Two photographic albums of a New York townhouse and country residence

ca1890. Commercial albums.. Very good; one album is essentially disbound. Some interior photographs are improperly fixed.. Oblong 8vo, appx. 7 x 10.5 inches, containing 71 mounted albumen prints. The photographs vary in size but most are 4.5 x 6.75 inches. The photographs are not captioned or identified.

A handsome set of photographic albums recording the interior of a well appointed New York City townhouse and two rare photographs (from Central Park) of the then recently completed Temple Beth-El (5th Ave. & 76 St., dedicated Sept. 18, 1891 and demolished in 1947) - one of the treasures of American synagogue architecture accomplished in the Romanesque style by A Brunner. There are additional street photographs and an unidentified country (summer?) residence along with an Afro-American groundsman. A possible clue to the origin of the albums are the inclusion of photographs of the monument to A L Holley (engineer) located in Washington Sq.. See Wischnitzer, Synagogue Architecture in the USA, pp. 87-89.