Tag Archives: historic

Dakota Apartments

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The Dakota Apartments were New York’s first luxury apartments, built by Singer Sewing Machine’s Edward S. Clark and designed by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh (of Plaza Hotel fame). It was named the Dakota, according to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, because Clark’s colleagues teased him that if he built it a few blocks further away he could build it in Dakota (Indian territory). *

The grand structure overlooking Central Park has a 20-foot-high covered entryway into its central courtyard – designed to accommodate carriages and horses, which were stabled nearby. The apartments were served by four entrances, at the corners of the courtyard. The adjoining lot – now a white brick apartment building – used to contain The Dakota’s tennis courts and a power station.

Though most recently known as the home of John Lennon and Yoko Ono – and the site where Lennon was murdered – the building has in fact been home to dozens of celebrities. Celebrity status isn’t enough to gain admittance, though: The Board of Directors (The Dakota is a cooperative) is notorious for rejecting would-be tenants. Among the rejected: Antonio Banderas, Melanie Griffith, Cher, Billy Joel, Madonna, Carly Simon, Alex Rodriguez, Judd Apatow and Tea Leoni.

When apartments become available, their prices are in the tens of millions of dollars. That doesn’t seem to bother some people: John Lennon had six apartments; Rudolf Nureyev’s apartment was just one of several homes.

When built, The Dakota Apartments offered many services of a hotel. A private dining room served residents – or delivered (and served) meals in their apartments. A substantial housekeeping staff included porters, janitors, maids, laundresses, elevator operators and more. The staff delivered coal and firewood for the apartments’ stoves and fireplaces – and hauled away the resulting ashes. The top two floors were originally for the building’s laundry, and servants quarters.

All in all, beautiful architecture and fascinating history. See some of the interiors at the Dakota Projects documentary website.

* This story, though widely quoted, actually has no documentary basis according to historian Andrew Alpern. The quote was pure speculation of a property manager, years after Clark died, says Mr. Alpern.

There is a new book by architectural historian Andrew Alpern – the most comprehensive history of The Dakota imaginable! Mr. Alpern documents the building, its builder (and family!), the architect, the neighborhood, the architectural and historical context, and even the Dakota’s residents. Fascinating reading that illuminates not only The Dakota, but also the world of apartment living in New York City. I’m honored that he chose photos from this gallery to help illustrate the volume.

Dakota Apartments Vital Statistics
  • Location: 1 West 72nd Street at Central Park West
  • Year completed: 1884
  • Architect: Henry Janeway Hardenburgh
  • Floors: 9
  • Style: German Renaissance Revival
  • New York City Landmark: 1969
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1976
Dakota Apartments Recommended Reading

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Amidon

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Amidon is an attractive seven-story Renaissance Revival apartment building with finely detailed yellow-orange roman brick – ambitious for its time and neighborhood – now enlivened by a sculptor in residence.

The building is part of the newly (June 2012) expanded Riverside-West End Historic District. Most of the Amidon’s facade is original – historic, in preservation-speak – except that the storefronts have been replaced and the cornice was removed. And oh, the whimsical grotesques that flank the main entry were sculpted by G. Augustine Lynas, an Amidon resident.

(Mr. Lynas has other work in the neighborhood – an elaborate sandbox, cast in sand-colored concrete, is the centerpiece of a children’s playground in Riverside Park, between W 82nd and W 83rd Streets. You can see more at www.SandSong.com.)

Amidon Vital Statistics
  • Location: 233 W 83rd Street at Broadway
  • Year completed: 1892
  • Architect: Edward L. Angell
  • Floors: 7
  • Style: Renaissance Revival
  • New York City Landmark: 2012
Amidon Recommended Reading

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Chatsworth Apartments and Annex

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The Chatsworth Apartments and Annex are magnificent Beaux Arts buildings at the foot of West 72nd Street, overlooking the Hudson River and Riverside Park. The eight-story annex was built two years after the 12-story main building; the two are distinctively separate except for a unifying limestone base. Although not apparent from the front (W 72nd Street), the Chatsworth itself is two buildings. The second, with a less elaborate facade, is now visible only from W 71st Street. Donald Trump’s Harmony House condo (2003) blocks the buildings’ west facades, which used to overlook the abandoned West Side rail yard (and the Hudson River, beyond).

The most lavish of Chatsworth’s 66 apartments ranged from five to 15 rooms, which rented for $900 to $5,000 per year (1904 dollars!). The smaller Chatsworth Apartments Annex had one apartment per each of its eight floors.

Take time to read the Daytonian in Manhattan piece for some fascinating history; The New York Times three pieces detail tenants’ battles with the landlord and with Donald Trump.

Chatsworth Apartments and Annex Vital Statistics
  • Location: 344 and (annex) 340 W 72nd Street at Riverside Drive
  • Year completed: 1904 and 1906 (annex)
  • Architect: John E. Scharsmith
  • Floors: 12 and 8 (annex)
  • Style: Beaux Arts
  • New York City Landmark: 1984
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1985
Chatsworth Apartments and Annex Recommended Reading
  • NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission designation report
  • Beyond the Gilded Age blog
  • Daytonian in Manhattan blog
  • City Realty listing
  • The New York Times Streetscapes column (1992: the Trump Threat)
  • The New York Times article (1996: tenants get relief)
  • The New York Times article (2002: Chatsworth v. Trump)
  • The Chatsworth website

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Studio Building

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Studio Building aka Studio Apartments (not to be confused with 140 W 57th Street Studio Building – The Beaufort) has just 32 apartments – but what apartments! At this writing, one of those three-bedroom cooperative apartments is on the market for $15.5 million. The mid-block building overlooks the Museum of Natural History on wide W 77th Street; the views more spectacular because living rooms (originally studios) are double height with floor-to-ceiling windows.

The building’s original facade was even more ornate – there was a massive oriel projecting from the top three floors, and an elaborate cornice that added a story to the building’s height. The New York Times notes that three quarters of the original ornament was stripped in the 1940s.

The architects – Herbert Spencer Harde and Richard Thomas Short – had a brief but showy partnership that resulted in four landmarked buildings: this and Red House, Alwyn Court, and 45 E 66th Street.

Studio Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 44 W 77th Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue
  • Year completed: 1909
  • Architect: Harde & Short
  • Floors: 14
  • Style: Neo-Gothic
  • New York City Landmark: 1973 (part of the Central Park West – 76th Street Historic District)
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1983
Studio Building Recommended Reading
  • Wikipedia entry (Harde & Short)
  • NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission designation report
  • City Realty review
  • The New York Times Real Estate listing (May 13, 2013: click tabs for floor plan, virtual tour, interiors)
  • The New York Times Streetscapes column (2005)
  • The New York Times Streetscapes column (1992)
  • Prewar Passion blog
  • Connecting The Windy City blog (Harde & Short)

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Montauk Club

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Montauk Club is “an architectural treasure” of Park Slope, Brooklyn, according to the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission. Francis H. Kimball designed the brownstone and brick building in the style of a Venetian palace, decorated on three sides in terra cotta with scenes of the Montauk Indians. (The north side of the building, adjoining a vacant lot, was left plain for possible expansion.)

The club itself still exists (see their website for details), though it now uses just the two lower floors. The upper floors have been converted to cooperative apartments – accessed through the club’s former “ladies’ entrance.” The ladies’ entrance allowed the lady of 1891 to go directly to the third floor dining room without encountering cigar smoke or other male vices.

Montauk Club Vital Statistics
  • Location: 25 Eighth Avenue at Lincoln Place
  • Year completed: 1891
  • Architect: Francis H. Kimball
  • Floors: 5
  • Style: Venetian Gothic
  • New York City Landmark: 1973 (part of Park Slope Historic District)
Montauk Club Recommended Reading

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Barbizon Hotel for Women

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Barbizon Hotel for Women, now known as the condominium apartments Barbizon 63, was built as a residential hotel catering to young professionals.

The NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) added the building to its roster in April 2012, noting that the structure is “an excellent representative of the 1920s apartment hotel building, and is notable for the high quality of its design.”

The zoning law of 1916 required setbacks – indented upper floors – on tall buildings to permit more light to reach the street. Complex arcades and courtyards in Barbizon Hotel’s setback design add visual interest to the tower. The complex brickwork, with a mix of colors and corbelling, adds visual rich texture, even from a distance.

Hotels for women were the ladies’ answer to late-1800s “bachelor flats” for men (e.g., The Wilbraham), and completed the quaint (by today’s standards) segregation of residences: for families, for single men, and for single women. (See also Beekman Tower Hotel, the former Panhellenic Tower.) See the LPC designation report for a great synopsis of New York City’s housing variety: tenements, apartments, french flats, rooming houses, residence and club hotels.

The first owners lost the hotel through foreclosure, but a second group led by Lawrence Elliman was able to show a profit by 1938. Quite a few now-famous women lived at the Barbizon through the mid-70s – by which time the hotel was again losing money. Between 1980 and 2001 the hotel changed hands five times, and then in 2005 it was converted to condominium apartments.

Barbizon Hotel for Women Vital Statistics
  • Location: 140 E 63rd Street at Lexington Avenue
  • Year completed: 1928
  • Architect: Murgatroyd & Ogden
  • Floors: 23
  • Style: Mix of Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance
  • New York City Landmark: 2012
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1982
Barbizon Hotel for Women Recommended Reading

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Seventh Regiment Armory

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Seventh Regiment Armory, aka Park Avenue Armory, was home of the “Silk Stocking Regiment” – militia that put down at least five riots in the city*, served in the War of 1812 and was the first militia to enlist for Civil War duty. The building’s military use is now mostly ceremonial; it has been leased (since 2006) to the Seventh Regiment Armory Conservancy, the arts group credited with rescuing the block-sized landmark from official neglect.

NYC – The Official Guide dubbed the armory “the ultimate boys’ club” because the affluent members of the Seventh Regiment built themselves an elegant home, enlisting the talents of Tiffany, Stanford White and other prominent designers of the day. It doesn’t show on the outside, but interiors were richly paneled and painted, and contained valuable artwork. Why? Because the armory (built with private, not government funds) served as a social club as well as a drill hall and weapons cache. The main drill hall, meanwhile, was among America’s first (and is the oldest surviving) “balloon shed” structures, spanning one of the largest unobstructed interiors in New York City. As a result, the building and its interiors were designated as NYC landmarks.

The building and its occupants have a rich and well-documented history – the links below are a good starting place. Also, Park Avenue Armory has public tours – information and reservations here.

* The “Right to bear arms” Second Amendment at work: The New York Times Streetscapes column noted, “When the armory was completed in 1880, Scribner’s Monthly recounted that the Seventh had served in putting down the abolition riots of 1834, the stevedore riots of 1836, the flour riots of 1837, the Croton water riots of 1840 and the Astor Place riots of 1849, in which 30 demonstrators were killed and 141 of the 200 soldiers called out were injured.”

Seventh Regiment Armory Vital Statistics
  • Location: 643 Park Avenue between E 66th and E 67th Streets
  • Year completed: 1878
  • Architect: Charles W. Clinton
  • Floors: 5
  • Style: Gothic Revival
  • New York City Landmark: 1967, 1994 (interiors)
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1975
Seventh Regiment Armory Recommended Reading

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Engine 39 / Ladder 16

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The Fire Engine 39 / Ladder 16 Station House originally served as the headquarters of the New York Fire Department. It’s the third of four late-1880s landmarks in a row on E 67th Street.*

Napoleon Lebrun & Son, which designed more than 40 buildings for the department, designed this one in Romanesque Revival style. While Lebrun’s design included space for the Fire Commissioners and staff, the headquarters outgrew its space and moved to the Municipal Building in 1914. The fire telegraph (communications system) moved out in 1922. A lookout tower once topped the building’s right-hand bay (the section with single windows) – but was removed in 1949. The building became a training center, but by 1970 the city had planned to demolish the building. In 1980 the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the building as one of four landmarks on the block – but the Board of Estimate overturned the designation (and that of the adjoining police station). In the end, compromise: The facades of the fire house and police station were preserved and restored (1992), but new structures were built behind the 1880s face. The police precinct now uses the upper floors of the fire station.

(Unconfirmed scuttlebutt has it that “some 3 letter agency” operates/operated out of the building, which is directly across the street from an Eastern-bloc mission. Keep that under your hat.)

You might also enjoy Napoleon LeBrun’s Engine Company 31 on Lafayette Street, in a different architectural style – considered his most flamboyant fire house design.

*The four E 67th Street landmarks are: Mount Sinai Dispensary (now Kennedy Child Study Center) at 149; 19th (originally 25th) Police Precinct at 153; Engine Company 39/Ladder Company 16 Station House at 157; and Park East Synagogue, 163.

Engine 39 / Ladder 16 Vital Statistics
  • Location: 157 E 67th Street, between Lexington and Third Avenues
  • Year completed: 1886
  • Architect: Napoleon Lebrun & Sons
  • Floors: 6
  • Style: Romanesque Revival
  • New York City Landmark: 1998
  • National Register of Historic Places:
Engine 39 / Ladder 16 Recommended Reading

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19th Precinct

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The 19th Precinct Station House is the second of four late-1880s landmarks in a row on the north side of E 67th Street – and now actually joined to the third, a fire station house.*

The building was conceived in 1883 as the home of the 28th Precinct – which then covered the area from E 58th to E 79th Streets, from Central Park to the East River and Roosevelt Island (then known as Blackwell’s Island). By the time that construction was underway in 1886, the Precinct had been renumbered (25th) and its territory extended a block south to E 57th Street. The unit was renumbered again in 1908 (31st Precinct), 1924 (10A Precinct), and 1929 (19th Precinct).

The NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission designated this (and three adjacent buildings) as landmarks in 1980, but the Board of Estimate overturned the designation for the Precinct and neighboring fire house. The city’s plan: Demolish and rebuild. (The separate jail, behind the station house, had been demolished in 1974.) An alternate plan was devised in 1990 that saved the fronts of the precinct and fire house, and built new rear portions that joined the two structures. The precinct now uses upper floors of the adjacent fire house (which originally had been used as NYFD headquarters).

*The four E 67th Street landmarks are: Mount Sinai Dispensary (now Kennedy Child Study Center) at 149; 19th (originally 25th) Police Precinct at 153; Engine Company 39/Ladder Company 16 Station House at 157; and Park East Synagogue, 163.

19th Precinct Vital Statistics
  • Location: 153 E 67th Street, between Lexington and Third Avenues
  • Year completed: 1887
  • Architect: Nathaniel D. Bush
  • Floors: 5
  • Style: Renaissance Revival
  • New York City Landmark: 1999
  • National Register of Historic Places:
19th Precinct Recommended Reading

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Colony Club

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This is the second home of the Colony Club, the prestigious women’s social club that quickly outgrew its 1908 Stanford White-designed headquarters on Madison Avenue and E 31st Street. (Why didn’t White get to design the second club? He was shot by a jealous husband – but that’s another story.)

Like men’s clubs of the era, Colony Club was big on fitness facilities: the basement has what is said to be New York’s deepest indoor pool, a spa, and (via express elevator) a gymnasium and squash courts on the fifth floor. Other facilities included a ballroom and even a kennel for members’ pets.

Membership was (and still is) restricted to women – you must be recommended by a current member to be considered. Past members include Harrimans, Morgans, Astors and Rockefellers, to drop a few names.

Colony Club Vital Statistics
  • Location: 564 Park Avenue at E 62nd Street
  • Year completed: 1916
  • Architect: Delano & Aldrich
  • Floors: 7
  • Style: neo-Georgian
  • New York City Landmark: 1981
Colony Club Recommended Reading

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