Yorkville-Carnegie Hill Part One

East 86th Street from Lexington Avenue looking East...the main thoroughfare of Yorkville...just as 96th Street to the North is becoming sort of the main drag of Carnegie Hill, with the boundary in between somewhere..

Oh, I should put something in here from old classic German Yorkville ( which has of course, changed radically)...here is the Immanuel Lutheran Church, a landmark which is adapting to a new scene..

 

 And its youth outreach...

Their is, by the way, a legitimate reason for calling the Northern Part of Yorkville Carnegie Hill,
I just remembered...  let me see what is on the net about this

Carnegie Hill is a neighborhood within the Upper East Side, in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. Its boundaries extend from 86th Street on the south to 96th Street to the north, between Fifth Avenue (Central Park) on the west and Third Avenue on the east.The neighborhood ranges from East 60th Street to East 77th Street south to north, by Lexington Avenue to the east, and by Fifth Avenue to the west.^[1] In the 2000s, the northern boundary on Park Avenue has edged over East 96th street into what was traditionally Spanish Harlem.^[2] The neighborhood is part of Manhattan Community Board 8. The area immediately north is sometimes called Upper Carnegie Hill.^[3]

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History

The Andrew Carnegie Mansion

The neighborhood is named for the mansion that Andrew Carnegie built at Fifth Avenue and 91st Street in 1901.^[4] Today the mansion houses the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, a branch of the Smithsonian Institution. Facing it on 91st Street is the Otto Kahn House (illustration below), a Florentine palazzo, now housing the Convent of the Sacred Heart. A number of other townhouses in the area have been converted to schools, including the recent purchase of the William Goadby and Florence Baker Loew House on 93rd Street^[5] by the Spence School. The Lycée Français, housed in the former Virginia Graham Fair Vanderbilt House, held an additional townhouse space on 93rd between Fifth and Madison Avenue until 2005, when the property was sold to a private owner.
The architecture of the neighborhood includes apartment buildings along Park Avenue and Fifth Avenue, brownstones (with stoops) and townhouses on the side streets, condos, co-ops and a handful of mansions, some of which are now used by organizations including the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, The Jewish Museum, the National Academy of Design and the Dalton School.^[6] From the 1950s to 1991, the National Audubon Society was housed in the Willard Straight House, a red brick Colonial Revival townhouse at 1130 Fifth Avenue. When it moved to NoHo, the International Center of Photography moved in but later consolidated its operations in Midtown near Bryant Park. In 2001, it again became a private residence. In 1989, the Jewish Museum demolished the 1963 modernist addition and courtyard, replacing it with a new extension opened in 1993 that mimics the French Gothic details of the Warburg Mansion, the museum's home since 1947. The limestone was crafted in Morningside Heights at the Cathedral Stoneworks. Frank Lloyd Wright's originally maligned and now celebrated Guggenheim Museum opened on Fifth Avenue in 1959.^[7][8] The New York Road Runners occupies a townhouse around the corner at 9 East 89th Street, a block informally known as Fred Lebow Place.^[9]
Similar to the official lines of the historic district, the borders of the neighborhood form an irregular rectangle^[6] and the northern boundary, which traditionally was 96th Street, has on Park Avenue edged into what was traditionally Spanish Harlem^[2]
The northern section neighborhood was once seen as a less fashionable end of the East Side, but is now prized for its esthetic sensibility, museums and restaurants.^[10] Besides, Andrew Carnegie, Marjorie Merriweather Post, Margaret Rockefeller Strong and John Hay Whitney all made their homes north of 90th Street.

The Otto H. Kahn House, Fifth Avenue at 91st Street

The Hardenbergh/Rhinelander Historic District lies within the neighborhood

Preservation

The Carnegie Hill Historic District, designated as such by the Landmarks Preservation Commission on July 23, 1974 and then expanded on December 21, 1993, runs from 86th Street in the south to just north of 98th Street in the north. Its western boundary is Central Park, and its eastern boundary varies from Madison Avenue in some parts to Lexington Avenue further east in others.^[11] There are efforts to expand this district in order to protect undesignated landmarks, including 179 East 93rd Street, where the Marx Brothers were raised.^[12] Proponents include the 93rd Street Beautification Association and Carnegie Hill Neighbors, an organization which, seeking to preserve the village-like environment, spurred the creation of the historic district and actively monitors its well being.^[13] In its more than thirty years of operation, its well-publicized battles have included advocating against an adult education center near the 92nd Street Y, plans for more high rise apartments and additions to existing brownstones.^[6][14]

But some confusion about the boundaries prevails.

For instance, this Armory at center was always thought to be in Yorkville but is in Carnegie Hill now..

This Mosque on East 96th Street is of course hard to place in terms of neighborhood, because it is on the Northern side of the boundary between Yorkville and East Harlem.....one reason to show this pic I snapped today is to show this guy I know in South Carolina that the streets are not blocked off  by Muslims praying all the time ( he sent me some Islamophobic circulating email showing all these people in the street from the time of some holiday with the implication it was a daily event...and the caption "This is New York?"

Not that the Mosque has not been involved in controversy... as I remember, its Imam left right after September 11 with the FBI still having a lot of questions they wanted to ask him...at least that's what I read at the time..

Have to see if there is something on the net about history of Mosque...yes, this from Wikipedia


The Islamic Cultural Center of New York is a mosque and Islamic cultural center in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is located at 1711 Third Avenue, between East 96th and 97th Streets. The Islamic Cultural Center was the first mosque built in New York City.^[1][2] The mosque's older dwelling in a townhouse at 1 Riverside Drive, is still in continual prayer use as a satellite location.

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Construction

Plans for a large Islamic center in New York were originally drawn up in the late 1960s as the first cultural center occupied a location at 1 Riverside Drive by 72nd street.^[3] The first Islamic Center started functioning on a small scale from a modest townhouse at that address. However, the board of trustees later aspired to build a new larger center in a way suiting its prestigious position in the community, and to be one of the landmarks of New York City.^[3] Later, an overall project comprising a mosque, a school, a library, a museum, and a lecture hall, were planned out. After years of delays which included raising funds from Muslim countries, a prolonged process of relocating tenants, and the eventual demolition of the buildings on the site; construction of the Islamic Cultural Center began in October 1984.^[4] Construction of the associated mosque began on May 28, 1987, the day which corresponded to the end of Ramadan.^[1] The cornerstone of the minaret was laid on September 26, 1988.^[2]
Construction was delayed during the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait and the First Gulf War.^[5] The mosque opened on April 15, 1991, for the feast of Eid ul-Fitr.^[6] In the end, more than 46 Muslim countries made contributions toward the $17 million construction cost of the mosque.^[7]

Orientation

Like all mosques, the mosque at the Islamic Cultural Center of New York is oriented toward Mecca.^[8] Consequently, the building is rotated 29° from Manhattan's north-south street grid.^[9] which in turn is rotated 29° from due north-south. The precise calculation of the direction from New York to Mecca was based on the great circle that produces the shortest distance between the two cities.^[8]

One Riverside Drive, the site of New York's first Islamic cultural center

Controversies

Two imams (spiritual leaders) of the Islamic Cultural Center have made controversial statements.
The first, Sheik Muhammad Gemeaha, said in an interview that "only the Jews" were capable of the September 11 attacks and "if it became known to the American people, they would have done to Jews what Hitler did."^[10][11] He also stated that as "Allah described it," Jews "disseminate corruption in the land" and are responsible for the spread of "heresy, homosexuality, alcoholism, and drugs."^[12]
The interview took place on October 4, 2001, a week after Gemeaha suddenly resigned as imam at the Islamic Center and returned to his home in Egypt.^[13]
Gemeaha's replacement, Omar Saleem Abu-Namous, condemned the September 11 attacks, but argued there was no "conclusive evidence" that Muslims were responsible.^[14]

Outreach

Imam Abu-Namous engaged in a series of interfaith dialogues with prominent Muslim leaders and rabbis.^[15] Abu-Namous's successor as imam, Mohammed Shamsi Ali, continued the meetings.^[16]

And I think we will just end on this shot of a man slumbering peacefully in an apartment building garden on East 96th Street...Hope he has plenty of sunscreen on....

To be continued