1 The Bowne House
A Queens farmhouse of 1661 that became a birthplace of American religious freedom.
Every building in the book sits on a lot with a zoning district, a land use category and a community board, the same as any other address. Tap a building to pull its full card.
The longer versionRead ▼
The list is Sam Roberts’. The buildings, their order and the historical note on each come from A History of New York in 27 Buildings. What this page adds is the lot underneath each one. Brooklyn Borough Hall is listed last as an addition to the book’s twenty-seven, not part of it.
Nothing here is calculated. Every tile opens the citywide address search, which reads zoning and land use from PLUTO and districts from Geoclient. All 28 addresses were run through that search and the card’s own answer recorded.
Fourteen are individual landmarks. Three sit inside the African Burial Ground and the Commons historic district, one in the St Mark’s historic district. Six carry no landmark designation at all, including the building where the Triangle Shirtwaist fire happened, which is protected as an interior of NYU rather than by the city.
History does not follow zoning. The Empire State Building sits across C5-3 and C6-4.5. The Sixty-ninth Regiment Armory touches three districts. Pier A is zoned BPC, the Battery Park City district, and the Coney Island Boardwalk is simply PARK.
One address was corrected. The boardwalk is listed by intersection, which a geocoder cannot resolve; 3625 Riegelmann Boardwalk was accepted after geocoding within 400 metres of the stretch the book names.
In the order the book tells them 28
Chronological, from a 1661 Queens farmhouse to an Art Deco telegraph building that carries the modern internet. Each opens its own address card.
2 St. Paul's Chapel
Built in 1766, Manhattan's oldest surviving public building, and a survivor of the 1776 Great Fire and of 9/11.
3 Federal Hall
The epicentre of early American democracy and the site of George Washington's first inauguration.
4 City Hall
Completed in 1812, the oldest continuously operating city hall in the nation.
5 Domino Sugar Refinery
An industrial icon on the Brooklyn waterfront that once processed most of the sugar consumed in America.
6 Tweed Courthouse
A monument to nineteenth-century political corruption and the Tammany Hall machine.
7 The Marble Palace
Built as the nation's first department store, transforming American retail. Later the Sun Building.
8 21 Stuyvesant Street
An early 1800s federal-style townhouse tied to Peter Stuyvesant's descendants.
9 The High Bridge
The city's oldest standing bridge, built to carry the Croton Aqueduct across the Harlem River.
10 123 Lexington Avenue
The brownstone where Chester A. Arthur was sworn in as President in 1881.
11 Pier A
A harbour landmark and police station at Battery Park, a maritime gateway to the city.
12 The IRT Powerhouse
The Romanesque powerhouse built to generate electricity for the original subway lines.
13 The Bossert Hotel
The Waldorf-Astoria of Brooklyn, and the site of the Dodgers' 1955 World Series celebration.
14 The Asch Building
Site of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which catalysed nationwide labour reform. Now NYU's Brown Building.
15 The Flatiron Building
A pioneering triangular skyscraper that redefined the Midtown skyline.
16 The Lyceum Theatre
Broadway's oldest continuously operating legitimate theatre.
17 Sixty-ninth Regiment Armory
The armoury that hosted the 1913 Armory Show, introducing Americans to modern art.
18 The American Bank Note Plant
A fortified South Bronx plant built to print currency, stocks and stamps.
19 Grand Central Terminal
A Beaux-Arts civic monument that rescued Midtown and redefined public space.
20 The Apollo Theater
Harlem's cultural epicentre and a crucible for African American music and performance.
21 The Coney Island Boardwalk
A public walkway that democratised summer leisure for working-class New Yorkers.
22 Bank of United States
The branch bank whose December 1930 collapse ruined thousands of immigrant depositors.
23 The Empire State Building
Built at record speed during the depths of the Depression.
24 The Hunter College Gymnasium
Where the United Nations Security Council first gathered on American soil in 1946. Now Lehman College.
25 First Houses
The nation's first low-income public housing project.
26 134 East Sixtieth Street
A townhouse converted into a pioneering community centre for shelter and rehabilitation.
27 60 Hudson Street
An Art Deco fortress built for telegraphy, later one of the most critical internet hubs on Earth.
28 Brooklyn Borough Hall
Brooklyn’s city hall until consolidation in 1898, and still the seat of the borough presidency.
Related
Every card is generated live by the citywide address search: zoning and land use from PLUTO, districts from Geoclient. Building list and historical context from Sam Roberts, A History of New York in 27 Buildings. Each address verified against the card.