Murray Hill Historic District

Once one of the city's most fashionable residential addresses, the Murray Hill Historic District extends from East 35th to East 38th Street between Park Avenue and Lexington Avenue. This area takes its name from the eighteenth-century country estate of merchant Robert Murray, who arrived in New York City in 1753. In 1847, his heirs, through the use of restricted covenants, limited all buildings developed on their land to residential and related uses. Three years later, changes to the Park Avenue railway line, which was covered with a tunnel and park-like mall, brought larger numbers to the area. Over the ensuing twenty years, it became a community of upper-middle-class New Yorkers. The first houses were built on East 35th Street. Numbers 102-112, 105-111, and 123-127 were constructed in 1852-54; these speculatively built brownstones had Italianate detailing and tall parlor windows at the second story. Many later residences, some in the Second Empire style, housed well-known New Yorkers of the late nineteenth century, including Admiral David G. Farragut, a Civil War hero, and Dr. Charles Parkhurst of the Madison Square Presbyterian Church.

A second wave of development occurred between 1900 and 1910, when wealthy owners replaced row houses with mansions, like the Beaux-Arts-style Lanier House at 123 East 35th Street. During this period young Eleanor and Franklin Delano Roosevelt lived in the district at 125 East 36th Street from 1905-1908. Renowned illustrator, Charles Dana Gibson, creator of the Gibson Girl, resided in the district as well. In 1916, the architectural firm of Delano & Aldrich converted a stable on East 38th Street into a studio and office. They added a beautifully detailed neoclassical facade that complements the residential neighborhood around it. The 2004 district extension consists of two areas with a total of twelve buildings built between 1863 and 1955, one portion of which connects the two segments of the original district. ©2014