Located at 224 E 47th St (between 2nd and 3rd), its website describes its history as follows:

Bearing the name of one of the YMCA of Greater New York’s most benevolent families, the Vanderbilt YMCA Branch opened in its current location in 1932 and was then known as the “Railroad YMCA.” Now focused on meeting the needs of nearby residents, office workers, and members of the United Nations community, the branch was originally established in 1875 to provide housing for the nation’s railroad men. One of many “Railroad YMCAs” throughout New York City and across the country, the forerunner of the Vanderbilt YMCA was housed in the basement of the New York Rail Station on the site of today’s Grand Central Terminal. These railroad workers found clean overnight accommodations, affordable meals, and an array of programs to occupy and enrich their time between journeys. The branch and its extensions moved multiple times over the decades, and once occupied sites where today’s Roosevelt and Waldorf-Astoria hotels now stand.

The “Railroad YMCA” was renamed the “Vanderbilt YMCA” in 1972 in recognition of the significant role that railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, and his heirs played in its history. Today, the Vanderbilt YMCA serves its neighbors in many ways, including through extensive youth programs, a health and wellness facility, guest rooms, and more than 125 different classes per week for adults, seniors, families, teens, children, and tourists. The branch also opened a fully equipped early childhood center in 1990.

I stayed there for a couple of nights way back in 1974. I can’t say I cared for it very much. It’s also associated with a significant period in my life. But, once again I’m not inclined to talk about it here.

Taken with a Sony RX10IV.

As I was walking down Sutton Place, I came across this impressive building. The building seemed to have its own police box! It seemed to me that people of significance must live there.

However, I didn’t know what it was until I was able to get home and do some searching.

Apparently, it’s One Sutton Place South. Wikipedia describes it as follows:

One Sutton Place South is a 14-story, 42-unit cooperative apartment house in the East Midtown neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, overlooking the East River on Sutton Place between 56th and 57th Streets. One Sutton Place South contains the residences of diplomats, titans of industry, and media executives.

The building was designed and completed in 1927 by Rosario Candela and Cross and Cross for the Phipps family.

The building is topped by a penthouse, a 17-room unit that has 5,000 square feet (460 m2) of interior space and 6,000 square feet (560 m2) of terraces that wrap entirely around it; the penthouse was created originally for Amy Phipps as a duplex. When her son, Winston Guest, the polo player and husband of garden columnist C. Z. Guest, took the apartment over, the lower floor was subdivided into three separate apartments, one of which was occupied by designer Bill Blass. The Guests lived on one side of the penthouse and one of their sons, Alexander, lived on the other side for several years. The Guests sold the apartment in 1963 about the time that their daughter, socialite Cornelia Guest, was born. The apartment was then acquired by Janet Annenberg Hooker, the philanthropist who died in late 1997 and was a sister of Walter Annenberg, the communications magnate and art collector. The apartment was put on the market in early 1998.

A portion of the property behind One Sutton Place South was the subject of a dispute between the building’s owners and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Like the adjacent park, part of the rear garden at One Sutton Place South is cantilevered over the FDR Drive, a busy expressway at Manhattan’s eastern edge that is not visible from most of Sutton Place. In 1939, city authorities took ownership of the property behind One Sutton Place South by condemnation in connection with the construction of the FDR Drive, then leased it back to the building. The building’s lease for its backyard expired in 1990. The co-op tried unsuccessfully to extend the lease, and later made prospective apartment-buyers review the legal status of the backyard and sign a confidentiality agreement. The question of ownership came to a head in 2003 when the state’s Department of Transportation began rehabilitation of FDR Drive between 54th and 63rd Streets and threatened to tear up the garden to fix the deck. In June 2007, the co-op sued the city in an attempt the keep the land, and on November 1, 2011, the co-op and the city reached an agreement in which the co-op ended its ownership claim to a smaller section of land sitting atop the deck only, with each side contributing $1 million toward the creation of a public park on the disputed portion.

Taken with a Sony RX10 IV.