List of demolished buildings and structures in New York City is the title of a stand-alone list article on English Wikipedia that catalogs notable buildings, venues, and infrastructural works in New York City that have been razed, dismantled, or otherwise removed from the city's built environment.
Scope and format
The article opens by noting that the New York City urban area comprises the largest contiguous urban development in the United States and has a long history of continuous architectural development and rebuilding. It observes that, over time, countless buildings have been constructed in what is now New York City; while some still stand, many have since been demolished. Frequently cited reasons for demolition include lack of space (a larger building could occupy the site), the deteriorated condition of a structure, and the high cost of renovation relative to demolition and new construction. The list also notes that changing architectural taste could render a building's style "outdated," while acknowledging that artistic standards of the time of construction, of demolition, and of later eras may all differ.
The article states that accurate records of demolished buildings were not always preserved and therefore describes its own contents as presumably fragmentary. Entries are organized thematically by building type rather than strictly by date, and are presented in tables with columns for an image, name, date built, date of demolition, and comments.
Major categories
The list is divided into the following sections:
- Banks and financial buildings — including the Brooklyn Savings Bank (1894–1964), the old New York Cotton Exchange (1885–1922), the Gallatin Bank Building (1887–1929), the Hanover Bank Building (1903–1931), the New York Produce Exchange (1884–1958), and the Deutsche Bank Building (1973–2011), the latter severely damaged in the September 11 attacks and later demolished.
- Churches — subdivided into Christian churches and synagogues. The synagogue entries include three successive buildings of Temple Emanu-El (demolished 1854, 1866, and 1927) and Temple Beth-El (1891–1947). A separate article, List of demolished churches in New York City, treats this subject at greater length.
- Forts — Fort Gansevoort (1812–1854) and Fort Lafayette (1822–1960).
- Hospitals — including St. John's Guild Seaside Hospital, Doctors Hospital, Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic, and Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical Centers.
- Hotels — a section cross-referenced to the companion article List of demolished hotels in New York City.
- Industrial buildings — including 5 Pointz (1892–2014).
- Mansions — a large section documenting Gilded Age residences, among them the Cornelius Vanderbilt II House, the William K. Vanderbilt House, the William A. Clark House, the Charles M. Schwab House, the Jerome Mansion, and the Vanderbilt Triple Palace.
- Museums, exhibition space, libraries — including the New York Crystal Palace (1853–1858), Barnum's American Museum (1841–1868), the Grand Central Palace (1911–1964), and the Lenox Library (1877–1912).
- Office buildings, tenement houses, skyscrapers — among the largest sections, including the Equitable Life Building, the Gillender Building, the Mills Building, the Manhattan Life Insurance Building, the New York World Building, the New York Tribune Building, the Singer Building, the City Investing Building, the Union Carbide Building, the New York Coliseum, and the original World Trade Center (destroyed in the September 11 attacks).
- Operas — including the Academy of Music, the Astor Opera House, the Harlem Opera House, and the Metropolitan Opera House on 39th Street.
- Prisons — including two iterations of the Tombs, the Jefferson Market Prison, and the Ludlow Street Jail.
- Railway stations — including Grand Central Depot, Pennsylvania Station, and Hudson Terminal.
- Shopping malls, stadiums and sports buildings (including the Polo Grounds, Shea Stadium, the original Yankee Stadium, and three successive Madison Square Gardens), theatres (the longest section, listing dozens of Broadway and downtown playhouses), villages, other buildings (such as Federal Hall of 1703, the Tontine Coffee House, the Latting Observatory, and the Central Park Casino), and other structures (such as the Dewey Arch).
Context
The article situates these losses within the broader history of New York City's development. It notes that much of the city's early colonial, Dutch, and pre-industrial heritage was lost to fires, gradual disrepair of wooden structures, or the implementation of the street grid and the creation of Central Park (a process that included the displacement and demolition of Seneca Village). It further notes that demolitions on a large scale accompanied mid-20th-century urban renewal and highway construction programs associated with Robert Moses, and that the historic preservation movement — often dated to the widespread public reaction to the demolition of Pennsylvania Station in the early 1960s — led to the establishment of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1965. The article observes that, notwithstanding the preservation movement, demolition and redevelopment of older buildings has remained a recurring feature of the city's built environment.
Related articles
The list links to several related pages, including List of demolished hotels in New York City, List of demolished churches in New York City, Early skyscrapers, Architecture of New York City, and List of tallest voluntarily demolished buildings. It also draws on print sources such as Nathan Silver's Lost New York (1967) and Michael C. Kathrens's Great Houses of New York, 1880–1930 (2005).
Status
The subject is an established, widely referenced concept and exists as a dedicated Wikipedia list article with corresponding categories on Wikipedia (for example, Category:Demolished buildings and structures in Manhattan) and a media category on Wikimedia Commons. Its contents, however, are explicitly described by the source article as incomplete, since comprehensive demolition records for the city were not consistently maintained.
