Upjohn, was for nearly two
generations the ultra-fashionable Episcopal church of the city. In 1905
it was destroyed by fire, and with it, in the flames, perished its
artistic contents, among them the decorations made by John La Farge and
Augustus Saint Gaudens. For six months the congregation was without a
home. Then a wooden structure was erected and the new church was built
without interfering with the services during the following years.
Designed by Ralph Adams Cram, the present St. Thomas's is of white
limestone from Kentucky. The left entrance, which is surmounted with a
garland of Gothic foliage composed of orange blossoms, is the Bride's
Door. Carved on each side of the niche above the keystone is a
"true-lover's-knot." A cynical observer (Rider's "New York City")
comments: "Few visitors note the sly touch of irony which, by a few
strokes of the chisel, has converted the lover's knot on the northerly
side into an unmistakable dollar sign."

On the west side of the Avenue, running from Fifty-first to
Fifty-second, are the Vanderbilt twin residences, the wonder of the town
of a quarter of a century ago. They were built, in 1882, by the late
William H. Vanderbilt, the southerly for his own use, and the northerly
one for his daughter, Mrs. William D. Sloane. In 1868 the land on which
the brown-stone mansions stand was occupied by one Isaiah Keyser, whose
small three-story frame house was in the middle of a vegetable garden.
That garden supplied the residents along lower Fifth Avenue, and its
owner also dealt in ice and cattle. In the house which Mr. Vanderbilt
erected for himself Henry C. Frick lived for a time. The Vanderbilt
family spent millions of dollars in purchasing property to protect
themselves against business encroachments.

In former days the neighbourhood was given over largely to philanthropic
and religious institutions. The New York Institution for the Instruction
of the Deaf and Dumb stood between Forty-eighth and Fiftieth Streets and
Fourth and Fifth Avenues. That was from 1829 to 1853. The building was
one hundred and ten feet long, sixty feet wide, four stories high, with
a beautiful colonnade fifty feet long in front. The grounds are
described as "beautifully laid out in lawns and gardens, planted with
trees and shrubbery." When the Asylum sold the property in 1853 it moved
to Washington Heights. For many years the National Democratic Club and
the Buckingham Hotel have stood on the land. The site