Manhattan on the Nile

This is a small tribute to the brave and amazing people of Tahrir Square. To acknowledge and bring awareness of that great, age-old culture, this post will look at Egyptian influences from the past, present (and future!) in Manhattan’s streetscape.   

The first great architectural wave to sweep the city (and the nation) was the 1830s and 40s Greek Revival movement, a building trend that went into frenzy mode after the Greek War of Independence and that country’s break from the Ottoman Empire in the 1820s. The city embraced the temple form in every building type from churches and commercial buildings to homes. So prolific was the style that you can’t walk a few blocks below 14th Street today without passing at least a few examples. Some of the more well-known include: Federal Hall National Memorial on Wall Street, Washington Square’s “The Row,” St. Peter’s Church on Barclay Street, and the Merchant’s House Museum—all adorned with entrance elements of columns and pediments that herald the birthplace of democracy.  Let’s hope Egyptian architecture can one day evoke those ideals for a modern time.

About the same time as the Greek Revival movement, a smaller wave of Egyptian Revival architecture rippled across the nation following Napoleon’s (most undemocratic) conquest of Egypt, and then Britain’s likewise incursion down the Nile in the late 1700s.  Publications from Napoleon’s expedition in the early 1800s (he took scientists with him) would fuel interest in Egyptian styles. 

Chapters on Egyptian architecture in architecture books, when they are there, are usually the smallest—but they’re always the first. The truth is, in a way all architecture is Egyptian. Owen Jones says this in his seminal work on architectural ornamentation across the world’s great cultures, in The Grammar of Ornament (p. 47).

…[Regarding Egypt,] whilst we can trace in direct succession the Greek, the Roman, the Byzantine, with its offshoots, the Arabian, the Moresque and the Gothic, from this great parent, we must believe the architecture of Egypt to be a pure original style, which arose with civilization in Central Africa, passed through countless ages, to the culminating point of perfection and the state of decline in which we see it…The Egyptians are inferior only to themselves. In all other styles we can trace a rapid ascent from infancy, founded on some bygone style, to a culminating point of perfection, when the foreign influence was modified or discarded, to a period of slow, lingering decline, feeding on its own elements. In the Egyptian we have no traces of infancy or of any foreign influence; and we must, therefore, believe that they went for inspiration direct from nature.

And Egyptian art almost received a prominent Fifth Avenue display alongside other great traditions. Have you ever noticed that the front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art appears to be missing something?  It is.  Richard Morris Hunt died in 1895 before his plans for the facade could be fulfilled. In Shaping the City (p. 10), Gregory Gilmartin explains,

The Fifth Avenue facade was dominated by four pairs of immense columns, and these were meant to serve as the pedestals for sculptural groups representing the ‘four great periods of art’: Egyptian, Greek, Renaissance and Modern. Between each pair of columns sat a niche where Hunt intended to set a copy of one great work from each historical era.

It was “Modern” art that stuck in the craw of the trustees; who knew if it would stand the test of time, and so the niches remain blank today.  

When we think of Egyptian forms, it’s the pyramid that first comes to mind—the tombs of the pharaoh.  And many building tops around the city allude to it, some more obvious than others.

The step-pyramid atop the Bankers Trust Company Building (Trowbridge & Livingston, 1912) on Wall Street is one of the most hidden crowns in the city—not tall enough to be seen over surrounding buildings on the narrow streets of the Financial District.  Here it is from three blocks away, between the steeple of Trinity Church (Upjohn, 1846) and 40 Wall Street (Severance, 1929), another pyramid-topped building.

The New York Museum of Jewish Heritage (Kevin Roche, 1996) is a postmodern hexagonal step pyramid.  Appropriate for a museum that is laid out as a timeline of Jewish culture and history.

Another form closely associated with the Egyptian is the Obelisk, built to flank the entrance of Egyptian temples. Central Park has the oldest manmade structure in the entire city, a tad over 3,600 years—Cleopatra’s Needle.  According to the plaque on the monument, this one spent 1,588 years in Heliopolis, and 1,893 years in Alexandria (the Romans moved it there).  On February 22, 2011, it will have spent 130 years in Central Park.  Not until 5363 will Cleopatra’s Needle have been in New York longer than Egypt!

Another obelisk stands in Madison Square, the Worth Monument (Batterson, 1857).  Entombed beneath where Broadway crosses Fifth Avenue is General William Jenkins Worth, for whom Worth Street in lower Manhattan, and Ft. Worth, Texas are both named.  He is a little remembered veteran and once great hero of the Mexican-American War of 1849.

Egyptian architecture lends itself to great bulwark structures that seek to impart a sense of mass, stability, strength and power. John Augustus Roebling, the genius architect of the Brooklyn Bridge, was originally inspired by an Egyptian design for the bridge towers.  These were his 1857 plans…

Before looking at buildings around the city, let’s look at a few of the forms and features that distinguish Egyptian architecture, using the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a model. The temple is from 15 B.C., given to the Met in 1967.

Battered (or tapered) walls. They’re called “pylons” when two flank the entrance to a temple…

Narrow doors and windows…

A quarter-round, concave roof line, called a cavetto cornice…

Here are cavetto cornices on IS 90 at Jumel Pace and 168th Street (Dattner & Associates, 1999).

Two long gone substantial examples of Egyptian architecture were the Croton Aqueduct’s 25 million gallon Distributing Reservoir, on the site of today’s New York Public Library, and the original “tombs” prison.

An appropriate historicist form for its function, the Nile was life for the Egyptians, and the reservoir made life possible in New York City.  It stood from 1842-1900). This picture image is looking north on Fifth Avenue from 40th Street.

This illustration from 1850 looks from 6th Avenue to the future site of Bryant Park and the back of the NYPL.  The lady and two children are crossing south on 42nd Street, then a sometime cattle drive.

Here’s about that POV today. The reservoir was where the NYPL is situated, somewhat obscured through trees of Bryant Park. Raymond Hood’s Radiator Building (1924), the city’s first Art Deco skyscraper, appears its being watched over by the Empire Stare Buildng (1931, Shreve, Lamd and Harmon).

The reservoir might have been inspired by an earlier one, built by the Manhattan Company (the future Chase Bank) on Chambers Street between Broadway and Centre Street.  The Manhattan Company was a much better bank than a water provider.

The “tombs” was another example of New York’s foray into Egyptian Revival architecture, built over the poorly filled-in Collect Pond at Leonard and Centre Streets. The New York Halls of Justice and House of Detention, as it was officially known, served as the dark, dank prison from 1838-1902.  The Manhattan Detention Center stands on the site today overlooking Chinatown.

The troubling scene of the youth being led into the prison aside (the inscription reads, “They saw the policemen lead Pinney into the Tombs prison”), the illustration shows the Leonard Street entrance.  A cavetto cornice can be seen above the battered doorway; bundled palm leaf columns flank the entrance. An original column is display in the Metropolitan Museum.  This one has five bands bundling the palms together. What’s intersting is the illustration resembles the image more than the museum artifact does.

Looking at buildings around today…The Bowling Green Offices building at 5-11 Broadway (W. & G Audsley, 1898) is eclectic for mixing Classical, Egyptian, and Renaissance styles in its facade. The batterd walls are less dramatic here.

An elaborate upper floor window treatment has a palm leaf cavetto “cornice” 

A row of squat composite (mixed style) columns have Egyptian elements as well.

To the right is an example of an Egyptian capital from Owen Jones’, The Ornament of Grammar.  Aquatic plants emerge from bundled papyrus in the illustration.

The Egyptians used two plant forms = along the Nile to embellish their jewelry, pottery, columns and buildings: the lotus flower and papyrus plant.

This vase is currently on display at The Met, titled: White cross-lined ware vase with plant designs, circa 3900–3700 B.C.

And while the lotus blossom would be used by many cultures in art and architecture, it was first used by the Egyptians.

Again from The Met’s collection, titled: Double “Tell el-Jahudiyeh” Vase with Incised Lotus Flowers, probably manufactured in Egypt, circa 1700–1600 B.C., with a close up on the lotus. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1923).

And another example from The Met, in bronze: Lotus attachment element, circa 1070–664 B.C.(The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Theodore M. Davis Collection, Bequest of Theodore M. Davis, 1915)

Looking at representations of papyri and loti, you can tell them apart by the tops of the plants, papyrus has a smooth curved top while the lotus has pointy petals. I think the central image on the left is papyrus, all the other images are lotuses.  

At the Temple of Dendur, The Met gives a description of the entrance: “Lining the temple base are carvings of papyrus and lotus plants that seem to grow from water, symbolized by figures of the Nile god Hapy….

… The two columns on the porch rise toward the sky like tall bundles of papyrus stalks with lotus blossoms bound with them…

…Above the gate and temple entrance are images of the sun disk flanked by the outspread wings of Horus, the sky god.”

Here’s a close up of the capitals, bundled papyrus stalks and lotus blossoms.

Though lotus blossoms are the main forms in the column’s capital, incised carvings look to be papyrus.

A second Egyptian Revival came on the scene during the Art Deco movement, after the 1922 discovery of Tutenkhamen’s tomb. The Chrysler Building’s (1930, Van Alen) elevator doors appear to be an Art Deco lotus-papyrus composite…

The Fred. F. French building (1927, Sloan and Robertson) on the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 45th Street, was the tallest building north of 42nd Street when it went up. It’s not typical Art Deco having ancient Assyrian, Babylonian and  Egyptians references, where Greek and Roman stylizations are the norm. It’s not purely Egyptian, but it’s among the most striking buildings in the city.

(L) The main entrance. (R) The Egyptian elements topping the staffs are arranged just as the Temple of Dendur.

You have to get a few blocks south to see one of the city’s great water tower enclosures.

Beehives are a common embellishment on commercial buildings, especially banks, symbolizing thrift and productivity—not necessarily Egyptian. The central element is a take on the solar disk from the Temple of Dendur, associated with the Sun God Ra and Horus.

Unlike the Temple of Dendur, wings don’t stretch out from the solar disk, instead they appear on two griffins. Like the lotus, the griffin appears in many different cultures but are seen in Egyptian art as early as 3300 B.C. They unite the most powerful beast and bird: the lion and the eagle (or falcon).

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The Upper West Side has two buildings committed to Egyptian-inspired programs, and just two blocks from each other: the Pythian and the Alexandria.

This black and white image of the Pythian at 135 West 70th Street (Thomas Lamb, 1926) doesn’t do it justice, but it’s impossible to get a good shot from the street. The architect was noted for his many Broadway theaters. It’s “exuberant” and over-the-top with Egyptian, Assyrian and Babylonian themes. It’s polychromatic (multi-colored), just as the Egyptians did it.  (Windows were added to the front when it was converted to condos in 1982. Lady Gaga grew up here.)

Columns with palm capitals, and lotuses growing from lotuses at the base.

Egyptian columns are generally smooth, and spaced closer together than Classical (Greek and Roman) columns. This narrow opening is a private side door to the right of the main entrance.

Some details from top to bottom…

Almost as invisible are the Pharaohs far up (see first Pythian image). Here’s a Pharaoh on display at the Met for comparison.

The Alexandria at 201 West 72th Street (Frank Williams & Associates, 1991) is highly visible at 72nd Street and Broadway, just across from the Ansonia. It’s got  has many papyrus, palm and other Egyptian-inspired motifs. It’s a great building for having so much character and detail up close, and a pyradimal massing that is both massive and light. the water tower’s palm detail almost appears like a fountain. 

Stylized lotus blossoms and papyrus shoots serve as pilasters around the water tank and on the upper floors……as well as below…

Finally, West 57th Street between 11th and 12th Avenues. The architect is Bjarke Ingels. I wonder what the ancient Egyptians would think.

This grafitti was on one of the displays at the Met.

Which reminded me of a favorite poem, and satisfying close to the post: Ozymandias, by Percy Shelley. 

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.