East 73rd Street Historic District

Fifteen small-scale buildings on East 73rd Street between Lexington and Third Avenues form a rare pocket of carriage-era Manhattan, hemmed in by high-rise apartment towers. Eleven were built as private carriage houses for wealthy New Yorkers, among them Edward Harkness, Joseph Pulitzer and Henry T. Sloane. Two Italianate rowhouses from 1860 survive from the street's first development, alongside a commercial stable and an early commercial garage dating to 1906. The designs range from simple vernacular work to high-style Romanesque Revival, Beaux-Arts and neo-Flemish buildings, with architects including Richard Morris Hunt and Charles Romeyn. Ground floors held carriages and horse stalls, with rooms above for coachmen and grooms. As automobiles replaced carriages, the buildings became garages and chauffeurs' quarters, and later most became stylish private homes. Alterations have been modest, mostly to carriage doors. The block is recognized as the only cohesive group of carriage houses in Manhattan.