Buildings
on Madison Avenue seen from East 23rd Street and the old Gothic temple of
Madison Square Presbyterian Church at East 24th Street. Illustration published
in the Book of Old New-York by Henry Collins Brown, 1913. Text on print:
Madison Square: Site of Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, 1880, showing Mr.
S. L. M. Barlow House at right, Dr. Parkhurst's Church on the left, with the
residences of William H. Appleton, Mr. William E. Laimbeer, Mr Edwin Parsons, in
between.
The section of Madison Avenue at Madison Square was the site of superb mansions in the mid-19th century. Samuel Latham Mitchill Barlow (1826 -1889) was a lawyer and major stakeholder in the New York World newspaper. His mansion was sold after his death. These buildings to the right of the church, four stories high above basement, were all demolished by late 1880s and the 11-story Metropolitan Life Insurance Building, on the corner of Twenty-third Street, was completed by 1890. This Madison Square Presbyterian Church was completed about December 1854 and demolished in 1906.
