This week and next, we present a series of longer pieces unraveling the histories of storied buildings.
Evening in one of the courts in the Mills House, no. 1.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1902.
At the end of the 19th century, Ernest Flagg had a vision. Educated in the École des Beaux-Art in Paris, the young architect came back to New York in 1890 wanting to “reform the barbaric housing standards of the day.” Then he met banker and philanthropist Darius Odgen Mills, and before long Mills House No. 1, an inexpensive hotel for working men, opened in Greenwich Village in 1897.