Convent Avenue, looking south at 142nd Street, ca. 1900

This photograph looks south on Convent Avenue, dotted with lampposts, from around 142nd Street. Ninth Avenue ran just east of this photograph, but rather than blast through a steep ridge in the area, Andrew H. Green closed Ninth Avenue between 126th and 145th Streets and laid out three new roads that curved around the contours of the land between Eighth and Tenth Avenues: St. Nicholas Avenue, St. Nicholas Terrace, and Convent Avenue. The Convent of the Sacred Heart, south of 136th Street, can be seen in the distance.

The area did not stay vacant for long. A sign in the foreground promotes the realtors Duff & Brown, who have property in this section for sale, rent, or exchange, but the land soon became the campus of the City College of New York, which opened in 1907. AR

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