A photo of New York 1900. showing two of the four images of the Colonial Club in the book. We included so many images of the pleasant but unremarkable building because that was where we wrote the book, in Robert A.M. Stern Architects’ first office. On the southwest corner of Broadway and 72nd Street, 200 West 72nd housed RAMSA for many years in the former Ladies Dining Room of the club (illustrated on page 391).
After the club closed, a number of developers had offices in the building, including the prolific Paterno Brothers and the Cuban Holding Co. Architects in the building serving the developers included Rosario Candela and Geo. F. Pelham, the architect of my apartment house.
ONCE upon a time, long, long ago, I was lucky enough to get a summer job with Robert A.M. Stern while I was in graduate school. Stern’s new memoir, Between Memory and Invention: My Journey in Architecture (MonacelliPress, 2022), has prompted my own mini-memoir, with some relevant details not included in the book.
I arrived at the office in the early summer, not long after the dissolution of Bob’s marriage and then his office, Stern & Hagmann. I found two young architects-to-be, a sweet but disorganized secretary-receptionist-bookkeeper, and Bob. The office grew during the summer and beyond—and today there are over 200 in the office, including 16 partners in Robert A.M. Stern Architects (aka RAMSA).
