Tag Archives: New York City

New York Cancer Hospital

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The New York Cancer Hospital (aka Towers Nursing Home, aka 455 Central Park West) is one of the most striking buildings on Central Park West – if not in the entire city. What’s even more remarkable is that the Loire Valley chateau-style towers were medically prescribed – not simply decorative! Medical theory of the day was that round or octagonal wards promoted health by preventing air stagnation and the accumulation of dirt.

The hospital was privately financed, by donations from John Jacob Astor and others. The first, Astor-financed pavilion, was dedicated to treating women; later additions included a wing for men, a chapel, and an X-ray building. Public awareness of cancer was spurred by the death of President Ulysses S. Grant, from throat cancer. Until the 1880s, cancer was thought to be contagious, and limited to those living in poverty and filth.

In 1899 the hospital was renamed General Memorial Hospital for the Treatment of Cancer and Allied Diseases. In 1939 the hospital moved to the Upper East Side as Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. From 1955 to 1974 the hospital served as the Towers Nursing Home, operated by Bernard Bergman until it closed in scandal.

The abandoned buildings then became a crumbling haven for drug addicts until developer MCL Companies bought the property and successfully redeveloped the hospital/nursing home into luxury condominiums, with the addition of a 27-story tower. Apartments in the original (but gutted and rebuilt) buildings sold for up to $8 million!

A big thank you to Tsehaye Tesfai, who noticed my interest in this building and invited me up into his apartment so that I could shoot the hospital from above!

New York Cancer Hospital Vital Statistics
  • Location: 455 Central Park West / 2 W 106th Street
  • Year completed: 1886, 1890 (additions)
  • Architect: Charles C. Haight
  • Floors: 4
  • Style: Gothic Revival
  • New York City Landmark: 1976
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1977
New York Cancer Hospital Recommended Reading

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Grace Building

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The W. R. Grace Building is another example of “love it or hate it” architecture. Like near-twin Solow Building (9 W 57th Street) also designed by Gordon Bunshaft, the Grace Building’s swooping facades break up the “street walls” in front and back. If only the building were on a block by itself…

In a sense this is Bunshaft’s revenge: This is the rejected facade treatment that Bunshaft had first proposed for the Solow Building!

Grace Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 1114 Avenue of the Americas (block-through W 42nd – W 43rd Streets)
  • Year completed: 1974
  • Architect: Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
  • Floors: 50
  • Style: Postmodern
Grace Building Recommended Reading

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The Carlyle

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The Carlyle Hotel and Carlyle House are next door neighbors on Madison Avenue, both designed by architects Bien & Prince and so closely matched you might not notice that they’re separate buildings. The hotel has the 40-story green-and-gilt-capped tower – and gilt-edged history to go with it.

The yellow brick and limestone buildings had an inauspicious start: Just two years after their 1930 opening, the hotel and apartment building were auctioned off, victims of the 1929 stock market crash. New owners kept the properties afloat financially, and in 1948 sold to Robert Whittle Downing. Downing is credited with turning The Carlyle into an elegant, fashionable address.

U.S. Presidents from Harry Truman to Bill Clinton visited The Carlyle, but President Kennedy made it the “New York White House.” He had purchased an apartment in The Carlyle’s tower when he was a Senator. You can spot the apartment today by the breakfast nook that sticks out of the north side of the tower.

Kennedy wasn’t alone in modifying the tower – scan the facades and you’ll find a number of irregular windows.

Today, the hotel tower contains 180 guest rooms and suites, and 60 privately owned residences. The apartment building has 43 residences.

The Carlyle Vital Statistics
  • Location: 35 E 76th Street (hotel), 50 E 77th Street (apartments) at Madison Avenue
  • Year completed: 1931
  • Architect: Bien & Prince
  • Floors: 40 (hotel), 17 (apartments)
  • Style: Art Deco
The Carlyle Recommended Reading

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U.S. Mission to the United Nations

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The fortress-like Ronald H. Brown U.S. Mission to the United Nations replaces a 12-story glass-and-cast-stone slab on the same site. The stark white tower contrasts with the taller blue-green glass of UN Plaza, which wraps around the mission and adjacent Uganda House. Ronald H. Brown served as Secretary of Commerce under President Bill Clinton, and died in a plane crash while on a trade mission to Croatia.

While the need for more space dictated a new building, the need for security dictated the concrete construction, unflatteringly likened to a bunker. Inside the tower, staff and visitors even have separate elevators.

U.S. Mission to the United Nations Vital Statistics
  • Location: 799 UN Plaza (First Avenue) at E 45th Street
  • Year completed: 2011
  • Architect: Gwathmey Siegel & Associates
  • Floors: 22
  • Style: postmodern
U.S. Mission to the United Nations 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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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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International Gem Tower

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After some delays, the International Gem Tower (IGT) now dazzles in the middle of the (ironically) dreary block known as the Diamond District. The 34-story office tower, structurally complete but not fully occupied, now challenges the rest of the block to catch up, visually if not technically.

Architecturally, the IGT’s claim to fame is skin deep: Architects Skidmore, Owings & Merrill call it “crystalline curtain wall with embedded steel medallions.” The reflective surfaces change appearance as the sun moves – especially if viewed through polarized lenses – because metal and glass reflect light differently. Illuminated offices will further change the building’s appearance – it may become mesmerizing.

Beneath the skin, International Gem Tower has other innovations specifically focused on the diamond trade: Secure underground delivery bays, double door (man trap) entry to office suites and other security systems. The building has also been certified as New York’s only U.S. Foreign Trade Zone – allowing duty-free import/export within the building.

The building’s other distinction is that it is two buildings in one. The first 20 floors are being sold to diamond industry tenants as condominiums. The first three floors have been sold to Turkish-based Gulaylar Group for a retail mall. The upper 14 floors are being leased to non-diamond industry tenants – these occupants have their own entrance, at 55 W 46th Street, in the midst of Little Brazil.

There’s a pleasant little public access space behind 1166 Sixth Avenue (between W 46th and W 45th Streets) where you can sit and contemplate IGT’s changing visual patterns.

International Gem Tower Vital Statistics
  • Location: 50 W 47th Street / 55 W 46th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues
  • Year completed: 2013
  • Architect: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
  • Floors: 34
  • Style: Postmodern
International Gem Tower 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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