Hostelling International New York

891 Amsterdam Avenue | also 881 Amsterdam Avenue | Manhattan Valley | built 1883

Open on the map5 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. 1883

    Richard Morris Hunt completes a home for poor elderly women on Amsterdam Avenue

    A women's charity founded in 1814 to help poor elderly women built this Victorian Gothic residence in 1881–83 for $100,000, to designs by Richard Morris Hunt, on Amsterdam Avenue between 103rd and 104th Streets. A 1907 addition had seven Tiffany windows, which are now in the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art.

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1907

    A southern addition brings seven Tiffany windows to the residence

    The Association for the Relief of Respectable Aged Indigent Females adds a southern extension to its Amsterdam Avenue home, furnished with seven stained-glass windows from Louis Comfort Tiffany's studio. The windows are later removed and are now held in the collection of the Morse Museum of American Art in Florida.

    Source: Wikipedia

  3. 1974

    The elderly residents move out and the building is abandoned

    After nearly a century of housing poor elderly women, the Association closes its Amsterdam Avenue home and the building sits vacant. Neglect and disrepair follow, and the city slates the Victorian Gothic structure for demolition in 1978, before local preservationists intervene to fight for its survival.

    Source: Internet Archive

  4. 1983

    Preservationists win landmark status after a fight over demolition

    Community members, elected officials, and preservation specialists, many affiliated with Columbia University, persuade the city to landmark the vacant Association Residence rather than let it be demolished. The designation clears the way for Hostelling International to later convert Richard Morris Hunt's Victorian Gothic building into a youth hostel.

    Source: Wikipedia

  5. 1990

    January

    The rescued building reopens as North America's largest hostel

    In the early 1970s the charity, short of money, planned to tear the building down for a modern facility, but preservationists, including people connected to Columbia University, fought to save it. It became a city landmark on April 12, 1983. American Youth Hostels rehabilitated it in the 1980s, and it reopened in January 1990 as a Hostelling International hostel; with 670 beds, it is the largest hostel in North America.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 4 buildings with stories in Manhattan Valley