The local paper for the Upper East Side
VOL. 45, ISSUE 08
WEEK OF FEBRUARY HONORING JACKIE ROBINSON ◄ P.12
21-27 2019
FROM HORSES TO CARS TO DOCTORS DEVELOPMENT As Lenox Hill Hospital expands and shifts its campus to the east, it is taking over a landmark parking garage and onetime riding academy that made equestrian history in the 19th century
THE ETERNAL ORPHANAGE COMMUNITY A Yorkville priest and the head of an elite private school thrash out a plan to memorialize a beloved vestige of a 19th-century chapel — even as its inevitable disappearance looms
I do not doubt that one day, this relic of the past will reemerge to astonish future generations.”
BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
Horses were everywhere in 1888: They hauled coal, fronted pushcarts, pulled wagons, conveyed passengers and served in the parks and piers. But there was one place no one expected to find them — cavorting on the third floor of a commercial building, 60-plus feet above street level. So New Yorkers were dumbfounded when a new “riding ring in the sky” with room for 140 saddle horses opened its doors on East 75th Street. And they surged up the cleated ramps of the Park Avenue Stables to watch the animals trot, jump, canter and gallop atop the tanbark and beaten clay. “Quite a novelty,” wrote The Engineering and Building Record in June that year. “It is the first elevated-ring riding academy in New York City.” As it happens, it may also have been the last. Flash forward 131 years: Epochal changes came to the block between Park and Lexington Avenues. First, the horseback-riding school closed. Then, the stables were shuttered. Next, a succession of parking garages occupied the space. Now, a Lenox Hill Hospital facility is set to move in.
The clock is quickly ticking on the future of the Ghostly Remnant of East 90th Street. But there’s good news, too: Due to a breakthrough deal hammered out in a Feb. 15 meeting, the majestic ruin will be commemorated forever. Construction of a new field house for the Spence School on the block between First and York Avenues is already underway. And as it advances, the beloved fragment that survived from the chapel of the old St. Joseph’s Orphan Asylum will vanish from view. Built in 1898 to serve the orphanage, which was founded in 1857, the neo-Classical, brick-and-stone church has endured, in truncated form, ever since. That won’t change. But late this year or in 2020, the vestige is expected to be obscured, perhaps indefinitely, behind the six-story, 85-foot tall athletic complex that Spence is now building directly to the east. It won’t go quietly: Its fans have been fighting to save it ever since Our Town chronicled its history, status and uncertain future in two articles in January, “The Ghostly Remnant” and “Rallying for a Remnant.” In response, East Side City Council Member Ben Kallos — who once lived in the condo at 402 East 90th St. in which the remnant is spectacularly
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BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
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A LIFE OF HER OWN: A HUNTER GRAD’S JOURNEY ▲ P.6
AMAZON LESSON: NO MORE CLOSED DOORS ▲ P.8
CONGESTION PRICING, EXPLAINED ▲ P.19
A seven-story vestige of an old Yorkville chapel, embedded into a neighboring building, stands sentinel over an empty lot where the Spence School is constructing a new field house. The facade will vanish from view when the work is completed, but the chapel will be memorialized both inside and outside the new Spence building. Photo: Sarah Greig Photography / FRIENDS of the Upper East Side Historic Districts
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Jewish women and girls light up the world by lighting the Shabbat candles every Friday evening 18 minutes before sunset. Friday, February 22 – 5:21 pm. For more information visit www.chabaduppereastrside.com.
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