As we were walking along 34th Street I notice this plaque on the side of a building. It’s obviously suffered over the years and I couldn’t read much of it. It was, however, possible to pick out the words “William Sloane Building”. This caught my attention because of the name William Sloane and Walter Law, the founder of my village, Briarcliff Manor, NY. (See: A visit to Merestead – Overview and the posts which follow).

It seems that William S. Sloane was heavily involved with the YMCA.

The building on which the plaque is placed is the Sloane House YMCA, also known as William Sloane House YMCA, at 356 West 34th Street in Manhattan. It was the largest residential YMCA building in the nation. It was sold in 1993 for $5 million and converted to rental apartments later. For more information on the William Sloane House see: The Sloane House YMCA – Infernal Machine on glasscapsule media archive

It’s practically impossible to read the words on the plaque, but I managed to find a description on the Historical Marker Database (note that there seems to be an error in this description. It says the he was “Chairman – Army and Navy Department of the International Commission from 1910 to 1907“. This is clearly wrong. Moreover, it couldn’t be 1910-1927 because he died in 1922. So I’ve changed it to 1910-1917).

Sloane was also inducted into the National YMCA Hall of Fame where his entry reads:

William S. Sloane (1873-1922). William Sloane was President of the National War Work Council, which was formed in 1917 and raised and managed hundreds of millions of dollars to support YMCA initiatives to serve American and Allied troops during World War I. During the war, he was one of the “dollar-a-year-men”, who put aside their own personal gain and fortune to put their vast experience earned in the private sector to work at hugely expanding the outreach of the YMCA. The contributions of the YMCA during the war were amazingly extensive and impressive, involving the construction and operation of thousands of centers for service personnel, support for U.S. YMCA’ serving the military, mobilizing well-known entertainers for service abroad, and literally hundreds of other programs and services that employed more than 25,000 YMCA workers. In 1930, Sloane House, a New York YMCA residence for servicemen, was opened in his honor.

Taken with a Fuji X-E3 and Fuji XC 16-50mm f3.5-5.6 OSS II

What an impressive building:

The James A. Farley Building is a mixed-use structure in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, which formerly served as the city’s main United States Postal Service (USPS) branch. Designed by McKim, Mead & White in the Beaux-Arts style, the structure was built between 1911 and 1914, with an annex constructed between 1932 and 1935. The Farley Building, at 421 Eighth Avenue between 31st Street and 33rd Street in Midtown Manhattan, faces Pennsylvania Station and Madison Square Garden to the east.

The main facade of the Farley Building (over 8th Avenue) features a Corinthian colonnade—the largest of its style in the world—finishing at a pavilion on each end. The imposing design was meant to match that of the original Pennsylvania Station across the street. An entablature above the colonnade bears the United States Postal Service creed: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” The colonnade’s inner ceiling is decorated with the crests or emblems of ten major nations that existed at the building’s completion. The remaining three facades have a similar but simpler design.

The James A. Farley Building was known as the Pennsylvania Terminal until 1918, when it was renamed the General Post Office Building. The building was made a New York City designated landmark in 1966 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. It was officially renamed in 1982 in honor of James Farley who was the nation’s 53rd Postmaster General and served from 1933 to 1940. The building was sold to the New York government in 2006. The interior space that once housed the main mail sorting room now houses the Moynihan Train Hall since 2021. Office space in the building was leased to Facebook in 2020 (Wikipedia).

Taken with a Fuji X-E3 and Fuji XC 16-50mm f3.5-5.6 OSS II