Built in 1892 by Edward J. Neville Stent and Robert W. Gibson, 281 Park Avenue South was the headquarters of the Episcopal Church’s Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society. The building switched hands in 1963 to the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies. Located in Gramercy Park, this gothic-style structure was named a landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Committee in 1979. Currently, the building is a branch of Fotografiska New York, a Swedish photography museum.

Inspired by the town halls of the Haarlem Municipality in The Netherlands, 281 Park Avenue South has a gothic, medieval, Indiana limestone facade. The architects, Stent and Gibson, had designed several churches in the city and state with similar design ideas. This was one of their larger projects and was meant to appear grand, with large arches and windows in the first two stories and smaller, yet imposing, rectangular windows on the upper floors.

Originally, the first floor housed stores that sold religious texts, specifically Christian literature. The second floor had grand mosaics and a library, a chapel, and a broad room for the Missionary Society. The top four floors were all used as offices for the Missionary Society, and again for Welfare Agencies. In 2019, Fotografiska controlled the entirety of the building, restoring some of the mosaics on the second floor for their restaurant, restoring the top floor to be used as an event space, and occupying the third through fifth floor for the museum. The first floor is used as a lobby and museum offices.

281 Park Avenue South was recently featured on the popular Netflix Show Inventing Anna, as a property that the show’s lead, Anna Delvey (played by Julia Garner), wanted to transform into a nightclub. This is based on the real-life Anna Delvey, who tried to buy 281 Park Avenue South as a business venture.