Tag Archives: landmark

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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W 71st Street Row Houses

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West 71st Street, between West End Avenue and Riverside Boulevard, was designated a New York City Historic District in 1989, to preserve 36 buildings – principally row houses built 1893-1896 on a dead-end street.

This collection depicts eight of those houses – 329 to 343 W 71st Street – designed by Horgan & Slattery.

History does not look kindly on Horgan & Slattery; their most prominent commissions, it was charged, came from Tammany Hall connections rather than merit. This set of row houses, though private residences untainted by political connections, have been criticized as a copy of Stanford White’s Century Association Building on W 43rd Street (see The New York Times article).

Regardless of who should get credit for the design (the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission credits Horgan & Slattery without comment), they are exceptional buildings!

The yellow/tan brick, terra cotta decoration, alternating round-arched and plain doors, oval windows, balconies, columns and pilasters – give the buildings unique character.

If you visit the block you’ll see something else that’s unique: An artificial “dead end.” Before Riverside Boulevard was created over the former West Side rail yards, W 71st was a dead end. The street now joins Riverside Boulevard, but barriers (retractable to allow emergency vehicles) make it a through street only for pedestrians. A local resident said the barriers are to maintain the street’s quiet character.

W 71st Street Row Houses Vital Statistics
  • Location: 329-342 W 71st Street
  • Year completed: 1895
  • Architect: Horgan & Slattery
  • Floors: 5
  • Style: Renaissance Revival
  • New York City Landmark: 1989
W 71st Street Row Houses Recommended Reading
  • NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission designation report (p. 17)
  • The New York Times Streetscapes column
  • The New York Times Streetscapes column (architect controversy)

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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

Manhattan, , , , , , , , ,

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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40 E 62nd Street

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40 East 62nd Street lights up the block with its colorful gold, blue and red terra cotta; bay windows and battlements suggest a medieval castle – (a man’s home, after all…).

The building is part of the Upper East Side Historic District, in fine company if you’re looking for historic residences.

Among the building’s wealthy and famous tenants was Henry Janeway Hardenburg, architect of the Plaza Hotel and The Dakota.

The New York Times Streetscapes column and Daytonian in Manhattan blog are excellent reads; the Daytonian blog includes old photos and floor plans.

40 E 62nd Street Vital Statistics
  • Location: 40 E 62nd Street between Madison and Park Avenues
  • Year completed: 1911
  • Architect: Albert Joseph Bodker
  • Floors: 8
  • Style: neo-Medieval
  • New York City Landmark: 1981
40 E 62nd Street 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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