Morningside Heights: A History of Its Architecture and Development

528 Pages·1998·25.081 MB·English

by  Andrew S. Dolkart

M H
orningside eights
The Columbia History of Urban Life, Kenneth T. Jackson, General Editor
M
orningside
columbia university press new york
H
a history of its
eights
architecture
&
d e v e l o p m e n t
Andrew S. Dolkart
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
Copyright © 1998 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dolkart, Andrew S.
Morningside Heights : a history of its architecture and
development / Andrew S. Dolkart.
p. cm. — (The Columbia history of urban life)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn0-231-07850-1 (cloth)—isbn0-231-07851-x (paper)
1. Architecture—New York (State)—New York. 2. Architecture,
Modern—19th century—New York (State)—New York. 3. Architecture,
Modern—20th century—New York (State)—New York. 4. New York
(N.Y.)—Buildings, structures, etc. 5. Morningside Heights (New
York, N.Y.)—Buildings, structures, etc. 6. New York (N.Y.)—History.
7. Morningside Heights (New York, N.Y.)—History.
I. Title. II.Series.
na735.n5d65 1998
720(cid:2).9747(cid:2)1—dc21 97–44482
Casebound editions of Columbia University Press books
are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
Designed by Linda Secondari
Publication of this book was made possible in part by a grant from
Futhermore, the publication program of the J. Kaplan Fund, and the
Schoff Trust Fund of Columbia University’s University Seminars.
The Press gratefully acknowledges their assistance.
c10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3
p 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my parents, Ellen and Irwin Dolkart
t h e c o l u m b i a h i s t o r y o f u r b a n l i f e
Kenneth T. Jackson, General Editor
Deborah Dash Moore, At Home in America: Second Generation
New York Jews 1981
Edward K. Spann, The New Metropolis: New York City, 1840–1857 1981
Matthew Edel, Elliott D. Sclar, and Daniel Luria, Shaky Palaces:
Homeownership and Social Mobility in Boston’s Suburbanization 1984
Steven J. Ross, Workers on the Edge: Work, Leisure, and Politics in
Industrializing Cincinnati, 1788–1890 1984
Andrew Lees, Cities Perceived: Urban Society in European and American
Thought, 1820–1940 1985
R.J.R.Kirkby,UrbanizationinChina:TownandCountryina
DevelopingEconomy,1949–2000a.d. 1985
Judith Ann Trolander, Professionalism and Social Change: From the
Settlement House Movement to Neighborhood Centers, 1886 to the
Present 1987
Marc A. Weiss, The Rise of the Community Builders: The American
Real Estate Industry and Urban Land Planning 1987
Jacqueline Leavitt and Susan Saegert, From Abandonment to Hope:
Community-Households in Harlem 1990
Richard Plunz, A History of Housing in New York City: Dwelling Type
and Social Change in the American Metropolis 1990
David Hamer, New Towns in the New World: Images and Perceptions
of the Nineteenth-Century Urban Frontier 1990
Andrew Heinze, Adapting to Abundance: Jewish Immigrants, Mass
Consumption, and the Search for American Identity 1990
Chris McNickle, To Be Mayor of New York: Ethnic Politics in the City 1993
Clay McShane, Down the Asphalt Path: The Automobile and the
American City 1994
Clarence Taylor, The Black Churches of Brooklyn 1994
Frederick Binder and David Reimers,“All the Nations Under Heaven”:
A Racial and Ethnic History of New York City 1995
Clarence Taylor, Knocking at Our Own Door: Milton A. Galamison
and the Struggle to Integrate New York City Schools 1997
Andrew S. Dolkart, Morningside Heights: A History of Its Architecture
and Development 1998
Jared N. Day, Urban Castles: Tenement Housing and Landlord Activism
in New York City, 1890–1943 1999
Craig Steven Wilder, A Covenant with Color: Race and Social Power
in Brooklyn 2000
c o n t e n t s
Preface ix
Chronology xiii
introduction 1
chapter one
At Bloomingdale:The Pre-History of Morningside Heights 13
chapter two
Building for the Spirit:The Cathedral of St. John the Divine
and Riverside Church 37
chapter three
Building for the Body:St. Luke’s Hospital and Other Health-Related
Facilities on Morningside Heights 85
chapter four
Building for the Mind I:Columbia University and the Transformation
of Morningside Heights 103
chapter five
Building for the Mind II:The Growth and Expansion of Columbia 157
chapter six
Building for the Mind III:Barnard College and Teachers College—
Women’s Education on Morningside Heights 203
chapter seven
Building for the Mind and Spirit:Theological Seminaries and a
Musical Institute on Morningside Heights 245
chapter eight
Building for Profit:The Development of a Residential Community
on Morningside Heights 275
afterword
Morningside Heights in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century 325
Appendix: Building List 341
Abbreviations 357
Notes 359
Selected Bibliography 465
Index 469
Photo Credits 499

p r e f a c e
new york is a city of neighborhoods. a new yorker generally
identifies his or her home as being located in one of those neighborhoods,such
as the Upper West Side, the Lower East Side, Forest Hills, Harlem, or Flatbush.
Each neighborhood has its own history, character, and story. Together these lo-
cal stories create the rich and complex history of New York City. Among the
city’sdiverseneighborhoods,MorningsideHeightsstandsapart,uniquebothin
the history of its development and in the concentration of distinguished archi-
tecture. Although it is a relatively small geographical section on the west side of
Manhattan Island, Morningside Heights boasts the city’s largest ensemble of in-
stitutional complexes as well as an extensive concentration of early-twentieth-
century middle-class apartment buildings. The extraordinary development of
Morningside Heights took place within a relatively brief period from 1887 to
about 1910. It is this period of development that is the major focus of this book,
with additional attention devoted to the further expansion of the area’s institu-
tions into the early 1930s.
Morningside Heights: A History of Its Architecture and Developmentis a study
primarily of the physical fabric of Morningside Heights. Although the focus
ofthe book is on issues of architecture and urban development, these themes
do not exist in a vacuum. Thus, this study seeks to place these developments
within a broader social framework. The introduction discusses general issues
that affected the development of Morningside Heights, such as its unusual ge-
ology, the identification of the area’s boundaries and name, and the forces that
made the area ripe for institutional and residential development. Chapter 1
traces the history of the area prior to its urbanization, including histories of
theinsane asylum and orphanage that occupied much of the plateau, a discus-
sion of efforts by real estate interests to force the removal of the insane asylum,
and an examination of the creation of the parks that border the area on the east
and west.
This background chapter is followed by more detailed explorations of the
histories of the institutions that moved onto Morningside Heights, beginning
with the announcement in 1887 that a monumental Episcopal cathedral would
x Preface
be erected in the area. Chapter 2 discusses the area’s major religious insti-
tutions, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and Riverside Church. Follow-
ing are chapters focusing on St. Luke’s Hospital and other health-related facili-
ties (chapter 3), the early history of Columbia’s presence on Morningside
Heights (chapter 4), the expansion of Columbia’s campus through the 1934
completion of Butler Library (chapter 5), the construction of campuses for
Barnard College and Teachers College (chapter 6), the second wave of institu-
tional development on Morningside Heights including the construction of
Union Theological Seminary, the Institute of Musical Art/Juilliard School, and
Jewish Theological Seminary (chapter 7), and, finally, a detailed examination of
the residential development of the area, focusing on the creation of a singular
middle-class apartment-house community in the early years of the twentieth
century (chapter 8). Although the post-World War II history of Morningside
Heights could easily be the subject of a separate work, a brief Afterword con-
cludes this study by examining a number of issues in the development of the
neighborhood in the second half of the twentieth century that relate to issues
developed in earlier chapters.
The institutional and residential development of Morningside Heights in
the last years of the nineteenth century and first decades of the twentieth cen-
tury is extremely complex, with significant events occurring simultaneously
throughout the community. Since a simple chronological approach would have
required jumping back and forth among many different institutions and resi-
dential developments within each period, I have decided, as described above,
totreat each institution separately. However, a chronology has been provided
which will make it easier for the reader to understand the overlapping histories
of the area’s institutional and residential development. An appendix provides a
building list, which includes the name, address, architect, owner, and date of
construction of each important building on Morningside Heights. Finally, be-
cause the endnotes are extremely detailed, only a brief bibliography, listing ma-
jor sources, is included.
The completion of this book would not have been possible without the aid
and support of many people. Since it was crucial to illustrate this book exten-
sively, I am extremely grateful for two financial grants that helped to pay for the
photographs and for the high quality production of the book, one from Fur-
thermore, the publication program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund and the other
from the Schoff Trust Fund of Columbia University’s University Seminars. I
was helped enormously by my official and unofficial readers whose comments
and encouragement were not only greatly appreciated, but also contributed to
the completeness and clarity of the final text, notably Mary Beth Betts, Debra
Gardner, Dorothy Miner, and Marjorie Pearson, who read the entire manu-
script, Bette Weneck, who commented on the Teachers College section, and,
most importantly, Paris R. Baldacci, who scrupulously read and edited the text
several times.