About this Event
In conjunction with the Grolier Club's exhibition Wish You Were Here: Guidebooks, Viewbooks, Photobooks, and Maps of New York City 1807-1940, Mosette Broderick, Clinical Professor of Art History in New York University's Faculty of Arts & Science, will speak on the history of Fifth Avenue. One of the most remarkable thoroughfares in the world, it appears on the Commissioners’ map of 1807 emerging from a country road and then in the proposed grid plan of 1811 as a major boulevard. By the late 1880s, Fifth Avenue was synonymous with a lavish fashionable life, grand mansions, and services catering to the wealthy. Above Washington Square, in the 1840s and 50s, mainly speculative brownstone rowhouses marched steadily northwards. Aggressive arrivistes such as Alva Vanderbilt and Marietta Stevens, meanwhile, employed European-influenced architects and decorators to build and furnish grand mansions in contrast to their brownstone neighbors.
And then, it was all gone. Swept away in the shadow of tall buildings, the New York house was no longer the ultimate symbol of identity. All that exquisite and substantial work quickly fell before the wrecker’s ball.
Professor Broderick's new book, Fifth Avenue, Architecture and Society: History of America's Street of Dreams (Unicorn), will be available for sale and signing at the event. Broderick, who is also the Director of the London MA Programme in Historical and Sustainable Architecture, has been a professor of architectural history and urban issues at NYU since 1989. She has also published Triumvirate: McKim Mead & White: Art, Architecture, Scandal and Class in America's Golden Age, and wrote the history portion of another book, The Villard Houses: Life Story of a Landmark.
Grolier Club Members
If you are a Grolier Club member, please register yourself and your guests via the Club website. Do not register via Eventbrite.
Public Support
We appreciate your interest in the Grolier Club’s programming on the art and history of the book. For more than 130 years we have offered our exhibitions and lectures to the public, free of charge. If you have enjoyed these offerings, and would like to support that tradition, and help ensure that it continues, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Grolier Club.
Accessibility
An ADA-compliant lift from street level to the lobby is available to anyone with mobility issues. All desk staff should be ready and able to assist you in operating the lift, with or without advance notice.
A “T-Coil” assisted listening system is available to anyone attending a lecture in the Exhibition Hall. Visitors with hearing aids should turn their devices to the “T” setting in order to access the system; visitors without hearing aids may request a “loop receiver” with earphones.
Environment
The temperature and humidity in the exhibition hall are tightly controlled for the sake of the valuable items on display, and this may cause the room to feel chilly, particularly in warmer weather, to those coming in from outside. Members and visitors are advised to bring a light wrap when visiting an exhibition, or attending an event in the hall.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
The Grolier Club, 47 East 60th Street, New York, United States
USD 0.00
