General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen

STATUS Designated Individual Landmark

20 West 44th Street

ARCHITECT: Lamb & Rich

DATE: 1890

STYLE: Beaux-Arts, Renaissance Revival

Beaux-Arts Manhattan Midtown West Renaissance Revival

This building is the result of two major construction campaigns resulting in a coherent and sensitive design solution which blends monumental Beaux-Arts classicism with Renaissance Revival elements and a lingering touch of stratified Richardsonian design.

Designed by Lamb & Rich, a firm well-known for educational institutions, this four-story Renaissance Revival structure was acquired by the Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen in 1899. Major alterations, which involved removing the existing top story, and building three new stories, along with wings to the rear, were carried out by the fashionable apartment house architect, Ralph Samuel Townsend, in 1903-05.

STATUS Designated Individual Landmark

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Doreen Gallo: DUMBO Neighborhood Alliance

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Fern Luskin: Lamartine Place Historic District; Friends of Lamartine Place & Gibbons Underground Railroad Site

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Zella Jones: NoHo Historic District; NoHo East; and NoHo Extension

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Erika Petersen: West End Preservation Society

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Elena Martinez
City Lore, Folklorist
Bronx Music Heritage Center, Co-Artistic Director

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founder and Executive Director,
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