A postcard of City Hall station from the period. "It may be said with exact truthfulness that the builders have spared no effort or expense . . . and that all parts of the road and equipment display dignified and consistent artistic effects of the highest order. These are noticeable . . . particularly in the passenger stations." -- the IRT Guide.

In this photograph taken shortly before it opened, City Hall Station is shown without a finished platform, and the trackbed is being constructed. Leaded glass skylights designed by the Guastavino Construction Company let the natural light in from the plaza above.

Six playful structures designed for the Bronx Zoo by Heins & Lafarge were the Aquatic Bird House (1899), the Reptile House (1900), the Primate House (1902), the Lion House (1903), the Large Bird House (1905) above, and the Elephant House (1908) below.

The Guastavino polychromed tile arches and vaults of the Elephant House of the Bronx Zoo are structural as well as decorative. They feature ornamental figures of elephants, hippopotamus and rhinoceros. Heins & Lafarge used their experience from the zoo to the subway stations and they brought the Guastavinos along with them.

Heins & Lafarge's rendering of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine appeared in Architectural Record in 1892. It was the magazine's first year of publication as well as the year that construction began on the building. Today, the cathedral is still only about two-thirds complete. If finished, it would be the largest Gothic structure and the third largest church in the world, after St. Peter's in Rome and Our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukro (in Ivory Coast).

Heins and Lafarge designed the control house at Bowling Green at the top of Battery Park. The third extant control house, now closed, is at Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues near the Long Island Rail Road Terminal.

he architects Heins & Lafarge formed their partnership in 1886. They had met as students at M.I.T. and later trained in H. H. Richardson's Boston Office. George Lewis Heins was born in Philadelphia. Christopher Grant Lafarge, the eldest son of the artist John Lafarge, was born in Newport, Rhode Island. He grew up steeped in the world of his father's studio. Heins was the builder and administrator for the firm while Lafarge was the principle designer.

In 1899, Heins was appointed New York State architect by Governor Theodore Roosevelt and he designed state buildings until his death in 1907. Lafarge, a fellow of the AIA, served, at intervals, on advisory committees for the schools of architecture at Columbia University, M.I.T. and Princeton University, and also as trustee and secretary for the American Academy in Rome.

CITY HALL STATION

A bronze tablet in front of City Hall commemorates the commencement of the first viable subway system in the world. Sealed like a tomb under City Hall Park is one of the world's most beautiful (former) subway stations. Heins & Lafarge were the architects of this showpiece.

City Hall Station is unusually elegant in architectural style, and is unique among the original IRT stations. The platform and mezzanine feature Guastavino arches and skylights, colored glass and tilework, and brass chandeliers. The platform is spanned by a single arch with daylight filtered through every fourth bay. Due to the depth of the station, ticket booths could be placed at a mezzanine level which left the platform clear for passengers. It was truly the centerpiece of New York's new subway system.

Their use of arches and curves were put to optimum effect in the City Hall Station, which has no angles to speak of. An article in House and Garden at the time spoke of the "apotheosis of curves" and went on to say that "the broad structural vaults . . . and the restraint of ornament are suited to the workaday heart of "downtown," where the daily rider will be quickly swung to his office on these smooth curves and, as gaily, spirited away."

While very few people have actually seen City Hall Station, it is not completely abandoned. The Number 6 train still pass through it on its way north bound, reversing direction using the loop for the journey back to the Bronx. If one stays on the train instead of getting off at the end of the line, it's still possible to sneak a peek.

On the street's surface all that can be seen is a concrete slab inset with glass tiles--the skylights for the platform below. This patch of concrete is in the middle of a grove of dogwoods in front of City Hall, close to Broadway. Recently declared a National Interior Landmark, plans are to reopen the station to the public as an adjunct of the New York City Transit Museum.

THE BRONX ZOO

The Central Park Zoo, the oldest Zoo in New York City, began as a menagerie, purportedly opened when the park's workers received a bear and other animals as gifts. By 1864 the menagerie had a separate budget published in the annual report of the parks department, and it was a popular attraction despite the poor condition of its animal cages. It survived proposals by real-estate developers to abolish it or move it to Manhattan Square (now the site of the Museum of Natural History), to another location in Central Park, or out of Manhattan altogether. Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux included zoological grounds in their design of Prospect Park (1866), but the zoo did not open until 1893.

New York State awarded a charter to the New York Zoological Society in 1885 that empowered it to build a zoological garden. William Hornaday (1844-1937), a well-known zoologist and one of the founders of the National Zoological Park in Washington, became the director of the project and selected a site for the new zoo in southern Bronx Park. Plans were drawn up by Heins & Lafarge in 1897, and construction began in the following year. The New York Zoological Park, which became known as the Bronx Zoo, opened in 1899. Its naturalistic, parklike settings were in marked contrast to the small exhibits in Central Park. In 1902 the Bronx Zoo appointed the first full-time veterinarian at a zoo in the United States. Breeding sanctuaries were set aside for the nearly extinct American Bison, a project that influenced wildlife conservation efforts worldwide.

A CATHEDRAL FOR ALL

In 1888, the Episcopal authorities in New York City decided to implement Bishop Horatio Porter's dream of a cathedral open to all people, and organized a contest for the plan of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine (at Amsterdam Avenue and 112th Street). Heins and Lafarge, both students of ecclesiastical architecture, entered the contest, competed with some 60 others, and won the commission.

They envisaged a cruciform building 520 feet long using Richardson Romanesque and Byzantine elements, fully crowned with an immense tower and conical spire over a wide round-arched crossing, with massive marble monolithic columns surrounding the high altar. Their plan was accepted, contracts signed to last until the death of either partner. The ground was broken in 1890. Building began on December 27, 1892, the feast of St. John.

As the cathedral grew, so to did the firm of Heins & Lafarge, which handled other ecclesiastical buildings such as Saint Matthews in Washington (1893), the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Providence, Rhode Island (1894), and the Roman Catholic Chapel at West Point, New York (1900).

When Heins died in 1907, the original cathedral contract ended. Lafarge continued in charge of the cathedral, but under increasingly adverse conditions due to a growing appreciation of Gothic forms and their association with church buildings. Despite modifications in the plan to meet this trend, the trustees, finally convinced that St John's should be totally Gothic in idiom, were at real odds with Lafarge. Confusion and misunderstanding resulted and Cram was called in as a consultant. Hence, in 1911, with the choir completed, the agreement with Lafarge was closed and the future of the cathedral was assigned to Cram, Bertram G. Goodhue and Franklyn Ferguson as Cram desired. But, by then the apse, choir, and crossing had been constructed and they still bear the decidedly Byzantine-Romanesque character of Heins & Lafarge.

For Lafarge, all this was a profound tragedy, but he remained undefeated and active for another 25 years. He later formed a partnership with Benjamin Wistar Morris and designed, among other structures, the Architects Building, 101 Park Avenue at 40th Street, New York City.

Find out more about the amazing decorative tiles used in the first subway stations.

All photos are in the public domain or are ©Roger and Susannah Shepherd.