In 1873 fashionable Fifth Avenue above 34th Street saw the opening of the elegant Windsor Hotel. Sadly the average New Yorker may not know where or what the Windsor Arcade was. This was one of the first inculcations of commerce in the other wise residential neighborhood. The luxurious seven-story hotel stretched along the entire block from 46th to 47th Street on the avenue lined with the imposing mansions of millionaires like Robert and Ogden Goelet, and Jay Gould.

The Windsor Hotel witnessed a tragic end on St. Patrick’s Day 1899. While the parade marched below, a single lit cigar thrown from a patron, instantly ignited the curtains in the hallway, and subsequently transforming the architectural masterpiece into a pile of ashes.

The charred plot of land sat vacant for 6 months before owner, Eldridge T. Gerry announced plans to erect a new arcade on the “dreary void.” Gerry commissioned Charles I. Berg to design the new Windsor Arcade. The Windsor arcade was completed in 1901. As The Times pointed out, they were “no longer reminded of the distressing scenes enacted before their eyes when that frightful catastrophe occurred.” The Times went on to remark “New York has been so peopled with lofty structures along its chief arteries of commerce that the comparative lowness of the Windsor Arcade makes an agreeable variety in the street architecture.” The owner ultimately tore down the beautiful Beaux-arts structure and replaced it with something more profitable. There is sadly nothing to remind the citizens of New York City of the 1901 Windsor Arcade.