DEAD ENDS

This recently discovered photograph is a simple one ‒ a Dead End sign ‒ but is notable because of where it was. A clue lays right behind it, another sign stating the HOTEL TUDOR was ONE BLOCK away. The picture is taken from the Tudor City bridge, looking east. 

For further understanding, see this photo showing the Murray Hill Diner on the southwest corner of 1st and 42nd. The Hotel Tudor sign is at upper right in shadow. 

At the 41st Street cul-de-sac, there are plenty of signs today.  

There's also a sign at the southern border of Tudor City Place.

No Dead End signage has ever been posted at the 43rd Street cul-de-sac. Instead, we remember the fashion shoot that launched the swinging sixties here ‒ featuring Jean Shrimpton and a Curb Your Dog sign, above. More about that, here.

  

The FORGOTTEN Entrance to No. 5

Continuing our interest in 1st Avenue, we turn our attention today to views looking south. At first, this shot taken from 41st Street and 1st Avenue showed nothing unusual ‒ until we spotted a canopy leading into a building that turned out to be No. 5.  

 

A closer examination reveals the name Windsor Tower on the marquee. We look around further. One of the building's workers is on a ladder doing something, while nearby, a passerby takes in the scene.

A second photo ‒ taken on the same date, February 21, 1931 ‒ seems all about the Socony sign, which fronts a gas station. But again, a close-up view is more telling:   

This is an elevated view of the long-forgotten canopy, which would be gone within a year. Perhaps the street repair outside contributed, who knows.

RENOVATIONS

A number of rare photos taken during the 1952 transformation of Tudor City into something more appropriate for a neighborhood that would mesh with the UN. Roads were widened, a parkside sidewalk was added, and the tunnel replaced by a modern overpass. The redesign also included a much disliked split-rail fence around the parks that remains in place for 41 years.

Looking south from a Manor window, Tudor City Place (at left) appears driveable, but the parks are in a state of wild disarray. Above, one can see the North Park's fountain basin (center bottom) and to its right, the pergola. They wouldn't last in the start-from-scratch plan. 

The opposite view, facing north, showing a new feature being installed: a parkside sidewalk.  

 

        Across the street, workmen in front of No. 25.

Finally, a pile of pipes lay near one of the gazebos. Like all of the decorative details of the park ‒ the lich gates, the fountain, the pergola ‒ the gazebos did not make the cut.

Secret Tudor City: WEATHERVANE Edition

Hidden in plain sight atop a pavilion on No. 5 is Tudor City's very own weathervane.

This copper vane has been in place since 1930, and appears to be in good shape, though the N and W letters are missing. It was made by E.G. Washburne and Co., a prominent manufacturer of the time, again demonstrating Fred French's penchant for employing the finest craftsmen for Tudor City's details ‒ firms like Atlantic Terra Cotta and Richard Spiers & Son (who did the stained glass).

No. 5's weathervane is the sole survivor of a trio of vanes that once lined Tudor City Place, as pictured below.

The vanes atop Nos. 25 and 45 are both gone with the wind, who knows why or when. What remains today, below.

Vane holder, No. 45

Vane holder, No. 25

Lost Tudor City: THE RAMPS

Currently, there's only one way to enter Tudor City by car ‒ E. 41st Street ‒ and only one way out ‒ E. 43rd. Originally, however, there were two other options, a pair of ramps on either side of 42nd St. We believe they were constructed in the 1870s, around the same time that middle-class rowhouses began to appear on what was then known as Prospect Hill.

Above, a 1925 view, pre-Tudor, looking east down 42nd Street, then a three-lane boulevard bordered by a pair of ramps. The tunnel (at top center) was replaced in 1952 by the Tudor City Bridge. Not a single building in this photo still stands, save for the Church of the Covenant (whose steeple is at the upper right corner).

Opposite view of the ramps looking west down 42nd Street, around 1928. Second Avenue El in the distance. The white house at bottom center was a temporary rental office for Tudor City and set atop the tunnel. The rowhouses at center left will soon be replaced by the Woodstock and Hotel Tudor.

A romantic twilight view of the northern ramp looking toward the Chrysler Building. 1933 photo by Samuel Gottscho.

The ramps were demolished around 1950 when 42nd Street was widened to a six-lane boulevard, part of the neighborhood upgrades for the pending arrival of the United Nations. In their place today stand granite staircases.

Lost Tudor City: TAXI STAND Edition

Detail from 1930 brochure. The 'private street' was Prospect Place, now Tudor City Place.

Tudor City had its own taxi stand from the beginning, an idea very much in line with Fred French's desire to offer the most modern conveniences. Walking out the door and into a taxi moments later was an amazing thing at the time, the 1927 version of Uber. In 1927, the doormen hailed the cabs from the stand by telephone or by waving flashlights at night.

Located on the northwest corner of 41st Street and Prospect Place, the stand was opposite the community tennis courts (see map at right). The courts were demolished in 1954 and are now home to Tudor Gardens, No. 2.

Parmalee cabs had an exclusive deal for the taxi stand during the 1930s. Their advertising played up their gimmick ‒ retractable glass roofs ‒ which made the taxi's interior feel like it was being "swept by ocean breezes." Even better, the drivers "know all the short cuts around town."

A cab idling opposite the tennis courts in 1945, photo by the Wurts Bros. 
The 3-Hs, Hotel Tudor, Essex House and The Woodstock in the background. 

Another cab in front of No. 5, in a promotional photo illustrating Tudor City's many services.

✥  ✥  ✥  ✥  ✥

No discussion of Tudor City taxis would be complete without mentioning Martin Scorsese's movie, Taxi Driver, and its infamous scene shot in a cab parked alongside No. 25. See our earlier post about the sequence here, and a clip of the scene here. (foul language alert).

Taxi Driver's taxi pulls into the 41st Street cul-de-sac. No. 25 in the background.

Lost Tudor City: The GAZEBOS

This episode of Lost Tudor City spotlights two long-gone gazebos that once graced the South Park.

Octagonal pavilions made of heavy timber with shingled roofs, the gazebos were in the English style, in keeping with the overall design of the parks. Set on the north- and southeast corners of the park, they were in place from 1930 to 1949.

The southeastern gazebo, with No. 5 in the background.

Above, the northeastern gazebo depicted on a postcard, and on a wintertime cover of Tudor City View (photo by resident Sidney Lehman).

The gazebos were removed in 1949, when both parks were redesigned as part of the neighborhood upgrades for the arrival of the U.N. The redesign was not in the English style, and the gazebos never returned.

Lost Tudor City: The LICH GATES

This episode of Lost Tudor City examines the parks' original lich gate entrances.

The lich gate is a British invention, a roofed gateway at the entrance to a churchyard, used in the Middle Ages as a temporary resting place for the dead before interment. Over time, they became appropriate for garden entrances as well. In Tudor City, these entrances were a match for the parks' English scheme, a sedate mix of lawns, privet hedges, and graveled walks.

North Park lich gate, 1935, photographed by the Wurts Bros. 
View looks west across Prospect Place (now Tudor City Place).

South Park lich gate, 1949, photographed by resident C.F. Davis.

1930s ads picturing the gates.

Looking down at the North Park from a window in The Cloister. Lich gate at upper left, opening onto a graveled oval with a fountain as its centerpiece.

The gates were removed in 1949 when the parks were narrowed and redesigned as part of the neighborhood upgrades pending the arrival of the United Nations.

Lost Tudor City: FOUNTAIN Edition

This installment of Lost Tudor City concerns the long-gone fountain, above, that was the centerpiece of the North Park from 1927 to 1949.

Set in the center of a graveled oval opposite the lich gate entrance, it was the first thing a visitor to the North Park would encounter.

It was topped by a cherub holding a jug, astride a turtle. Water poured out of the jug, as well as from the mouths of lions circling the base.

Above, newspaper ads spotlighting the fountain and touting the enclave's city convenience, country charm, and cool wafting breezes.

No surprise, it was much beloved by small fry.

The parks were completely redesigned and the fountain removed in 1949, as part of the neighborhood upgrades pending the arrival of the U.N.

Lost Tudor City: DRUG STORE Edition

Once upon a time, Tudor City had its very own drug store, set in No. 25. In place when the building opened in 1928, it remained in business until the early 1970s.

After that, the drug store space became a Thomas Cook Travel Agency. Today, Conrad's Bike Shop and the Tudor Garden Nail Salon stand in its place.

Above right, a 1941 rendering of the drug store's location in No. 25.

The drug store was originally named Old English Tudor Chemists. Above, a 1944 ad offering everything from sunglasses to beach bags to leg makeup ‒ owing to the wartime nylon shortage.

The pet-friendly interior of the drug store, 1957. Cotton balls, Kleenex and eau de cologne share space with a rack of paperbacks in the rear.

By the 1960s, the name has changed to Tudor City Pharmacy, with a new focus on beauty products.  The Tudor City Luncheonette (mentioned above and pictured below) was a modest counter-service affair with half-a-dozen stools.

Tudor City Pharmacy, bottom right corner, circa 1960.

LOST TUDOR CITY: The Pergola

First of a new series, Lost Tudor City, honoring long-gone pieces of Tudor City's past. We begin with the North Park pergola, in place on opening day in 1927. 

The North Park is designed in the English style, with a gatehouse entrance, a fountain, wooden benches, gravel paths, and an expansive keep-off-the-grass lawn. And then there's the pergola, one of the few shady spots in the park. It's a simple, arbor-like affair, a graveled passageway lined with wooden beams and topped by wisteria vines, which provide the shade.

Looking south at the pergola in full bloom, with Nos. 5 and 25 in the background.

The bench design and manicured shrubbery are very much in the English style. 

Within the pergola. looking east toward the fountain, lich gate entrance and No. 45.

The pergola as part of the sales pitch, from a 1932 ad.

It remains in place until 1949, when the parks are narrowed and then completely redesigned, sans pergola.

Lost Tudor City -- FLAGPOLE Edition

The Tudor City flagpole, planted in the southeast corner of the North Park, was a short-lived structure, in place from 1934 to 1949. 

It was quite tall, extending far above the tree lines.

 Looking west from First Avenue, the flag flying above the 42nd Street tunnel.

Above, a circa-1949 rendering of the planned modernization of 42nd Street for the arrival of the United Nations. Although the flagpole appears in the sketch, it did not make the cut. Following the widening of Tudor City Place (and narrowing of the parks), the North Park was redesigned, sans flagpole.

There's still a flagpole in the complex today, a much smaller version over the entrance to the Post Office in No. 5. Tradition dies hard in Tudor City.