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The Bowery, Manhattan


The Young Men's Institute Branch of the YMCA, 1884-1932
The wide avenue called the Bowery (Dutch for farm), an entry road into downtown New York, was lined with inns, taverns and shops along its route from Cooper Square to Chatham Square near City Hall. It was called "thieves' highway" by Jacob Riis, the nineteenth-century photographer/ journalist, who described "swarms" of young men "fresh from good homes," with hopes, but not much money, who gravitated to the Bowery with its twenty-five-cent lodging houses. Riis estimated that more than nine thousand homeless young men lodged nightly on or near the Bowery. YMCA records stated that to reach young men who "were not yet hardened," the organization established a Bowery Branch; the upper four floors of 243 Bowery (stili standing) were leased in 1882, and this space provided reading and meeting rooms and lodging accommodations for sixty.2
William E. Dodge, a director of the YMCA, had helped finance the Bowery Branch, and his son Cleveland, two years out of college, became its chairman in 1881, serving until 1884, when he became the first Chairman of the Young Men's Institute.3 In 1885 Cleveland H. Dodge described the establishment of the Young Men's Institute.
The Bowery Branch has long done a noble work, in reaching and helping fallen and destitute men. Being distinctly a relief work, from the very nature of the case, it has not been able to reach the larger class of hard-working independent young men. There has therefore, long been a need in that part of the city for an attractive building, in which to help this latter class to a full and wholesome development. The Association bought the two lots, 222 and 224 Bowery, in June, 1882. Money was raised for a building in the winter of 1884, and on the 1st of July ground was broken. In about a year the building was ready for occupancy. The name Young Men's Institute was chosen to distinguish it effectively from the Bowery Branch ... On the 15th of October the building was opened.4
The concept of a building where inner-city men could fraternally enjoy athletic, social and intellectual rapport was innovative, and the Institute Branch, the first branch building erected by the Board of Directors, is the first manifestation in New York of what would be the modern YMCA.
Architect Bradford L. Gilbert had been introduced to the Committee of Management of the Bowery Branch in February 1883, by Chairman Cleveland Dodge. Gilbert presented his design for the proposed new Bowery building to the YMCA Board of Directors meeting on April 21, 1884, on the recommendation of Vice-President Cornelius Vanderbilt II. Vanderbilt was an enthusiastic member of the Directors' committee that named the new building, and at their meeting on January 19,1885, "after a lengthened consultation, on motion of Mr. Vanderbilt, the new Building was named The Young Men's Institute."
In his first annual report to the YMCA Directors, Cleveland H. Dodge described the aim of the Institute ~ to provide for the physical, intellectual and spiritual health of its members. He reported that the gymnasium and its calisthenic classes were fully functioning; that the Institute held such weekly cultural events as lectures, concerts, and debates, as well as "entertainments" accompanied by the Institute's own orchestra and glee club. The circulating library had a thousand volumes, and six educational classes had beeen initiated — free-hand, mechanical and architectural drawing, bookkeeping, pensmanship and arithmetic. Dodge reported that many members were mechanics and that the Institute intended to try to attract more of that profession by providing practical industrial classes in the future. Spiritual fellowship was provided through Sunday activities including a Bible talk and a reading club in the afternoon, and a Gospel meeting and a prayer meeting in the evening.
Any man between 17 and 35 years of age by agreeing to be governed by the rules of the Institute and by paying his dues could become a member. In 1886, lecturers included the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, and the Honorable Theodore Roosevelt gave two talks on hunting and ranching in the far West. In the fall of 1886, an Institute trade class for carriage builders was opened under the auspices of the National Carriage Builders Association, which paid the teachers. This class was a carriage design and drafting course, and the Annual Report for 1889 states that "the class in carriage drafting ... still holds its position as the one class on this subject in the country, maintaining its work in the [Institute] building and through correspondence." In 1887 an English grammar classes was begun, primarily for immigrants. From 1903, this course was specifically called "English for Italians."
Also in 1903 classes were initiated to prepare young men for examinations in Federal and Municipal Civil

Financial District, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States

This 35-story, Art Deco skyscraper opened in 1930 as the Downtown Athletic Club. A membership association geared toward businessmen and lawyers who worked in lower Manhattan, the Downtown Athletic Club was founded in 1926. By 1927 it had purchased this site next to the Hudson River to construct its own building. The high cost of land necessitated a tall building, and the relatively small lot size dictated that the different functions and facilities of the club, including swimming pool, gymnasium, miniature golf course, squash, and tennis courts, as well as dining rooms and living quarters, be accommodated on separate floors. The Downtown Athletic Club became most famous as the home of the Heisman Trophy, given every year to the most outstanding college football player, and named after John Heisman, the club’s first athletic director. The prolific architectural firm of Starrett & Van Vleck designed the building. The same firm created the neighboring tower at 21 West Street (a designated New York City Landmark), with which the Club shares its modernistic style and skillfully applied brickwork. The boxy shape and variety of setbacks in the Downtown Athletic Club Building demonstrate the effects of the 1916 Building Zone Resolution, but also give some indication of the various purposes assigned to different sections of the building. The architects juxtaposed the simple massing of the building with stylized, theater-like entrance prosceniums on both facades and a dextrous use of flat and angled brick, creating a dramatic addition to the city’s skyline. The

powerful chevron motifs in the rectangular areas over the entrances and in the spandrels between the windows of the upper stories are a variation of a common design theme of the period, reflective of the speed and energy of the Jazz Age.

DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS

History of the Area

The southernmost tip of Manhattan is the oldest inhabited part of the island. It was so densely built up that early in the city's history, the areas adjacent to the shore facing the East River began to be filled in to create more useable land. On the west side, this process did not begin until 1835, when a devastating fire created the need for a place to deposit the resulting debris, causing prominent landowners from the area to petition the city to have West Street extended southward from Cedar Street to the Battery. Thus the entire block of West Street, from Battery Place to Morris Street (where the Downtown Athletic Club is located), is built upon landfill in the Hudson River; in accordance with the terms of certain water grants made earlier by the city. The earliest occupants of this newly-created area constructed individual buildings (houses, store and dwellings, stables, or tenements) on standard 25-foot lots. Over the course of the nineteenth century, as lower Manhattan became a strictly commercial area, piers were built around the rim of Manhattan island, and ownership of this block of West Street began to change from individuals to realty and warehouse companies. These new owners purchased numerous small lots and assembled larger parcels to accommodate new, larger industrial and office buildings. The lots on which the Downtown Athletic Club Building was constructed were purchased by the Whitehall Realty Company (a large landholder in the area) in 1909. They were resold to the Downtown Athletic Club in 1927, for its headquarters.

The Downtown Athletic Club

The Downtown Athletic Club was founded in 1926 as a membership association providing convenient recreational facilities for men, primarily lawyers and businessmen who worked in lower Manhattan. First located in the Singer Building at 149 Broadway, the expanding club soon purchased six lots in the middle of the block south of Morris Street, facing West and Washington Streets. By 1928, according to club president and financier, Schuyler Van Vechten Hoffman, the club had 1,000 members and was planning a 44-story building, which was to include (among other facilities) a full, 18-hole golf course. The first published design by Starrett & Van Vleck showed a classically-detailed, pyramid-topped tower similar to other early work by the firm. Less than a year later, the building had been scaled back to 35 stories and took the simplified, modernistic form of the existing building.

At the opening of the clubhouse in September, 1930, the Downtown Athletic Club claimed 3,286 members, including 1,000 life members. The club had its own manager, athletic director, and boxing instructor, and facilities in the new building included a swimming pool; miniature golf course; racquet, squash, and tennis courts; bowling alleys; and billiard rooms; as well as 143 sleeping rooms and several dining rooms.

Starrett & Van Vleck

Goldwin Starrett (1874-1918) Ernest Allen Van Vleck (1875-1956)

Goldwin Starrett was one of five brothe