East 19th Street

Nineteenth Street between Irving Place and 3rd Avenue is a delight. It's the best of what the Gramercy Park neighborhood has to offer: an affluent neighborhood that doesn't take itself too seriously, and isn't afraid to get funky.

The buildings are 19th Century brownstones which are pretty typical of this area. In the early 20th century, this guy named Fred Sterner remodeled his house and some other houses on this block. He added some beautiful details, a lot of them in the Spanish Mission style.
Other people followed suit- this whole block is a wonderful amalgam of styles and details.

 

An old carriage house.
I love old slate sidewalks. The circles you see above are the openings for old coal chutes. The chute went down into the basement where the furnace was. Coal furnaces were eventually replaced by cleaner-burning oil ones. In the image on the right, you can see where an oil pipe was inserted into the coal chute and filled around with cement. Eventually that pipe was also filled in.
 
 
 

 

  
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