto East 21 Street, then right onto Lexington Avenue. 34 Gramercy Park East (1883) is an extravagant, wonderful structure. A passer-by told me that no. 34 is the oldest apartment house in the city (it isn’t) and that the television host Jimmy Fallon lives there.

On Lexington Avenue, cross East 23 Street and then turn left (west). The walk ends at the 23 Street subway station, at Park Avenue South. The elevator to uptown trains is on the near corner, while the elevator to downtown trains is across Park Avenue South.

This short walk certainly packed in a lot to savor about the city: a lot of history and a lot of change. It is fully accessible, and the only curb cuts that are at all problematic are when one goes east on East 20 Street crossing Park Avenue South.