The Most Beautiful Houses: North McBride Street

Syracuse. NY. 306 North McBride Street. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Syracuse. NY. 306 North McBride Street. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Syracuse. NY. 304 North McBride Street. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Syracuse. NY. 306 North McBride Street. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

The Most Beautiful Houses: North McBride Street
by Samuel D. Gruber

Syracuse. NY. 306 North McBride Street. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Few would disagree that the late 19th-century Queen Anne style is the most intricate and ornamental of all the popular residential architectural styles that came and went during the 19th-century. We call that period the Victorian era - though why I am not sure - since we are in America, not the UK.  Perhaps it is better to think of the decades after the Civil War as the Gilded Age, a name that refers to the ostentatious display of wealth of the elite - the one percent of the day. The term was first applied by historians in the 1920s (another period of rampant materialism), inspired by Mark Twain's satiric tale The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, first published in 1873. But the term also aptly refers to the delicate decoration (more cake icing than gold leaf)  that adorned so many houses built from the 1870s until the Depression of  the 1890s, after which there was a widespread embrace of Renaissance and Classical motifs in architecture and throughout the visual arts.

Syracuse was once filled with houses in the Queen Anne style with a full display of ornate wrap-around porches, turrets and towers, and all sorts of decorated doorways, windows, dormers and every shape of roof.  Variations of these elements are sometimes called "stick style" or "Eastlake-inspired," due to the abundance use of machine-turned wooden deocrative spindled, raisl, brackets and other elements. It was all part of the same fashion; one that also filled these house interiors with alcoves and niches, chock-a-block with the plentiful ornamental nick-knacks that delighted the consumer world of the 1870s and 1880s, and left that era's heirs awash in bric-a-brac.  

Plentiful examples of the style once lined West Onondaga Street, Danforth Street, the Walnut Park area, the Westcott Neighborhood, and elsewhere. To my mind, some the prettiest and best preserved (restored) Queen Anne houses are a surviving pair of houses on the east side of the 300 block of North McBride Street, on the western edge of the Hawley-Green National Register Historic District (designated 1979). There were built in the early 1880s and renovated in 1981-82. Their restoration, soon after the designation of the District, helped spark renewed interest in the history and architecture of the area. 

 Syracuse, NY. 300 block of N. McBride Street (middle left). Detail from

Atlas of the city of Syracuse, Onondaga County, New York  (New York : J.W. Vose & co., 1892).

Both houses are especially noteworthy for their applied decoration - the wooden porches and window frames that give the otherwise boxy buildings expansive and visually stimulating appearances. They were restored with the woodwork painted in bright colors. The two houses were sold in 2015 and I see that some work is taking place on 306 now, and I hope this will not mar the house's appearance.

Number 304, built for real estate agent Edward Townsend, is a wood-frame clapboard-covered house with much stick style ornament and a noteworthy sunburst design in the roof gable. Next door, the brick #306 was built for Alfred E. Lewis, an executive at the Syracuse Saving Bank. The building houses the feminist bookstore My Sister's Words from 1987 until 2003. 

Both houses are fronted with porches with gazebos. A former carriage house which may have belong to one of these houses or another now demolished structure, is situated in the back, at 306 ½ North McBride Street, and has been renovated with two residential units. The noted architect Archimedes Russell has been suggested as the designer of both houses, but there is no confirming evidence. A third house at the north end of the row has been demolished, as well as two other large houses across the street. 

 

Syracuse. NY. 304 North McBride Street. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Syracuse. NY. 306 North McBride Street. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Other fine and well-preserved examples of the Queen Anne style can be found at 405 Hawley Avenue and 701 Lodi Street, but in addition to those on North McBride, the most impressive houses in the style are along the 200 block of Green Street. On the other side of James Street 500 and 714 North McBride are note worthy houses of the 1890s. More on these in another post.
 

Variety of form and especially building profile as well as the use of vivid color were hallmarks of the Queen Anne style. Sadly, most reminders of the gaiety of time are in sepia or black and white and it it often hard to imagine the that despite the sometimes haze of coal smoke, the 19th-century was a color-mad time. What Lewis Mumford dubbed the "Brown Decades" were not, in fact, always so brown.  

Syracuse. NY. 306 1/2 North McBride Street. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Centennial Gardens: Modernism Comes to Syracuse

Syracuse, NY. Centennial Gardens. Nemeny and Geller, archs., 1948-50. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2012

Syracuse, NY. Centennial Gardens. Nemeny and Geller, archs., 1948-50. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2012

Syracuse, NY. Centennial Gardens. Nemeny and Geller, archs., 1948-50. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2012

Centennial Gardens: Modernism Comes to Syracuse
by Samuel D. Gruber

Facing Lower Onondaga Park and close to Onondaga Creek are the Centennial Gardens Apartments, an attractive early modem rental apartment complex of detached three-story redbrick multi-unit buildings subsidized by the Federal Housing Administration's section 608 program. Centennial Gardens, set between Onondaga Avenue and Onondaga Creek Parkway, was named in honor of the centennial of the city of Syracuse, and was begun in September, 1948, the year loans were obtained for the project. Landscaping completed the project in the spring of 1950, and a stretch of landscaped road on two sides of the complex was named Centennial Drive. 

The buildings faced formal gardens at the very eastern end of Lower Onondaga Park. Today, the parkside apartment buildings remain intact and fully occupied, though windows and other details have been changed. The Southwest neighborhood has changed a lot since these buildings were erected 65 years ago, but this is not much apparent from the relative isolation of the complex and the surrounding beauty of Lower Onondaga Park.

The complex, designed by prominent modern architects George Nemeny and Abraham Geller of New York, was featured in an article in Architectural Forum magazine in 1950. As simple as the buildings appear to our eyes today, the architects had to fight for some features, especially the separation of the structures within a green setting. At the time, this created the effect of a residential campus, something we are now very familiar with, but which at the time was still new. Certainly, the unadorned style was very different from the historicism of earlier apartment buildings in the city, such as those on Catherine Street which I wrote about a few months ago. There is, however, greater kinship with some simple Deco-decorated brick apartment buildings of the late1920s, such as the similarly sized Chaumont Apartments (1928) or the much taller Washington Arms (1928). In fact, though two decades separated Centennial Gardens from these 1920s buildings, since there had been virtually no market rate apartment construction in the intervening years because of the Great Depression and World War II, there is a direct succession (The housing exception is the publicly financed l Pioneer Homes, built 1938-1941, about which more below).

The Federal Housing Administration's section 608 program, built on the success of the pre-War public housing programs begun after 1937 when the Wagner-Steagall Housing Act was enacted was created to provide rental housing for returning World War II veterans and to meet continually growing housing needs. In a sense the program was aimed to revive the robust private housing market of the 1920s but with some controls and standards. The opposite happened. The program ended in 1954 when scandals revealed lax administrative and financial oversight leading to enormous profits by builders.   

Syracuse, NY. Centennial Gardens. Nemeny and Geller, archs., 1948-50. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2012

The Architectural Forum article pointed out features of Centennial Gardens:

 "Architects Nemeny & Geller,  altho working within sharp cost limits, managed to increase room sizes 25 per cent above FHA minimums and to open their site plan for light, air and vista. The development was built under the old $1,800 a room loan limit. It has 83 five-room apartments ($105) 39 four-room apartments ($85) and 21 six-room apartments ($127). The Syracuse development covers only 20 per cent of its site (25.5 families an acre). Over strong opposition from FHA, the architects opened the site plan for maximum  view. (FHA insisted right up to the end that the corners of the buildings be joined, they recall). Buildings front on 90-foot courts. The apartments have thru ventilation (half of them have cross ventilation in addition). All apartments have entrance foyers with coat closet."

Syracuse, NY. Centennial Gardens. Nemeny and Geller, archs., 1948-50. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2012

Syracuse, NY. Centennial Gardens. Garages. Nemeny and Geller, archs., 1948-50. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2012

Today, Centennial Gardens are not given much thought by architects, realtors, or an aspiring Middle Class, but when these brick apartment buildings first opened off the Olmsted-inspired public park and parkway, the units were a hot ticket for the young married set, especially newly-wed veterans and other members of the "Greatest Generation."

George Nemeny (d, 1997) and Abraham Geller (1912-1995) were prominent New York modernists active especially from the 1940s through the 1960s.  Their work was well known and exhibited, including at the Museum of Modern art in the 1952 exhibit Modern Architecture in the New York Area.

Syracuse, NY. Pioneer Homes. Randall King Vedder & King, archs (1938-41). The pedimented porch is recent addition. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2012.

Syracuse, NY. Pioneer Homes. Randall King Vedder & King, archs (1938-41). The pedimented porches are recent additions. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2004.

Today, when we think of the first modern style housing complexes in Syracuse, most observers will cite the downtown Pioneer Homes, a publicly funded and operated complex  designed by local architects Randall King Vedder & King and built from about 1938-41 for low income tenants in the 15th Ward. They are right about this. Pioneer Homes was the first completed Roosevelt-era "public housing" project in the country (but there were 350 similar projects under construction by the end of 1940). New Deal planners favored rational planning and modern design, and Pioneer Homes is a rare pre-World War II example in America of a complex of stripped down, almost minimal, multi-unit residences for any class or tenant (compare, for example, the look of the contemporary Robert Mills Manor Public Housing  in Charleston, South Carolina).

There was a long tradition in the United States of very simple attached workers' housing, which could especially be found in "company' towns, but the immediate example for Pioneer Homes came from Europe where for many years similar complexes of public housing and housing by workers' collectives had been erected in Holland, Germany, Austria and elsewhere. 

The builders of Centennial Gardens took many of the lessons of Pioneer Homes, including government subsidies, and applied them for a more affluent market. Of course this type of building for public and market rate housing took off after the war. Increasingly, however, federal agencies embraced high-rise public housing. Market-rate apartment developers followed both models in Syracuse, the inner suburbs, and elsewhere; building low and tall bare brick buildings. Sadly, these were mostly, however, without much grace in proportion, siting or detail.

Sources: 

On Centennial Gardens see: "Loan Completed on Housing Project," Syracuse Post Standard (Sept. 4, 1948), p. 6; "Centennial Gardens To Be Featured in Magazine Article," Syracuse Post Standard (Jan. 25, 1950), p. 10. 

On Pioneer Homes see: Eva Hardin, Syracuse Landmarks, pp. 131-132.

Remarkable Modern: St. Daniel's Church in Lyncourt (Syracuse)

 
 Lyncourt (Syracuse), NY. St. Daniel's Roman Catholic church. Interior, view to altar. Pederson, Hueber Hares and Glavin, architects, 1965-67. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016

 Lyncourt (Syracuse), NY. St. Daniel's Roman Catholic church. Court Street facade. Pederson, Hueber Hares and Glavin, architects, 1965-67. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016

 Lyncourt (Syracuse), NY. St. Daniel's Roman Catholic church. This entrance corner under the spire anchors the building. Pederson, Hueber Hares and Glavin, architects, 1965-67. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016

 

 Lyncourt (Syracuse), NY. St. Daniel's Roman Catholic church. Window wall seen from rear parking lot,. Pederson, Hueber Hares and Glavin, architects, 1965-67. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016

Marvelous Modern: St. Daniel's Church in Lyncourt (Syracuse)
by Samuel D Gruber

I recently wrote a brief introduction to some of more interesting CNY churches and synagogues built in the last half century.  One church that I overlooked and which is one of the best designed, is St. Daniel's Church on Court Street in Lyncourt (Syracuse), near Teall Ave. Designed by Pederson, Hueber, Hares and Glavin, it was dedicated in April 1967. The shape and form of the church, inside and out, are exciting. The interior, entered by low small vestibule, is also inspirational, opening up to a rising angled roof and dominated by a vast stained window in the joined walls above the main altar.The architects were clearly inspired by the ear;y work of Louis Kahn. There is a remarkable similarity between the east elevation of the church and Kahn's so-called Trenton Bath House (1955).

 

Lyncourt (Syracuse), NY. St. Daniel's Roman Catholic church. View from the east. Pederson, Hueber Hares and Glavin, architects, 1965-67. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016

Ewing Township, Mercer County, New Jersey. So-called Trenton Bath House. Louis Kahn, architect, 1955. Photo: APT Delaware Valley Chapter

Lyncourt (Syracuse), NY. St. Daniel's Roman Catholic church. Court Street facade. Pederson, Hueber Hares and Glavin, architects, 1965-67. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016

Lyncourt (Syracuse), NY. St. Daniel's Roman Catholic church. Court Street entrance, dtl. Pederson, Hueber Hares and Glavin, architects, 1965-67. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016

Work on the structure began on March 1, 1966 and on April 26, 1967  Bishop Walter A. Foery dedicated the new church The purpose was to replace a "temporary" mission church erected on the site in 1932-33, with a bigger a better building; one that could accommodate more parishioners (the parish became official in 1939), and also one that was better lit, heated and cooled. The early building designed by Paul Hueber was a simple cinder block structure (with soft pine trusses for the roof). 

The new church which seats 740, was built by the firm Hueber founded was more ambitious and  $500,000. The church was the last piece of an expanded parish complex the included a school gymnasium addition and convent, all designed by Pederson, Hueber, Hares and Glavin and erected between 1952 and 1960.

Read more on the history of St. Daniel's here.

Lyncourt (Syracuse), NY. St. Daniel's Roman Catholic church. East facade, passage towards school buildings.  Pederson, Hueber Hares and Glavin, architects, 1965-67

Lyncourt (Syracuse), NY. St. Daniel's Roman Catholic church. East facade, passage towards school buildings.  Pederson, Hueber Hares and Glavin, architects, 1965-67. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016

 

Lyncourt (Syracuse), NY. St. Daniel's Roman Catholic church. View from the southeast. Pederson, Hueber Hares and Glavin, architects, 1965-67. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016

I have not seen any pictures of the original church - but it apparently had stained glass windows made by Keck Studios, and these figurative windows - mostly representations of saints - were incorporated into the abstract design in the new church. Four other windows are set into the west walI, apart from the sanctuary. I have not yet learned what artist and studio made the enormous new window - but it is one of the best efforts of period in our region. 

Lyncourt (Syracuse), NY. St. Daniel's Roman Catholic church. Hueber Hares Glavin, architects, 1965-67. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016

Lyncourt (Syracuse), NY. St. Daniel's Roman Catholic church. Hueber Hares Glavin, architects, 1965-67. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016

Lyncourt (Syracuse), NY. St. Daniel's Roman Catholic church. One of four older windows installed on west wall. Pederson, Hueber Hares and Glavin, architects, 1965-67. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016

Lyncourt (Syracuse), NY. St. Daniel's School.  Pederson, Hueber Hares and Glavin, architects, 1950s.