September 10, 1874: The 92nd Street Y Opens

September 10, 1874: The 92nd Street Y is founded is founded in Manhattan. It has well outgrown its original purpose as a community center for young Jewish men.

It wasn't always at 92nd Street. In 1874, a group of German-Jewish professionals established the New York Young Men's Hebrew Association (YMHA), as a parallel to the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA, also frequently abbreviated as "The Y"). The founders were predominantly members of the Temple Shaaray Tefila, or synagogue, and New York's YMHA and others across the country grew out of existing Jewish congregations.

The YMHA would initially operate out of rented premises on 112 West 21st Street. A few years later, the organization would move to larger accommodations on 110 West 42nd Street. The Y also operated a downtown branch, where Emma Lazarus, later to write the Statue of Liberty poem "The New Colossus," taught English to immigrants. This branch would later merge with other organizations to become the Educational Alliance.

In 1878, the YMHA held its first Hannakuh Festival, which became an annual tradition. The secularized celebration of Jewish holidays like Hannakuh and Purim helped save the holiday from obscurity, and was part of the creation of an American Jewish identity and culture. Celebrations of the High Holidays began in 1900.

In 1886, the YMHA moved from 42nd Street to 721 Lexington Avenue near 58th Street, and in 1895 to 111 East 59th Street. The Y would find a permanent home through the munificence of businessman and philanthropist Jacob Schiff. Initially donating a rowhouse at 65th Street and Lexington Avenue to the Y, Schiff would finance the construction of a new building at 92nd Street and Lexington. The new building would open in 1900 and was replaced by a new building, at 1395 Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street, completed in 1930.

The YMHA primarily catered to Jews until the mid-1930s. The Y's director, William Kolodney, argued that the arts were central to the Jewish religious tradition of learning for learning's sake. He opened the Y's concert hall and events to nonmembers, and its excellent acoustics helped land the Y on the map as a performing arts venue.

In 1945, the YMHA merged with the Young Women's Hebrew Association and became the YM-YWHA. In 1961, the Clara de Hirsch Home for Working Girls merged with the Y, and a new building on the southern part of the block was constructed to house it and new spaces for programming and the arts. In 1972 the YM-YWHA rebranded itself as "The 92nd Street Y."

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September 10, 1874 was a Thursday. There were 3 games played in professional baseball's National Association:

* The New York Mutuals beat the Baltimore Canaries, 11-8 at Newington Park in Baltimore.

* The Hartford Dark Blues beat the Chicago White Stockings, 7-5 at the Hartford Ball Club Grounds in Hartford, Connecticut.

* And the Boston Red Stockings beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 5-4 at the Jefferson Street Grounds in Philadelphia. Neither of these teams would become the teams that would become known by those names in the 20th Century.