Herman Lee Meader

[5] After travelling abroad, he returned to New York in 1913 to start his own practice,[5] receiving commissions to design several prominent buildings in Manhattan, both commercial and residential.

He also did much work for the Astor estate, including the Waldorf Hotel at 8 West 33rd Street,[4] then the heart of the fashionable shopping district.

Meader lived in the Waldorf Hotel penthouse, where he created a surrounding rooftop Italian garden.

[4] Meader was intensely interested in Mayan and Aztec architecture and made regular expeditions to Chichén Itzá in the Yucatán and other sites.

[17][18] Changes in building codes as well as the necessities of visual balance required Meader to make some alterations to Price's building, such as replacing the original gilded parapet with "an elaborate cornice topped by a row of anthemia" on top of the new two-story penthouse.

The Cliff Dwelling apartment building at 243 Riverside Drive , built in 1914
Part of the frieze on the Cliff Dwelling's facade
Ornamentation over the entrance to 130 East 25th Street (1915-16), originally an office building, now an AIDS hostel . [ 1 ]
Closeup of the possibly Mayan -inspired decoration on 154-160 West 14th Street (1913) [ 2 ]
The Greenwich Village Theatre