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166-178 Amsterdam

This block was a shopping area built along with the Lincoln Square urban renewal project. It fronts a curiously desolate stretch of Amsterdam Avenue that begins with Amsterdam Houses and the forbidding west wall of Lincoln Center, passes two public high schools and ends with the considerably more vibrant Verdi Square at the confluence of Amsterdam and Broadway.

When I arrived in the neighborhood in 1991, the building hosted a Woolworth's department store, a Burger King, some medical offices and a Jenny Craig. The southern portion was gutted in the late 2000s, presumably for development that never materialized. The northern portion was demolished to make way for a $20 million, 62,000 square foot building for Lincoln Square Synagogue. The block is anchored to the north by a former NYPL branch, a drive into Lincoln Square and the old Lincoln Square Synagogue building.

Next: Hunter Rye Ghost Sign / Liberty Warehouse