Engineering Societies' Building

The American Radiator Building (also known as the American Standard Building) is an early skyscraper at 40 West 40th Street, just south of Bryant Park, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It was designed by Raymond Hood and André Fouilhoux in the Gothic and Art Deco styles for the American Radiator Company. The original section of the American Radiator Building, a 338 ft-tall (103 m), 23-story tower, was completed in 1924. A five-story annex, to the west of the original tower, was built from 1936 to 1937. The original structure consists of an eighteen-story tower above a base of five stories, while the western annex only rises five stories. The American Radiator Building's facade is made predominantly of black brick. Gold-colored decorations are used on the building's setbacks and pinnacles. Hood had intended for the original structure to be a standalone shaft, requiring the building to be set back from the lot line and reducing the maximum amount of space available. Inside, the basement, first, and second floors were originally designed as exhibition showrooms, while the upper stories served as office space. The building was completed five years before the American Radiator Company merged with Standard Sanitary Manufacturing Company to form American Radiator and Standard Sanitary Corporation, later known as American Standard. American Standard sold the building in 1988 to a Japanese company. The main building was sold in 1998 to Philip Pilevsky, who opened the Bryant Park Hotel there in 2001. The annex operated as the Katharine Gibbs School from 2001 to 2009 and was converted into the City University of New York's Guttman Community College in 2012. The American Radiator Building is a New York City designated landmark and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Engineers' Club Building, also known as Bryant Park Place, is a residential building at 32 West 40th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, United States. Located on the southern edge of Bryant Park, it was constructed in 1907 along with the adjoining Engineering Societies' Building. It served as the clubhouse of the Engineers' Club, a social organization formed in 1888. The building was designed by Henry D. Whitfield and Beverly S. King, of the firm Whitfield & King, in the neo-Renaissance style. The building's facade is divided into three horizontal sections. The lowest three stories comprise a base of light-colored stone, including a colonnade with Corinthian-style capitals. Above that is a seven-story shaft with a brick facade and stone quoins. The top of the building has a double-height loggia and a cornice with modillions. Inside, the building contained accommodations for the Engineers’ Club, including 66 bedrooms and club meeting rooms. In the early 20th century, the Engineers' Club Building was connected to the Engineering Societies' Building. The Engineers' Club Building was partially funded by Andrew Carnegie, who in 1904 offered money for a new clubhouse for New York City's various engineering societies. The Engineers' Club did not want to share a building with the other societies, so an architectural design competition was held for two clubhouse buildings. The Engineers' Club Building served as a clubhouse until 1979, after which it became a residential structure. The building became a cooperative apartment called Bryant Park Place in 1983. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007, and the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the building as a landmark in 2011.

Stella and Charles Guttman Community College is a public community college in New York City. It is the newest of the City University of New York's (CUNY) community colleges and was founded on September 11, 2011. It opened on August 20, 2012 as New Community College. In April 2013 the college was renamed following a $15 million endowment from the Stella and Charles Guttman Foundation. Guttman offers associate degree programs with majors in liberal arts, sciences, business, human services, information technology (IT), and urban studies. Students are accepted with either a high school diploma or Certificate of High School Equivalency.

The Bryant is a residential building at 16 West 40th Street, south of Bryant Park, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, developed by HFZ Capital Group and designed by the firm of architect David Chipperfield. The building topped out in 2016, and construction ended in 2018.

New York Crystal Palace was an exhibition building constructed for the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations in New York City in 1853, which was under the presidency of the mayor Jacob Aaron Westervelt. The building stood in Reservoir Square.

Gertrude Stein is an outdoor bronze sculpture of Gertrude Stein, located at Bryant Park in Manhattan, New York. The casting was installed in 1992 and is based on a model created by Jo Davidson in Paris in 1923. It neighbors the New York Public Library Main Branch, which, according to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, commemorates Stein's "significant literary contributions".

The Bryant Park Studios (formerly known as the Beaux-Arts Building) is an office building at 80 West 40th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, at the corner of 40th Street and Sixth Avenue. The building, overlooking the southwest corner of Bryant Park, was designed by Charles A. Rich in the French Beaux-Arts style. Built from 1900 to 1901 by Abraham A. Anderson, the building is one of several in Manhattan that were built in the early 20th century as both studios and residences for artists. The Bryant Park Studios is 10 stories tall with several mezzanine levels. The lowest two stories of the facade are clad in rusticated blocks of terracotta, while the other stories have pink brick with terracotta and stone decoration. The brickwork of the facade contains both broad and narrow bays, and the northern side facing 40th Street contains large studio windows facing Bryant Park. The Cafe des Beaux-Arts once operated at the ground story and basement. The upper stories had forty units, the largest of which was Anderson's own double-story penthouse. Since the late 20th century, the former studios have served mostly as offices and showrooms, and the lower stories have contained storefronts. The Bryant Park Studios was developed by Anderson, who leased the building to another company in 1920. Anderson lived in his penthouse until his death in 1940, after which his family sold the building. By the late 20th century, the building was converted for office use. The Bryant Park Studios was designated a city landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) in 1988. The building has been owned since 1980 by the Mountain Development Corporation, which restored the building in the late 1980s and the 2000s.

Lord & Taylor is an American e-commerce retailer which was originally the oldest surviving department store in the United States. Founded in 1826, the retail chain declared bankruptcy in 2020, ceasing brick-and-mortar operations in 2021.

The Hotel Royal fire occurred on February 7, 1892, at the Hotel Royal in New York City, killing 28 people. The fire began in the hotel's elevator shaft, where the night engineer was performing maintenance work by the light of a candle. The candle's flame either ignited a gas leak in the shaft, or it caught a dry tinder such as dust and was then flamed by the strong winds blowing through the shaft. A coroner's jury assigned no fault for the fire and made no recommendations for safety improvements; however, legislation was introduced in the New York State Assembly that sought to tighten the building code in light of the fire as well as the 1891 Park Place disaster.

An outdoor bronze portrait bust of German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe by sculptor Karl Fischer is installed on the south side of Bryant Park in Manhattan, New York. It is a replica of an iron and copper bust created by Fischer around 1832, the year of Goethe's death. Acquired by the Goethe Society of America in 1987, it was displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art until it was relocated to Bryant Park in 1932. Following its installation there, the iron and copper bust was replaced with a bronze casting and dedicated on February 15, 1932. The sculpture was refurbished in 1992 by the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation. The sculpture sits on a Swedish black granite pedestal.

The William Cullen Bryant Memorial is an outdoor sculpture of William Cullen Bryant, located at Bryant Park in Manhattan, New York. The bronze statue was created by Herbert Adams and installed in 1911, the year the New York Public Library Main Branch building was completed.The statue of William Cullen Bryant was one of the statues of “Eminent Americans” that surrounded the Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, California. The William Cullen Bryant Memorial was a bronze of the same work by Herbert Adams. A portion of Bryant's poem, Thanatopsis, is at the base of the monument behind the New York Public Library which was not a part of the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition work.Adam's sculpture of Bryant is of an authoritative, elderly man in a conventional business suit with a throw on Bryant's lap suggesting he is a sedentary man, likely to retreat to his books and papers. He sits on an ancient Greek styled chair that recalls his love of the classics. The Bryant Memorial is an example of the legacy of the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago which spurred the City Beautiful movement in New York. The City Beautiful Movement, includes many of New York's grandest public buildings: the New York Public Library, the Customs House at Bowling Green, Pennsylvania Station and Grand Central Station.

The Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations was a World's Fair held in 1853 in what is now Bryant Park in New York City, in the wake of the highly successful 1851 Great Exhibition in London. It aimed to showcase the new industrial achievements of the world and also to demonstrate the nationalistic pride of a relatively young nation and all that she stood for. Jacob Aaron Westervelt, at that time Mayor of New York, was the President of the exhibition-committee. The general superintendent was Admiral Du Pont. Opening on July 14, 1853 with newly sworn President Franklin Pierce in attendance, the fair was seen by over 1.1 million visitors before it closed on November 14, 1854. The fair featured its own glass and iron exhibition building – the New York Crystal Palace – directly inspired by London's. The Palace was destroyed by fire on October 5, 1858.Walt Whitman, an American poet, wrote "The Song of the Exposition": ... a Palace, Lofter, fairer, ampler than any yet, Earth's modern wonder, History's Seven out stripping, High rising tier on tier, with glass and iron facades, Gladdening the sun and sky - enhued in the cheerfulest hues, Bronze, lilac, robin's-egg, marine and crimson Over whose golden roof shall flaunt, beneath thy banner, Freedom. Adjoining the Crystal Palace was the Latting Observatory, a wooden tower 315 feet (96 m) high, which allowed visitors to see into Queens, Staten Island and New Jersey. The tower, taller than the spire of Trinity Church at 290 feet (88 m), was the tallest structure in New York City from the time it was constructed in 1853 until it burnt down on August 30, 1856.Today, the expo is also remembered as the place where Elisha Otis demonstrated an elevator equipped with a device called a safety, which would kick in if the hoisting rope broke. This addressed a major public concern regarding the safety of elevators. Three years later, Otis installed the first passenger elevator in the United States in a New York City store.