By Claudie Benjamin Historic preservationist Ken Lustbader is known as “a pop culture maverick” among his fellow colleagues leading the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project. Why? Because among them, an essential area of his expertise is the city’s LGBT cultural and social life, including pre- and post-Stonewall gay...
2473-2475 Broadway View of 2473-2475 Broadway from north east; Courtesy NYC Municipal Archive 2473-2475 Broadway by Tom Miller In 1929 developer Patrick J. Murray, acting as his own architect, designed what was called a “taxpayer”—a two-story structure intended to garner enough rental income to pay the taxes—on the...
2571-2579 Broadway View of 2571-2579 Broadway from north east; Courtesy NYC Municipal Archive The Riviera Theater by Tom Miller On February 8, 1913, the Real Estate Record & Guide wrote, “The past two years have been years of unusual progress for theatre building in Manhattan.” The article noted “the marked success of...
141-147 Columbus Avenue View to 141-147 Columbus Avenue from north west; Courtesy NYC Municipal Archive Healy’s Restaurant by Tom Miller Thomas J. Healy arrived in New York from Ireland in 1886 at the age of 15. On October 27, 1898, he signed a lease for the ground floor space of 141 Columbus Avenue, a two-story building on the...
398-408 Columbus Avenue View to 398-408 Columbus Avenue from south east; Courtesy NYC Municipal Archive A Dinner Dance with Flare by Tom Miller In 1901 the Brady Estate began construction on a two-story taxpayer (a low-rise, often temporary building that garnered enough rent to pay the property taxes) at the northwest corner of Columbus Avenue...
