Throughout 2021 the Sunday Olympian’s Looking Back feature portrayed events and people from the Sylvester’s Window cityscape project. The 1950 cityscape features construction of the Fifth Avenue dam to create Capitol Lake. In this photo from 1949 we can see the project from the vantage point of the Fourth Avenue Bridge. At the far end of the bridge we can see the Percival Mansion and its terraced grounds, later to be demolished to make way for the construction of the Fifth Avenue extension to the West Side.
Unknown photographer, 1949, Susan Parish Collection, Southwest Regional Archives
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2021 and 2026