Harry F. Sinclair House, Upper East Side, Manhattan, New York, New York, United States

"The Harry F. Sinclair House is a mansion at the southeast corner of East 79th Street and Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. The house was built between 1897 and 1899. Over the first half of the 20th century, the house was successively the residence of businessmen Isaac D. Fletcher and Harry F. Sinclair, and then the descendants of Peter Stuyvesant, the last Director of New Netherland. The Ukrainian Institute of America acquired the home in 1955. After the house gradually fell into disrepair, the institute renovated the building in the 1990s. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) and was named a National Historic Landmark in 1978.

The mansion was designed in an eclectic French Renaissance style by C. P. H. Gilbert and built by foreman Harvey Murdock. The building largely retains its original design, except for a tankhouse on the roof. Gilbert and Murdock constructed the bulk of the house with brick, which was then faced with limestone ashlar. The northern façade on 79th Street, containing the main entrance, is characterized by multiple windows in square recesses or semi-elliptical and fully Gothic arches. The western façade on Fifth Avenue is symmetrical and dominated by a curved, projecting pavilion. The interior of the mansion comprises 27 rooms on six floors, for a total floor-space of 20,000 square feet (1,900 m2). Critical reviews of the house's architecture over its history have been largely positive.

In 1897, Isaac D. Fletcher, an industrialist and art collector, purchased a lot at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 79th Street for $200,000 (equivalent to $6,514,400 in 2021) from railroad businessman Henry H. Cook, who owned all lots on the city block between Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue, and 78th and 79th Streets. Cook did not want the block to become populated with high-rises and only sold lots for the construction of private, first-class residences. Fletcher hired architect C. P. H. Gilbert to design his abode on the block. The house's design so impressed Fletcher that he commissioned a painting of the finished residence from Jean-François Raffaëlli in 1899.

Construction was undertaken by stonemason Harvey Murdock and was completed in 1899 at a total cost of $200,000 (equivalent to $6,514,400 in 2021).

The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the west. The area incorporates several smaller neighborhoods, including Lenox Hill, Carnegie Hill, and Yorkville. Once known as the Silk Stocking District, it has long been the most affluent neighborhood in New York City.

New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over 300.46 square miles (778.2 km2), New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. The city is within the southern tip of New York State, and constitutes the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area – the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass. With over 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York is one of the world's most populous megacities, and over 58 million people live within 250 mi (400 km) of the city. New York City is a global cultural, financial, and media center with a significant influence on commerce, health care and life sciences, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, dining, art, fashion, and sports. New York is the most photographed city in the world. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy, an established safe haven for global investors, and is sometimes described as the capital of the world." - info from Wikipedia.

The fall of 2022 I did my 3rd major cycling tour. I began my adventure in Montreal, Canada and finished in Savannah, GA. This tour took me through the oldest parts of Quebec and the 13 original US states. During this adventure I cycled 7,126 km over the course of 2.5 months and took more than 68,000 photos. As with my previous tours, a major focus was to photograph historic architecture.

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Taken in: United States / New York / Seneca Village (historical) (show map)

Taken on: September 20, 2022

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Sets appears in: • Favourite Travel Photos • North America Cycling Tour 2022 more » • New York State, United States • New York City, New York • Manhattan, New York City • Upper East Side, Manhattan « less

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