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'Aymar Embury II' (June 15, 1880 - Nov 15, 1966) was an American architect. He is best known for commissions from the City of New York from the 1930s through to the 1950s. In this period, Embury frequently worked with Robert Moses in the latter's various city and state capacities, especially, early on, in Moses capacity of Parks Commissioner. Many surviving examples of Embury's work comprise of zoos, swimming pools, playgrounds and other recreational structures in New York City parks.

Contents

Personal Biography

Early professional career

Military career

Post war activities

Work with Robert Moses

Later work

Books by Aymar Embury II5

References

Personal Biography

Embury was born in New York City to Aymar Embury and Fannie Miller Bates. ^{5 [1]} Married four times, his first union was with Dorothy Coe in 1904.¹⁵ Upon her death, he married Ruth Dean.⁵ Again a widower in 1932, he married Josephine Bound in 1934,^[2] which ended in divorce. ^[3] He was survived by his fourth wife, Jane Schabbehar.⁵ From the 1930s on, Embury maintained Manhattan and East Hampton, Long Island residences, and was active in East Hampton society.

Early professional career

Aymar Embury graduated from Princeton University in 1900 with a degree in Civil Engineering^{[4] [5]} and further received a Masters of Science degree in 1901. Following graduate studies, Embury taught architecture at Princeton⁵ while also working for various firms in New York City, including Cass Gilbert, George B. Post, Howells and Stokes, and Palmer and Hornbostel. During this period he developed a keen interest in the architecture of small country houses, publishing several books and pamphlets on the subject. In 1905, Embury won both the first and second prize in a design contest sponsored by the Garden City Company for a modest country house in Garden City, Long Island. This gave him visibility as a "society architect"; he acquired a reputation as a builder of country houses for the upper middle class and received many further commissions for such houses in the years surrounding World War I. ^{[6] [7]}

Military career

Embury served for fourteen months during World War I as a Captain in the Fortieth Engineers, U. S. Army Corps of Engineers ^{2 [8]} where he helped establish a unit of eight professional artists to document the activities of the American Expeditionary Force in France. During this time, Capt. Embury designed the Distinguished Service Cross and the Distinguished Service Medal (Army). ^[9]
Later, in 1932, he became a Lieutenant Colonel in the Officers Reserve Corps.²

Post war activities

By the late 1920s, Embury was well-known and had received a wide range of commissions all over the east coast of the United States, entailing college buildings and social clubs in addition to residences. He designed the Players and Nassau Clubs in Princeton, New Jersey, the Princeton Club in New York City, and the University Club in Washington, D.C.⁶

Work with Robert Moses

In 1934, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia appointed Robert Moses as sole commissioner of a newly unified Department of Parks for New York City, commencing a seven year period of construction and renovation of city parks. Embury, along with landscape architect Gilmore D. Clarke, was a senior member of an 1,800 strong design and construction team that Moses had assembled at the Arsenal in Central Park.

In the following years, Embury was chief or consulting architect in numerous projects in the New York City locale. Central Park Zoo, Prospect Park Zoo, Prospect Park Bandshell, McCarren Park and four of the other ten WPA pools built throughout the city in the mid-1930s, the New York City Building at the 1939 New York World's Fair (Currently the Queens Museum of Art), ^[10] Triborough Bridge, and Henry Hudson Bridge ^[11] Orchard Beach, Bryant Park, the Donnell Branch of the New York Public Library^[12], the Hofstra University Campus, and Jacob Riis Park.⁶

Later work

Embury remained active throughout the 1950s, turning over his firm to his son, Edward Coe Embury, in 1956. Remaining active as a consulting architect, Embury served on the architectural advisory committee for the old New York Coliseum at Columbus Circle, was a consulting architect for the New York Aquarium at Coney Island, designed the campus playhouse for Hofstra University in Hempstead, Long Island, and the William Church Memorial Playground near Fifth Avenue, in Manhattan.⁵

Books by Aymar Embury II⁵

★ ''One Hundred Country Houses: Modern American Examples'' 1909, The Century Company

★ ''The Dutch Colonial House'' 1913 McBride, Nast, and Company

★ ''Early American Churches'' 1914, Doubleday, Page, and Company, New York

★ ''American Country Houses of Today'' 1915, with coauthors Frank Miles Day, Samuel Howe, Bernard Wells Close, Randolph Williams Sexton, and Lewis Augustus Coffin

★ ''The Livable House: It's Plan and Design'' 1917, Moffat, Yard and Co., New York

★ ''The Aesthetics of Engineering Construction''

References

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Silobhan's Tree

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The World of Tomorrow The 1939 New York World's Fair, , , , The Main Street Press, 1988, ISBN 0-06-015923-5

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''WPA Guide to New York City'', , , , , 1939, reprinted 1982,,

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