West Side YMCA

5 West 63rd Street | also 7 West 63rd Street, 3 West 63rd Street | Lincoln Square | built 1930

Open on the map4 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1930

    March

    Dwight James Baum designs a 14-story Italian-style West Side YMCA

    Architect Dwight James Baum designed the 14-story West Side YMCA, his only high-rise, on a site cleared of rowhouses along 63rd and 64th Streets. It was completed in March 1930 at a cost of $3.25 million. Baum combined Italian Renaissance and Romanesque styles, using variegated brick and colorful terra cotta, including a medallion of St. George slaying the dragon. Thomas Hudson Jones sculpted the sports figures at the 64th Street entrance.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1930

    The new YMCA opens with two pools, three gyms and a pirate-ship cabin room

    The building held 600 bedrooms, two swimming pools, three gymnasiums, six handball courts and a Turkish bath. The larger pool was reported to be the first in America with Pompeian tile on its walls, and the smaller one was decorated in blue Spanish tile. Novelty rooms included a Totem Room with an Alaskan totem pole, a log cabin room, a farmhouse attic and a pirate ship's cabin.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1941

    September 13

    The Y hosts a conference on job discrimination against Japanese Americans

    On September 13, 1941, the YMCA hosted the Nisei Job Conference, sponsored by the Tozai Club and the Japanese Students Christian Association. It addressed anti-Japanese sentiment that had left many Japanese Americans unemployed, and organizers hoped to shape a long-range employment program. Less than three months later, the attack on Pearl Harbor ended those hopes.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1942

    October 3

    The Y announces an auto mechanics course for women to aid the war effort

    On October 3, 1942, the West Side YMCA announced an automobile mechanics course for women, to be offered that month at the request of many women who wanted to help the war effort. The course came as the war had drained the American factory workforce.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

Nearby

All 48 buildings with stories in Lincoln Square