Fodor's Expert Review Tudor City

In 1925, prominent real-estate developer Fred F. French was among the first Americans ever to buy up a large number of buildings—more than 100, in this case, most of them tenements—and join the properties into a single, massive new complex. He designed a collection of nine apartment buildings and two parks in the "garden city" mode, which placed a building's green space not in an enclosed courtyard, but in the foreground. French also built a 39-by-50-foot "Tudor City" sign atop one of the 22-story buildings, best viewed from the eastern end of 42nd Street. The development's residential towers opened between 1927 and 1930, borrowing a marketable air of sophistication from Tudor-style stonework, stained-glass windows, and lobby-design flourishes. Tudor City has been featured in numerous films, and its landmark gardens—sometimes compared to Gramercy Park, only public—remain a popular lunch spot among office workers. The neighborhood was designated a historic district in 1988.