E. 42nd Street: That’s Funny… You Don’t Look Tudor-ish

As you keep on walking east on E. 42nd Street past 2nd Avenue, you’ll see stone staircases on either side of the street as you approach mid-block. Take either one of the staircases, and you’ll end up on a plateau 40 feet up and at the entrance to a park (a different little park on each side.)

You’ve reached Tudor City, an elegant enclave of nine large apartment building and small parks, constructed between 1927 and 1932. Despite the name, Tudor City’s architecture is not Tudor-ish, but rather neo-gothic, quite nicely done.

This all was a vision of one of the great real estate developers of that period, Fred F. French. Despite being an area that was at that time blessed with slaughterhouses and squatters’ houses, Mr. French saw it as it could be, a place for middle-class families to live in peace and comfort within a short walk of the very mid-est of Midtown.

And so it did become, and even 80 years later, Mr. French’s still looks good and works well – a family-friendly oasis at the eastern edge of Midtown Manhattan.

And you have to admit… Tudor City sounds a lot better than “Gothic City.”