The Upper East Side is a neighborhood of great diversity. In addition to being able to claim our country's most affluent zip code (10021), there are a wide range of people inhabiting the area bound from 59th to 96th Streets and Central Park to the East River. Significant development of the Upper East Side began in the mid-19th century. Prior to this, very little construction occurred in this area since most people lived downtown and much of the land on the Upper East Side remained in the hands of the city government, or was divided into country estates. Beginning in the 1850s, wood frame houses began to spring up, but the area remained free of organized development of any kind. During the second half of the 19th century, the increase in the population of New York City was the primary catalyst for transforming areas north of Manhattan's settled districts at that time. Vast numbers of foreign immigrants and other American migrants flooded the city. Still, the Upper East Side experienced only speculative development activity in areas along Fourth (renamed Park Avenue in 1888) and Fifth Avenues. Plans were existed to expand significantly, but these plans were shattered due to the Panis of 1873 when a severe economic depression lasting for about six years devastated the region sending Upper East Side land prices plummeting. The Upper East Side regained its status as a prime location for speculative residential real estate investment in the 1880s as the New York area recovered financially and elevated railroads were built on Second and Third Avenues in 1880 and 1878 respectively. Most of the people who bought housing on the Upper East Side commuted to jobs located in downtown New York City. Almost the entire Upper East Side, with the exception of Fifth Avenue, was built up with residences by the early-1890s. The western sections of the Upper East Side had new construction which took the form of Neo-Grec, Queen Anne or Romanesque REvival stone or brick and stone rowhouses built for sale to the middle-class. These rowhouses were often purchased by business and professional people many of whom were successful immigrants with German, German-Jewish or Irish heritage. Further east, the presence of the noisy and dirty elevated train lines (described above) contributed to decisions to contruct larger tenements more accustomed to housing large numbers of working people. Fifth Avenue north of 59th Street was not considered to be a prestigious address prior to the 1890s. Up until this time, the wealthiest and most affluent people lived south of 59th street in mansions and rowhouses near Fifth Avenue. Fifth Avenue, along Central Park north of 59th street, was too expensive for many builders to touch however ... so these expensive plots remained vacant. The wealthy class began to dip its toe in the water of speculating in real estate along 5th avenue north of 59th street in the mid-1890s ... and by 1915 large palatial residences were erected on Fifth Avenue all the way up to 96th street! Once the wealthier class expanded into areas north of 59th street, a substantial number of the rowhouses on neighboring streets were demolished and replaced by newer, more elegant residences. New York Central's Railroad tracks which ran along Park Avenue were electrified and covered early in the 20th century which eliminated many of nuisance conditions which suppressed land values to that point in time. At this time the wide Park Avenue boulevard was transformed into a prime location for new residences, which were constructed by both real estate developers and wealthy individuals looking to build homes on Park Avenue for their own personal use. Many of these new residents employed a significant number of servants of English, Swedish or Norwegian descent. All of the above new housing construction was accompanied by that of institutional buildings such as churches, synagogues, clubs, schools and museums which served the social and spiritual needs of new residents. At this time, the Metropolitan Museum of Art undertook a major expansion as the Upper East Side had become an elite residential neighborhood. All of the major mansion and townhouse construction came to an end in about 1915 as rapidly escalating land values, the introduction of the income tax in 1913 and the scarcity of available servants rendered this area too expensive for all but the country's wealthiest individuals. At this time apartment houses began to be erected with all of the amenities expected in any high class single family home. Luxury apartment buildings appeared on the Upper East Side for the first time in the first decade of the 20th century, and rapidly expanded during the next two decades. Still, the idea of living in a single building with many other families had not caught on with everyone, and those affluent families with enough money pursued single-family construction of rowhouses and renovation of existing rowhouses further east on the Upper East Side. The depression and World War II times saw very little development on the Upper East Side. MORE COMING SOON! |
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