We met on the northeast corner of 86th and Broadway. We proceeded east on
86th to the entrance to the Belnord. The Belnord was one of the first
middle- to upper-class apartment buildings built in New York. Built in
1908, the Belnord features high ceilings, large apartments, elevators, and
a large central courtyard with gardens and a driveway. It takes up the
entire block and affords its residents considerable amounts of both light
and air. We proceeded back along 86th towards the river, stopping to look
at the facades of some of the older buildings, which were built in a Dutch
style with a stepped facade. On the corner of West End and 86th, we
stopped to look at a landmark church. We proceeded towards Riverside Drive
and saw the lobby of the Normandy. We heard all the lurid details of
William Randolph Hearst's affairs and saw the remnants of the passageway
that he built to connect two penthouse apartments. We headed down West End,
noticing the tall apartment buildings on the avenues and the shorter
brownstones on the side streets. We crossed over to Broadway and then
along 82nd Street toward Columbus, where Professor Jackson told us the
long history of a building which was once an SRO, army housing, and an upscale
apartment complex. It is currently making a comeback as the neighborhood
is becoming gentrified. We walked past the American Museum of Natural
History and the construction of the new planetarium to the New York Historical
Society, where we saw an exhibit on settlement houses in New York.
