Upper East Side, 66th Street Between Fifth and Madison Avenues

Mary Sargent © 2008 …………click to enlarge

This is the Lotos Club, the building immediately before our destination building. Finished in 1900. Visit New York Daily Photo to see interior shots and a brief history of the club. Paul Goldberger in The City Observed calls it "a grand Second Empire Mansion, which piles an ornate two-story mansard on top of a red-brick midsection on top of a rusticated limestone base. The detailing is lavish and comes tantalizingly close to excess. The ability of Hunt [Richard Howland Hunt] . . . to push this design right to the edge and yet never lose control in impressive." Now see, I want to know architecture well enough to be able to look at a building and say things like that.

See map.