A Life Built in New York
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Tour 1

Joseph’s New York

A chronological introduction to Joseph Bartscherer's New York, from the vanished Coliseum to a late-career Battery Park City school.

10 stops · 1955–1990 · 10 identified

Signature overview. Each stop links to the full project record, where the sources, construction team and archival evidence are set out.

New York Coliseum, Columbus Circle, New York City. Photographed in 1956.
1956 · Photo: Gottscho-Schleisner Collection · Public domain
New York Coliseum, Columbus Circle, New York City. Photographed in 1956.
1956 · Photo: Gottscho-Schleisner Collection · Public domain
01 · 1955 · Manhattan / New York City

New York Coliseum — Columbus Circle

In 1955, Joseph's list puts him on the New York Coliseum in 1955 — the same year a major section of the exhibition-hall formwork collapsed during construction.

Project identity
Verified
Kelly connection
Family source
Masonry scope
Strong

Why this stop — A marquee mid-century New York civic project with a dramatic construction history and a complete demolition-and-replacement lifecycle.

Rita’s list

Rita Bartscherer’s handwritten entry: N. Y. Coliseum — 1955

Transcription: N. Y. Coliseum — 1955

Recorded by Rita Bartscherer · Bartscherer family record

Full project record →
One Chase Manhattan Plaza, now 28 Liberty Street, photographed in 2007.
Current view · 2007 · Photo: Michael · CC BY 2.0
02 · 1960 · Manhattan, New York

One Chase Manhattan Plaza (now 28 Liberty Street)

In 1960, a major postwar turning point: corporate Modernism replacing the fine-grained old Financial District — exactly the New York cycle the Fran Lebowitz story captures.

Project identity
Verified
Kelly connection
Family source
Masonry scope
Probable

Why this stop — A near-perfect New York lifecycle: the city altered its street grid to help build a modern corporate superblock, and half a century later landmarked the result.

Rita’s list

Rita Bartscherer’s handwritten entry: Chase Manhattan Bank — 1960

Transcription: Chase Manhattan Bank — 1960

Recorded by Rita Bartscherer · Bartscherer family record

Full project record →
Toots Shor standing outside his new restaurant, photographed for the World Telegram & Sun. The doorway and canopy of the second location, the site on Rita's list.
1961 · Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Reuse terms not verified.Toots Shor outside his new restaurant — the second location recorded on the list. The Library of Congress carries a rights advisory for this photograph.
03 · 1960 · Manhattan, New York

Toots Shor's Restaurant — second location

In 1960, Joseph worked on the new home of one of New York’s most famous celebrity saloons.

Project identity
Verified
Kelly connection
Family source
Masonry scope
Probable

Why this stop — In 1960, Joseph worked on the new home of one of New York’s most famous celebrity saloons.

Rita’s list

Rita Bartscherer’s handwritten entry: Toots Shor Restaurant — 1960

Transcription: Toots Shor Restaurant — 1960

Recorded by Rita Bartscherer · Bartscherer family record

Full project record →
The former Manufacturers Hanover operations centre during its 2023 conversion to housing as SoMA at 25 Water Street.
Current view · 2023 · Photo: SnowFire · CC BY 4.0
04 · 1967 · Manhattan, New York

4 New York Plaza / Manufacturers Hanover Operations Center (now SoMA at 25 Water Street)

In 1967, Joseph helped build a 408,000-brick banking-computer fortress whose original 1966 DOB plans still survive in the Municipal Archives; today the same structure has been transformed into 1,320 homes.

Project identity
Verified
Kelly connection
Family source
Masonry scope
Strong

Why this stop — The official DOB plans survive, the original masonry is unusually well documented, and the current conversion physically rewrites the very envelope Joseph helped build.

Rita’s list

Rita Bartscherer’s handwritten entry: Manufacturers Hanover Bldg. — 1967

Transcription: Manufacturers Hanover Bldg. — 1967

Recorded by Rita Bartscherer · Bartscherer family record

Full project record →
New York City. Photographed in 1980.
1980 · Photo: Gerd Eichmann · CC BY-SA 4.0
05 · 1967 · Manhattan / New York City

Seamen's Church Institute — 15 State Street headquarters

In 1967, Joseph helped build a seafarers' residence that lasted less than two decades; its 1985 sale and demolition then became entangled with New York's new protections for SRO residents.

Project identity
Verified
Kelly connection
Family source
Masonry scope
Strong

Why this stop — The building's brief life links Joseph's construction work to two different forms of urban change: the waterfront economy that made it obsolete and a housing-policy fight over how it could be demolished.

Rita’s list

Rita Bartscherer’s handwritten entry: Seamen's Church Institute — 1967

Transcription: Seamen's Church Institute — 1967

Recorded by Rita Bartscherer · Bartscherer family record

Full project record →
375 Pearl Street photographed in 2013, before the 2019–2021 recladding: the windowless switching block Joseph's 1973 list points to. Not a construction-period photograph.
2013 · Photo: Beyond My Ken · CC BY-SA 4.0
06 · 1973 · Manhattan, New York

New York Telephone Building — 375 Pearl Street

In 1973, Joseph helped build one of Lower Manhattan's most notorious windowless fortresses; forty years later, New York literally cut open its upper walls and turned them into glass.

Project identity
Verified
Kelly connection
Family source
Masonry scope
Unresolved

Why this stop — The physical transformation is unusually literal—masonry walls opened for glass—and the afterlife is equally New York: the converted tower now houses both digital infrastructure and city government.

Rita’s list

Rita Bartscherer’s handwritten entry: N.Y. Telephone - Pearl Street — 1973

Transcription: N.Y. Telephone - Pearl Street — 1973

Recorded by Rita Bartscherer · Bartscherer family record

Full project record →
The bus terminal photographed in 2022. Current exterior, not the 1970s expansion under construction.
Current view · 2022 · Photo: Eden, Janine and Jim from New York City · CC BY 2.0
07 · 1977 · Manhattan, New York

Port Authority Bus Terminal — 1975–79/81 North Wing expansion

In 1977, Joseph helped build the Port Authority expansion New York is now preparing to tear down.

Project identity
Verified
Kelly connection
Family source
Masonry scope
Strong

Why this stop — A complete New York lifecycle: old terminal → Joseph's expansion → disliked but familiar city fabric → planned demolition → another new terminal.

Rita’s list

Rita Bartscherer’s handwritten entry: Port Authority Bus Terminal — 1977

Transcription: Port Authority Bus Terminal — 1977

Recorded by Rita Bartscherer · Bartscherer family record

Full project record →
85 Broad Street in the Financial District, Manhattan. Photographed in 2026; a current view, not a construction-period photograph.
Current view · 2026 · Photo: Kidfly182 · CC BY 4.0
08 · 1981 · Manhattan / New York City

85 Broad Street — Goldman Sachs global headquarters

In 1981, Joseph’s 1981 entry places him on Goldman Sachs’s new 85 Broad Street headquarters above the archaeological remains of New Amsterdam.

Project identity
Verified
Kelly connection
Family source
Masonry scope
Strong

Why this stop — CMU/block partitions, shafts, service/core walls and masonry backup are now directly supported by the headquarters improvement inventory, which explicitly names masonry in occupant areas. The visible red-brown granite-aggregate exterior still should not be assigned to Kelly without the facade/subcontract records.

Rita’s list

Rita Bartscherer’s handwritten entry: 85 Broad Street — 1981

Transcription: 85 Broad Street — 1981

Recorded by Rita Bartscherer · Bartscherer family record

Full project record →
The Lipstick Building at 53rd Street and Third Avenue, photographed in 2007.
Current view · 2007 · Photo: Melanie Lazarow from Brunswick, Australia · CC BY 2.0
09 · 1984 · Manhattan, New York

53rd at Third / Lipstick Building

In 1984, Joseph worked on the Lipstick Building while it was rising; two decades later Bernard Madoff's firm operated from the same tower, which is now being reused in large part by Memorial Sloan Kettering.

Project identity
Verified
Kelly connection
Family source
Masonry scope
Strong

Why this stop — One of the archive's richest three-act stories: exact-period construction photographs, a defining New York financial scandal, and a major medical institution's reuse of much of the same tower.

Rita’s list

Rita Bartscherer’s handwritten entry: 53rd Street at Third Avenue — 1984

Transcription: 53rd Street at Third Avenue — 1984

Recorded by Rita Bartscherer · Bartscherer family record

Full project record →
The Chambers Street entrance of the Battery Park City campus today.
Undated · Photo: CC BY-SA 4.0
10 · 1990 · Manhattan, New York

Stuyvesant High School — Battery Park City campus

In 1990, Joseph’s 1990 project helped build Stuyvesant’s new Battery Park City home.

Project identity
Verified
Kelly connection
Corroborated
Masonry scope
Probable

Why this stop — Joseph’s 1990 project helped build Stuyvesant’s new Battery Park City home.

Rita’s list

Rita Bartscherer’s handwritten entry: Stuyvesant High School — 1990

Transcription: Stuyvesant High School — 1990

Recorded by Rita Bartscherer · Bartscherer family record

Full project record →

Family testimony holds that Joseph worked as a bricklayer for John B. Kelly, Inc. For most entries that testimony is still the only evidence of his role, and the archive says so on every page. What the list proves beyond doubt is where the work was.

Continue with Downtown: Towers, Memory and Reinvention →All 205 projects →