Collections : [Avery Drawings & Archives]

This collection primarily contains original correspondence--including letters, telegrams, and postcards-- to California architect Robert D. Farquhar from Chester A. Aldrich. Also included is a small group of letters from Amey Owen Aldrich to Farquhar. Most letters are accompanied by envelopes; a very few contain photographs, clippings and other ephemera. Matters discussed in the correspondence vary widely from intimate personal subjects to observations and reports on the work of Carrère & Hastings and Delano & Aldrich, the American Red Cross and its work with soldiers in Italy during World War I, the rise of Fasicsm in Italy, economic hardships during the Depression, and the state of American and European architecture.

Included are approx. 7,000 architectural drawings, circa 1910s-1940s, for projects designed by Delano & Aldrich, including La Guardia Airport in New York; several buildings at Yale University; Willard Straight Hall at Cornell University; various buildings at United States Military Academy at West Point; the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; alterations to the White House; numerous residences throughout the New York City metropolitan area, particulary the Dwight W. Morrow house in Englewood, N.J., the J.A. Burden house in Syosset, N.Y., and the Willard D. Straight house on East 92nd Street in New York City; and various schools, churches, and residential structures throughout the United States. Rendered competition drawings are included. Drawings made by William Adams Delano while a student at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, circa 1900. Also, 6 boxes of photographs of Delano & Aldrich completed projects, chiefly residential structures.

This collection includes original and reprographic architectural and engineering drawings, specifications, correspondence, and photographs documenting the design and construction of High Lawn, William B. Osgood Field's estate in Lenox, Massachusetts. The main house and related outbuildings were designed by the prominent New York architecture firm Delano & Aldrich between 1908 and 1914. The farm buildings and several other estate structures were primarily designed by New York architect John C. Greenleaf. The collection also includes copy photographs of the Field family and guests at High Lawn during the 1910s. Also included is a small group of drawings and other papers related to neighboring properties in Lenox; as well as drawings for Field's townhouse at 645 Fifth Avenue in New York City, designed by Hunt & Hunt, with interior work by Stuart & Stuart, dating from 1903-1911; and drawings for a building at 8-10 W. 37th St., in New York City, designed by John C. Greenleaf in 1923.

Files of the company, 1911-1920, much of which consists of unsucessful architectural bid documents, each noting the architect, building, and location, as well as estimated costs, sketches, and related correspondents. These bid documents represent commissions not awarded to NYATCC, and do, in some cases, indicate the outcome of the bid. Architects represented include McKim, Mead & White; Cass Gilbert; George Post; D.H. Burnham & Company; Warren & Wetmore, Schwartz & Gross, and many others. Also includes correspondence and office memoranda, including some describing the formative years, 1911-1914, of the National Terra Cotta Society, trade catalogs, and job photographs. Also, two albums containing photographs of sample pieces of terra cotta, and month by month construction records for three buildings, including the American Theater (42nd Street, New York, 1892) by Charles Coolidge Haight; the Renaissance Apartments (Brooklyn, N.Y., 1889) and the Imperial Apartments (Brooklyn, N.Y., 1890) both by Montrose Morris.

This scrapbook includes correspondence, typescripts, printed materials, black and white photographs, postcards, and other ephemera relating to the life, work, and personal interests of William Adams Delano and his architectural partnership with Chester H. Aldrich.

This collection of drawings, photographs and papers documents the architectural history of the William B. Osgood Field family in Lenox, Massachusetts, and New York City from the period 1908 through the 1920s. The bulk of the collection focuses on High Lawn, the private house and working farm located in Lee, MA. Several architects were commissioned to design buildings at High Lawn, including Delano & Aldrich, Alfred Hopkins, and John C. Greenleaf. The collection contains more than 450 drawings, 334 photographs (mostly construction photos of High Lawn Farm), specifications, general project files, and project correspondence between 1908-1914. In addition to the farm in Lee, MA, the collection also contains drawings for several buildings in New York City. There are alteration drawings by Stuart & Stuart (1903) and Hunt and Hunt (1911) for the Field's family home at 645 Fifth Avenue in New York. There are also drawings for a commercial building by John C. Greenleaf for 8 and 10 West 37th Street.