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Vol. 24, No. 8 October 30, 1998

A Tale of One Neighborhood: Morningside Heights; Andrew S. Dolkart Examines Its Architectural History in His New Book

By Hannah Fairfield

The woman hugged her newly purchased book and said she couldn't wait to read it.

"I grew up in this neighborhood and I came back as an adult because I thought it was the greatest place to live," said Ena Haines, the director of computing and information services at Teachers College. "Everyone I know who lives here loves the neighborhood, and now we have a book that tells its story."

That story is told by Andrew S. Dolkart, a 1977 graduate of the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and now adjunct associate professor at Columbia, who is known as the best walking tour guide for New York neighborhoods and structures. His new book Morningside Heights: A History of Its Architecture and Development (Columbia University Press), is the first of its kind ever published on the history of the Morningside Heights neighborhood.

"There is such an incredible concentration of architecture in great institutions here," Dolkart said. "I was fascinated about how the community grew-it had a different path of development than any other in the city."

Its different path-the community was bypassed by the general pattern of urbanization that swept over the rest of Manhattan-allowed the architectural wealth of churches and colleges to flourish. The neighborhood's reputation for grand architecture spread nationwide. Dolkart found in an archive an 1896 Dayton, Ohio newspaper clipping that proclaimed: "No more beautiful sight is found in New York on a bright winter's day than the spectacle of the late afternoon sun shining upon the domes, spires and windows of the new modern buildings which have been built on Morningside Heights, which has been rightly termed the Acropolis of the New World."

Hyperbole perhaps, Dolkart admits, but not far off the mark.

"The use of the term 'acropolis' came to have a broader metaphorical significance, likening New York's developing religious, academic and institutional center to the great symbol of the flowering of culture in Periclean Athens," Dolkart writes in the book's introduction. The book is organized into chapters that focus on building for the spirit, body and mind-leading the reader through the development of St. John the Divine and Riverside Church, St. Luke's Hospital, Columbia University, Barnard College, Teachers College, the theological seminaries and music schools. The last chapter, which Dolkart confides is his favorite, is "Building for Profit"-a description of the growth of the residential community. "I wanted the book to be about both the extraordinary and the ordinary," he said. "The institutions are extraordinary, but the apartment houses are ordinary-they typify New York's early 20th century residences and an understanding of these buildings is crucial for an understanding of the city."

The concentration of institutions, Dolkart argues, is caused by the neighborhood's isolation from development before 1892. He cites three reasons for this: the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum occupied much of the land and its presence discouraged development, Morningside Heights was a rocky plateau that made building difficult, and until 1904, it was not connected to the lines of mass transportation. When the insane asylum relocated to White Plains, land in the neighborhood became available. This occurred just as Columbia-then located at Madison Avenue and East 49th Street-was looking for land on which to build a new campus.

By following Dolkart's lead, a reader can literally watch the neighborhood grow from 1892, when the cornerstone was laid at St. John the Divine, to the present, as Columbia anticipates the 1999 opening of the modern glass and ramp structure of Lerner Hall, the future student center.

Of all the stately buildings belonging to those institutions, St. Paul's Chapel at Columbia is one of his favorites. "Everything you see is structural-the ornament is the structure of the building," he said. "Inside, it's all brick and structural tiles used in an extraordinarily beautiful manner. Beautifully proportioned, very subtly done."

Dolkart's mastery of detail enriches the stories behind the people and politics involved in the construction. He includes a picture of the installation of the columns in Low Library, which were so wide that Seth Low was not able to get the Connemara marble from Ireland that he wanted for the 18 columns. He secured the green marble for two front columns, but for the others in the Rotunda, he had to settle for polished green granite from Vermont. This was particularly galling because NYU was able to get the Irish marble for its smaller library columns.

"I tried to tell the stories of people and events that created Morningside Heights in an entertaining and accessible manner," he said. "The stories are what illustrate the development of a community."