Tag Archives: Art Deco

21 West Street

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21 West Street (aka Le Rivage), a slender 31-story Art Deco landmark, was converted from offices to apartments in 1998. The building complements the adjoining Downtown Athletic Club, designed by the same architects but built five years earlier.

When built in 1931 (at the same time as the Empire State Building), 21 West Street was across the street from the waterfront. Upper-story tenants then had an unobstructed view of the Hudson. Battery Park City was built on landfill placed in 1980 from excavation for the World Trade Center.

The exposed corners of the building are cantilevered, allowing corner windows. The building was promoted as “An office building with glass corners.” The original red window frames have been replaced by a more neutral tan matching the brick surrounds.

Starrett & Van Vleck used different-colored bricks to create a “woven” texture and to accentuate the building’s vertical lines. The Washington Street facade has setbacks at the 10th and 16th floors; all three facades have setbacks above the 21st, 26th, 29th and 30th floors.

21 West Street Vital Statistics
  • Location: 21 West Street at Morris Street
  • Year completed: 1931
  • Architect: Starrett & Van Vleck; conversion: SLCE Architects
  • Floors: 31
  • Style: Art Deco
  • New York City Landmark: 1998
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1999
21 West Street Recommended Reading

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Ardsley

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The Ardsley is one of a handful of Art Deco apartment buildings on Central Park West – and considered by some to be Emery Roth’s finest Art Deco building, even surpassing his Eldorado, one block south. It’s a sharp departure from the styles Roth used in his other famous Central Park West apartment towers: Alden, Beresford, and San Remo.

The Ardsley Vital Statistics
  • Location: 320 Central Park West at W 92nd Street
  • Year completed: 1931
  • Architect: Emery Roth
  • Floors: 22
  • Style: Art Deco
  • New York City Landmark: 1990
The Ardsley Recommended Reading

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El Dorado

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El Dorado (aka The Eldorado*) is among New York’s most fabled apartment buildings – for its celebrity residents as much as for its stunning twin-tower Art Deco architecture.

Despite (or because of?) the building’s impressive design, El Dorado (The Golden One) got off to a rocky start – foreclosure following the stock market crash. Though the apartments were luxe enough to include maid’s quarters, the building was economy-minded enough to use cast stone instead of the real thing in the three-story base. And original notations of gold leaf for the towers’ pinnacles were never executed.

After reorganization, the building successfully attracted luxury-minded tenants; in 1982 El Dorado turned co-op. Unlike other pricey New York cooperatives, El Dorado welcomes celebrities. Famous tenants and former tenants include (in no particular order) Bruce Willis, Tuesday Weld, Barney’s founder Barney Pressman, Faye Dunaway, Garrison Keillor, Michael J. Fox, U2’s Moby, Sinclair Lewis, Marilyn Monroe, Groucho Marx, and Alec Baldwin.

One celebrity the apartments could have done without was the resident of apartment 9B – you can read the gruesome details in The New York Times and New York Daily News stories!

*El Dorado is Spanish for “The Golden One,” so THE El Dorado is redundant; the official name is Americanized as The Eldorado – but the canopy on Central Park West has it El Dorado. The name is inherited from an earlier (1902) eight-story luxury apartment house on the same site, El Dorado.

El Dorado Vital Statistics
  • Location: 300 Central Park West at 90th to 91st Streets
  • Year completed: 1931
  • Architect: Emery Roth with Margon & Holder
  • Floors: 28
  • Style: Art Deco
  • New York City Landmark: 1990
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1982
El Dorado Recommended Reading

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336 Central Park West

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336 Central Park West is a modest Art Deco apartment building that you might pass without thought – unless you looked up. The undulating, gently flared cornices on the building and its tower enclosures are embossed in an Egyptian reed pattern that is both simple and stunning.

You might also notice the thoughtful polychrome brickwork, with its projecting piers and segmented spandrels, which emphasize the building’s height.

Alas, over the years the cooperative has spoiled the design and created a stew of replacement windows – casements, double-hung, sliders in a variety of single and multi-pane configurations. Through-wall air conditioning vents are also done in different styles. Even the ground floor doors are mismatched.

336 Central Park West Vital Statistics
  • Location: 336 Central Park West at W 94th Street
  • Year completed: 1930
  • Architect: Schwartz & Gross
  • Floors: 16
  • Style: Art Deco
  • New York City Landmark: 1990
336 Central Park West Recommended Reading

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Master Apartments

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Master Apartments is the tallest building on Riverside Drive, and reputedly the first building in New York City to have corner windows. But the most interesting side of this Art Deco architecture is that it was built as a personal museum for a prolific Russian artist and philosopher, one Nicholas Roerich. The name “Riverside Museum” still rises above the Riverside Drive entrance.

As reported in The New York Times, Roerich set up a school – Master Institute of United Arts – at a mansion owned by a wealthy follower, Louis Horch. The mansion also housed the Nicholas Roerich Museum – displaying the artist’s prolific output.

In 1928-29 Horch replaced the mansion with this 27-story tower. The first three floors contained museum, theaters, libraries and more devoted to Roerich; the rest of the building was apartments. Following the stock market crash, Horch was in and out of control; Roerich’s popularity waned and in 1938 the museum became simply the “Riverside Museum.”

The building became a cooperative in 1988 – and became a NYC Landmark the following year. The museum moved to a brownstone on W 107th Street.

Master Apartments Vital Statistics
  • Location: 310 Riverside Drive at W 103rd Street
  • Year completed: 1929
  • Architect: Harvey Wiley Corbett
  • Floors: 27
  • Style: Art Deco
  • New York City Landmark: 1989
Master Apartments Recommended Reading

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241 Central Park West

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241 Central Park West is easily confused with 55 Central Park West – they were both designed by Schwartz & Gross; what’s more, the developer of record is 55 Central Park West Corp. (according to the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission).

The brick and cast stone facade takes up the entire blockfront between W 84th and W 85th Street. Protruding decorative elements – flowering stalks of some kind – decorate the building’s base and crown; otherwise the structure is quite plain.

The building is not without fans – you can even order a pewter model! (see below)

241 Central Park West Vital Statistics
  • Location: 241 Central Park West at W 84th Street
  • Year completed: 1931
  • Architect: Schwartz & Gross
  • Floors: 19
  • Style: Art Deco
  • New York City Landmark: 1990
241 Central Park West Recommended Reading

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55 Central Park West

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55 Central Park West, among the first Art Deco apartment houses on the avenue, has become known as the “Ghostbusters Building.” In the 1984 movie, the building is attributed to insane architect Ivo Shandor.

Schwartz & Gross, the real architects, must be spinning in their graves. They designed an innovative brick, stone and terra cotta structure that changes color as it rises, from dark red to white. Massive fluted projections in the base and as finials at the setbacks emphasize the building’s vertical lines.

Inside, 55 CPW was fairly modest: apartments ranged from three to six rooms on lower floors. But all apartments had the innovation of a sunken living room.

Upper floors have larger apartments – including a massive 12-room duplex penthouse that sold for $35 million in 2013.

55 Central Park West Vital Statistics
  • Location: 55 Central Park West at W 66th Street
  • Year completed: 1930
  • Architect: Schwartz & Gross
  • Floors: 19
  • Style: Art Deco
  • New York City Landmark: 1990
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1982
55 Central Park West Recommended Reading

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Gramercy House

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Gramercy House is one of New York’s most colorful apartment houses, designed by George and Edward Blum. The prolific architects designed at least 70 apartment buildings and 60 commercial structures in New York, but only three in the Art Deco style.*

Like most of the Blums’ apartment houses, Gramercy House is distinctive for its unusual brickwork and ample terra cotta – notably the bold geometric band above the first story. Even the rear light courts (viewed from E 23rd Street) have broad blue terra cotta bands. The corners of the E 22nd Street facade have bricks set at an angle, and setbacks in the upper floors have unusual inset chamfers. Contrasting brick bands break up the facades on E 22nd Street and Second Avenue.

* The other two are 210 E 68th Street (1929) and 315 E 68th Street (1930).

Gramercy House Vital Statistics
  • Location: 235 E 22nd Street at Second Avenue
  • Year completed: 1930
  • Architect: George and Edward Blum
  • Floors: 17
  • Style: Art Deco
Gramercy House Recommended Reading

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1 Fifth Avenue

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1 Fifth Avenue, a pre-war apartment cooperative, was built as a “hotel” to justify its 27-story height. To meet zoning requirements, apartments lacked kitchens, instead had “pantries” – which tenants later converted to kitchens.

Thin vertical stripes of white and black brick on the flat facades give the illusion of projecting pillars, from a distance, emphasizing the building’s height.

1 Fifth Avenue Vital Statistics
  • Location: 1 Fifth Avenue at E 8th Street
  • Year completed: 1927
  • Architect: Helme & Corbett, Sugarman & Berger
  • Floors: 27
  • Style: Art Deco
  • New York City Landmark: 1969
1 Fifth Avenue Recommended Reading

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Ardsley

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The Ardsley is one of a handful of Art Deco apartment buildings on Central Park West – and considered by some to be Emery Roth’s finest Art Deco building, even surpassing his Eldorado, one block south. It’s a sharp departure from the styles Roth used in his other famous Central Park West apartment towers: Alden, Beresford, and San Remo.

The Ardsley Vital Statistics
  • Location: 320 Central Park West at W 92nd Street
  • Year completed: 1931
  • Architect: Emery Roth
  • Floors: 22
  • Style: Art Deco
  • New York City Landmark: 1990
The Ardsley Recommended Reading

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