40°44′39″N73°59′18″W / 40.7442°N 73.9883°W /40.7442; -73.9883
NoMad ("North of Madison Square Park"), also known asMadison Square North,[3][4] is a neighborhood centered on theMadison Square North Historic District in the borough ofManhattan inNew York City.
The name NoMad, which has been in use since 1999,[5][6] is derived from the area’s location north ofMadison Square Park. The neighborhood is bordered byEast 25th Street to the south,East 29th orEast 30th Street to the north,Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas) to the west andMadison orLexington Avenue to the east.[3][7][a] The surrounding neighborhoods areChelsea to the west,Midtown South to the northwest,Murray Hill to the northeast,Rose Hill to the east, and theFlatiron District to the south. NoMad is part ofManhattan Community District 5.[11]
NoMad's early history is closely aligned with that ofMadison Square Park, which has been a public space since 1686. The park extends fromFifth Avenue toMadison Avenue between23rd and26th Streets.[12] Formerly a military parade ground that to this day serves as the starting point for the city's annualVeterans Day Parade, Madison Square Park and the surrounding area have undergone a number of changes since pre-Revolutionary War days, serving at various times as apotter’s field, an armyarsenal and a facility for juvenile delinquents.[13]
New Yorkers began establishing residences around the park in the mid-nineteenth century. Private brownstone dwellings and mansions springing up around the perimeter of the park soon boasted such respected, well-to-do families as the Haights, Stokeses, Scheifflins, Wolfes, and Barlows. Leonard and Clara Jerome, the grandparents ofWinston Churchill, lived at 41 East 26th Street. TheJerome Mansion later became the clubhouse of theUnion League Club of New York (its second location), theUniversity Club and, finally, the Manhattan Club, birthplace of theManhattan cocktail and congregating place of such famous Democrats asFranklin D. Roosevelt,Grover Cleveland andAl Smith.[14] The mansion was demolished in 1967[15] and was replaced in 1974 by theNew York Merchandise Mart, which also extends onto the site of the adjacentMadison Square Hotel, where actorsHenry Fonda andJames Stewart roomed in the 1930s.[16]
The famous families in the area nurtured the spiritual life of the neighborhood, founding such landmark houses of worship as the Church of the Transfiguration (the "Little Church Around the Corner"), Trinity Chapel (site of the wedding between writerEdith Newbold Jones and Edward Wharton and now the home of the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of Saint Sava) andMarble Collegiate Church.[17]
The area became a meeting place for theGilded Age elite, and a late-nineteenth century mecca for shoppers, tourists and after-theater restaurant patrons. A list of celebrities who ate atDelmonico's is a who’s who of the day, includingDiamond Jim Brady,Mark Twain,Jenny Lind,Lillian Russell,Charles Dickens,Oscar Wilde,J.P. Morgan,James Gordon Bennett, Jr.,Walter Scott,Edward VII of the United Kingdom (then the Prince of Wales), andNapoleon III of France.
A commercial boom followed with the growth of hotels, restaurants, entertainment venues and office buildings, many of which are still standing. By the late nineteenth century, business activity began to eclipse the residential scene around the park, and the area along Broadway above the park began to be subsumed into theTenderloin, an entertainment-and-vicered-light district full ofnightclubs,saloons,bordellos,gambling casinos,dance halls and "clip joints". At about this time, on August 14, 1894, the world's firstkinetoscope parlor opened in a former shoe store at 1155 Broadway, on the corner of27th Street. For 25 cents, patrons could stand and watch a short film through a shaded "peephole" onWilliam Dickson's device. The store had 10 of these machines, and netted $120 for its opening day.[18]
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century the area around28th Street between Fifth Avenue and theAvenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue) was dubbedTin Pan Alley thanks to the collection ofmusic publishers andsongwriters there who dominated the American commercial music world of the time. Around the same time, the 1913Armory Show, which took place at the69th Regiment Armory onLexington Avenue between25th and26th Streets, was a seminal event in the history ofModern Art.
The neighborhood deteriorated somewhat during the mid- and late-twentieth century. Tee-shirt, luggage, perfume and jewelry wholesalers began lining the storefronts alongBroadway from Madison Square toHerald Square, and wholesalers continue to dominate that stretch. By the second half of the twentieth century, Madison Square Park was suffering from neglect and petty crime.[19] The massive 2001 park restoration project, spearheaded by theMadison Square Park Conservancy[20] spurred a transformation of the neighborhoods around the park—theFlatiron District,Rose Hill and NoMad—from primarily commercial to places attractive for residences, upscale businesses and trendy restaurants and nightspots, especially in the early 2010s.[21]
Among the notable buildings in the area areNew York Life Building, the headquarters of theNew York Life Insurance Company; theGift Building, which has been converted to a luxury condominium; and theToy Center, which has been converted to an office complex.[28]
Designed in 1904 by Stanford White as the prestigious Colony Club for socialites, the building at 120 Madison Avenue has been occupied since 1963 by theAmerican Academy of Dramatic Arts.[29] Long before the Academy began training its young hopefuls in the NoMad area, the Madison Square Theater opened in 1880. Boasting the first electric footlights and a backstage double-decker elevator, the theater also provided an early air-conditioning system.[30]
Along Broadway, the Townsend (1896) and St. James (1896) were the tallest buildings in New York for a short while, and remain historic landmarks. Slightly up the street, theBaudouine Building at 28th Street was heavily decorated with escutcheons of anthemions with lion heads over many windows. At the same corner, the Johnston Building (now the Hotel NoMad) was built in 1900 and faced in all limestone with beautiful exterior decoration. One block up,Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s grandfather built a classically designed loft building, next to the Breslin.[31]
Although a number of old buildings in the neighborhood have been renovated, there have been few new construction starts in the area. One of the first is 241 Fifth Avenue between 27th and 28th Streets. Construction began on the 46-unit condominium building in November 2011, and it was open to sales in April 2013; by April of the next year it was sold out.[32][33] Elsewhere in the neighborhood, old building are undergoing conversion to residences.[32]
In 2014, the Kaufman Organization announced it was developing four underutilized NoMad commercial buildings previously owned by F. M. Ring Associates: 119 West 24th Street near Sixth Avenue, 19 West 24th Street near Fifth Avenue, 45 West 27th Street, and 13 West 27th Street. The buildings will be renovated to make them more attractive to technology firms, and the street level spaces made suitable for use by retail outlets and restaurants.[34]
NoMad was once home to some of New York’s most luxurious hotels. Completed in 1859 by Amos R. Eno, theFifth Avenue Hotel, whose gleaming white-marble housed 100 apartment suites, was the first American hotel with an elevator and private bathrooms,[35] as well as a fourth meal, or "late supper", and was a popular meeting place for politicians, brokers and speculators. Because of its opulence, as well as its location at the far uptown edge of the city, it was dubbed "Eno's Folly". The site previously had been an inn where travelers leaving the city or returning to it could get a meal or lodging before continuing their trip. The hotel stood between East 23rd and East 24th Streets facing Madison Square, where the Toy Center South would later stand.[36][37]
By the 1870s, numerous hotels catering to much the same clientele had opened in the area, including the Hoffman House (East 24th Street), the Victoria (East 27th Street), theGilsey House (East 29th Street) and the Grand (East 31st Street)—both still standing as of the 21st century, converted to residential use—and the Brunswick.[38]
The Brunswick, at East 26th Street and Fifth Avenue, was the hotel favored by the horsey set.[38] The male-only New York Coaching Club, established in 1875 by Col. Delancey Astor Kane andWilliam Jay, was headquartered there, and elevated "four-in-hand" carriage riding to an art form.[39] Holding the reins of all four horses in one fist, the drivers ("whips") guided their horses from the Brunswick to the carriage drives in Central Park and staged parades twice a year.[40]
The St. James Hotel at Broadway and East 26th Street, where the St. James Building would later stand, was built in 1874. With its 30 parlors, bar, cigar stand, barber shop, dining room and full-service amenities, the hotel served the needs of mid- to late-nineteenth-century business and upscale clientele. The hotel was the site of aConfederatearson attack during theAmerican Civil War. It was the first of 20 buildings to go up in flames in a coordinated effort by Confederate forces on November 25, 1864.[41]
Known since 1987 as the Carlton, the Hotel Seville, named for the original investor Maitland E. Graves’ infatuation with the Spanish city, was designed by Harry Allen Jacobs, and opened its doors on East 29th Street and Madison Avenue in 1904, months before the unveiling of the city’s first subway. Renovated and transformed at a cost of $60 million more than a century later byDavid Rockwell, the hotel’s "Tiffany-style glass skylight" on the mezzanine was discovered under layers of paint “used to deter air raids during World War II.”[42][43]
The Breslin Hotel, built in 1904, was transformed in 2009 into theAce Hotel, but not before passing through a period as asingle room occupancy (SRO) apartment building, during the low point of the neighborhood.[44] The Ace, which was redesigned by Roman & Williams[44] is a 300-room hotel whose restaurant has attracted a trendy crowd.[45] TheNoMad Hotel at 28th Street and Broadway occupies the Johnston Building, a landmark 1900French Renaissance limestone space[31][46] which features aBeaux-Artscupola.[44] The Gershwin Hotel, on East 27th Street, and named afterGeorge Gershwin, has a unique facade, a combination of red paint and whimsical decorative touches.
Gansevoort Park, the second location ofHotel Gansevoort in New York, opened in 2010 at Park Avenue and 29th Street, complete with a "glass column containing light-emitting diodes" that changes color.[47] Rounding out the host of boutique hotels in and around NoMad is the King and Grove Hotel, occupying the former space of the historicMartha Washington Hotel, located at 30 East 30 Street.
The neighborhood was once the home ofDelmonico's, New York elite society's favorite restaurant and the birthplace ofLobster Newburg. Today it has a numerous restaurants serving a wide range of cuisines, including San Rocco, Hill Country Barbecue, Bamiyan Afghan Restaurant, Antique Cafe, SD26, A Voce, Country, Ben & Jack’s Steakhouse and Illi.Eataly, a 44,000-square-foot (4,100 m2) Italian food market comprising Italian restaurants, cafes and wine and food shops opened in Summer 2010.[48]
NoMad is home to theMuseum of Sex, the New York Comedy Club and Tada! Youth Theater, and is also a center for antique galleries and one of the city’s largest collections of weekend flea markets. Nightspots and clubs include the Breslin Lobby Bar,Jay-Z’s 40/40, the rooftop bar at 230 Fifth Avenue, Gstaad, Hillstone’s, and the Park Avenue Country Club. The notedRizzoli Bookstore announced in September 2014 it will be reopening its New York City flagship in NoMad.[49] TheNoMad Piazza, a pedestrian venue on Broadway between 25th and 31st, was established as part of the NYC Open Streets program to allow restaurants to continue their outdoor seating areas and to allow for an open-air, foot traffic area within NoMad.
NoMad is served by fourNew York City Subway stations. The23rd Street and28th Street stations on theBMT Broadway Line offer service on theN, Q, R, and W trains at Broadway. The23rd Street and28th Street stations of theIRT Lexington Avenue Line are both located onPark Avenue South, offering service on the6 and <6> trains.[50]
The area is served byNew York City Bus routesM1,M2 andM3 on Park and Madison Avenues (northbound) and Fifth Avenues (southbound).M55 service also runs southbound on Fifth Avenue, while northboundM55 andM7 service runs on nearby Sixth Avenue. TheM101,M102,M103 routes run on Third and Lexington Avenues, northbound and southbound, respectively. There is alsoM23 SBS crosstown bus service on 23rd Street.[51]
Public schools in the area include Baruch College Campus High School, a collaboration between theNew York City Department of Education and theCity University of New York'sBaruch College.
Private schools in the area include the Aaron School High School and the Rebecca School, both special education schools; the Fusion Academy, and the Drake Bennett School.
The preschool ofÉcole Internationale de New York is located in NoMad at 206Fifth Avenue between West25th and26th Streets, where the school has 15,000 square feet (1,400 m2) with a 33-year lease.[52][53]
Post-secondary schools include theNew York School of Interior Design as well as part of the Baruch College campus.
![Marble Collegiate Church (1851–1854); for many years Norman Vincent Peale was its pastor[1]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fwikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aMarble_Church_NYC.jpg)
Informational notes
Citations
But although the character of the tenants has shifted, the historic neighborhood, which some call NoMad (for North of Madison Square Park) and which is bounded by 25th and 29th Streets, between Madison Avenue and Avenue of the Americas, has seen very little new construction since the Great Depression.
Bibliography
Places adjacent to NoMad, Manhattan | |
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