Tales of the city

Why is it that every time I leave New York I die a little? I know it sounds corny, but I do. I suppose it’s because it was that first great magic city I came upon after the war. The great beaux-arts and art-deco apartment towers looming in the distance, the magisterial Rockefeller Center and, of course, the noble Empire State Building were like modern Greek temples to an 11-year-old, and for some strange reason they’ve remained unspoiled and wondrous to look at to this day. Although the city has continued to alter itself at a rapid pace — gone is the Third Avenue Elevated Train, Schrafft’s restaurants, the Edward Hopper-like red three-storey walk-up houses, the walk-down spaghetti cellars, Luchow’s, the old Metropolitan Opera, Penn Station — the urban palimpsest lives.

The city’s most memorable and humane skyline was that of Central Park West, where the most important apartment buildings were constructed in the beaux-arts style, with names like the Majestic, the Beresford, the San Remo and the El Dorado.