Tag Archives: New York City

459 W 18th Street

Manhattan, , , , , , , , ,

459 W 18th Street so perfectly complements Chelsea Modern, the condo next door, you might think that they were one building. That’s quite a trick, considering that the two structures have different heights, widths, orientations, colors and materials – not to mention architects.

But 459’s vertically-aligned angles and stark black and white aluminum panels paradoxically marry the blue and white glass and horizontal lines of Chelsea Modern.

459 W 18th Street Vital Statistics
  • Location: 459 W 18th Street between 9th and 10th Avenues
  • Year completed: 2009
  • Architect: Della Valle + Bernheimer Design
  • Floors: 11
  • Style: postmodern
459 W 18th Street Recommended Reading
  • The New York Times Real Estate column
  • City Realty review
  • Emporis database
  • New York Magazine feature
  • The Real Deal real estate blog
  • Architect magazine of the American Institute of Architects – design review
  • Bernheimer Architecture website
  • Arcade design blog (architect interview)

Click to access architecture090615.pdf

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IAC Building

Manhattan, , , , , , ,

“Starchitect” Frank Gehry’s first New York building, IAC Building, resembles billowing sails – appropriate, just across 11th Avenue from the Hudson River.

The building’s skin is fritted glass – glass panels with ceramic paint heat-fused to the surface. This high-tech finish keeps the building cooler, but (at least in this application) looks a bit like it was spray-painted white. (Visit the IAC HQ website for short time-lapse construction videos; you’ll see the building’s concrete skeleton without the glass skin.)

There are no windows with traditional frames – continuous ribbon windows are formed by the non-fritted band of glass on each floor. There very nearly are no exterior doors – the exterior openings are small, minimally framed glass doors. The main entrance, on W 18th Street, has a tiny flat glass canopy. The rear service and garage entrances have no canopy.

IAC Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 555 W 18th Street at 11th Avenue
  • Year completed: 2007
  • Architect: Frank Gehry
  • Floors: 10
  • Style: Postmodern / Deconstructivism
IAC Building Recommended Reading

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Medical Arts Building

Manhattan, , , , , ,

The Medical Arts Building, now known as simply 57 West 57th Street, was designed by Warren & Wetmore. That’s the same firm that designed nearby Steinway Hall and the Crown (originally Heckscher) Building – and New York landmarks Grand Central Terminal, Helmsley (originally New York Central) Building, Biltmore Hotel, and Grand Hyatt New York (originally Commodore Hotel), among others.

As the name suggests, the building was conceived as a center for doctors, dentists and other medical practitioners. Several whole-floor clinics and sanitoriums took residence here. But as the Daytonian in Manhattan blog tells it, medicine was not all that was practiced here! Must read!

The building’s new owner specializes in pre-built office space. The building has been redesigned internally with movable walls on tracks. (See The New York Observer article.) Several companies have set up shop to offer office leases by the month, day – or hour.

While the building has traded commerce for medicine on the inside, the decorative arts are alive and well on the outside: A string of gilt-painted terra cotta adorns the white brick facades on Sixth Avenue and West 57th Street; a massive columned “temple” crowns the building. The gilt medallions are supposed to picture notable physicians; I haven’t located the names. Also, at this writing the building’s Sixth Avenue art deco entrance was covered in scaffolding, so I couldn’t photograph it.

Medical Arts Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 57 West 57th Street at Sixth Avenue
  • Year completed: 1928
  • Architect: Warren & Wetmore
  • Floors: 21
  • Style: neo-Classical
Medical Arts Building Recommended Reading

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The Arlington

Brooklyn, , , , , , , , ,

The Arlington is the last and tallest of four ornate Romanesque Revival/Queen Anne style apartment buildings built on Montague Street; the others, designed by the Parfitt Bros. firm, are The Montague (105), and The Berkeley/The Grosvenor (111/115). The 10-story tower makes this one stand out.

Playwright Arthur Miller lived here, as well as artist/filmmaker Marie Menken and poet Willard Maas.

An Arlington resident – Chuck Taylor – seems to be the building’s self-appointed historian: He’s written four blog pieces about the structure. His Smoking Nun essay includes vintage photos of Montague Street when it was a trolley route, and before.

The Arlington Vital Statistics
  • Location: 62 Montague Street between Hicks Street and Montague Terrace
  • Year completed: 1887
  • Architect: Montrose W. Morris
  • Floors: 10
  • Style: Romanesque Revival
  • New York City Landmark: 1965
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1962
The Arlington Recommended Reading

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The Montague

Brooklyn, , , , , , , , ,

The Montague is one of three Queen Anne style apartment buildings designed by Parfitt Brothers on Montague Street; the other two, a joined set of near twins, are just three doors up the street.

The eight-story Montague started out as elevatorless(!) apartments, but were converted at the turn of the century into an apartment hotel (see New York Sun advertisement).

Apartment hotels competed with “bachelor flats” of the era: Daily maid service was included, but there were no kitchens – residents could take their meals in a ground floor cafe on the European Plan.

As the neighborhood changed, so did the building – becoming a welfare hotel, and returning to an apartment building. It’s now a 25-unit co-op, with one- and two-bedroom apartments listing for $750,000 and up.

The Montague Vital Statistics
  • Location: 105 Montague Street, between Hicks and Henry Streets
  • Year completed: 1885
  • Architect: Parfitt Bros.
  • Floors: 8
  • Style: Queen Anne
  • New York City Landmark: 1965
The Montague Recommended Reading

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The Berkeley / The Grosvenor

Brooklyn, , , , , , , , ,

The Berkeley / The Grosvenor are a pair of Queen Anne style apartment buildings on Montague Street, mirror-image twins cleverly joined to look like one massive structure.

The brownstone, brick and terra cotta building was restored in 2004.

The Berkeley / The Grosvenor Vital Statistics
  • Location: 111-113 and 115-117 Montague Street, between Hicks and Henry Streets
  • Year completed: 1886
  • Architect: Parfitt Bros.
  • Floors: 8
  • Style: Queen Anne
  • New York City Landmark: 1965
The Berkeley / The Grosvenor Recommended Reading
  • NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission designation report (Brooklyn Heights Historic District)
  • The New York Times Streetscapes column
  • Conproco (restoration contractor) project description
  • “An Architectural Guidebook to Brooklyn,” pg. 158 (in Google Books)

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Pershing Square Building

Manhattan, , , , , , , ,

The Pershing Square Building’s days may be numbered. Unless the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission intercedes, this tawny brick and terra cotta structure is in the path of the midtown rezoning proposal designed to encourage development of new office towers.

Although the building was completed in 1923, its foundations were laid in 1914 – thus escaping the 1916 zoning law that required setbacks on tall buildings. The polychrome brick and terra cotta was novel at the time.

The large terra cotta figures at the fifth floor level are Roman caduceators, or peace commissioners; one version holds his caduceus, the other holds a cornucopia of peace. Nice touch, for a building named for a World War I general.

The Pershing Square Building stands on the site of the original Pershing Square – the former site of the Grand Union Hotel, which was demolished in 1914 for construction of the Lexington Avenue subway. The city sold the land instead of developing the park and memorial to General John J. Pershing. Pershing Square moved across the street to the site now occupied by the Pershing Square (aka Park Avenue) Viaduct ramp and Pershing Square Cafe.

You may note that the Pershing Square Building blends in very well with the neighboring Bowery Savings Bank. It’s no accident. The same firm designed the bank in a complementary style.

Pershing Square Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 100 E 42nd Street / 125 Park Avenue
  • Year completed: 1923
  • Architect: John Sloan
  • Floors: 24
  • Style: Romanesque Revival
Pershing Square Building Recommended Reading

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Franklin Trust Company Building

Brooklyn, , , , , , , , , , ,

Franklin Trust Company Building (aka Franklin Tower Apartments) was built to impress. The bank is no more (absorbed through mergers into present-day Citibank), but the building still impresses.

The former bank/office building stands at the corner of Montague and Clinton Streets, on the block where Montague transitions from residential to “Bankers’ Row.” Diagonally across the street are three consecutive bank buildings.

In 2009 Rothzeid Kaiserman Thomson & Bee (RKTB) performed a $10 million “gut renovation” of the building, creating 25 condo apartments plus retail spaces while preserving and restoring the exterior.

Franklin Trust Company Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 166 Montague Street at Clinton Street
  • Year completed: 1891
  • Architect: George L. Morse (original); Rothzeid Kaiserman Thomson & Bee (conversion)
  • Floors: 10
  • Style: Romanesque Revival
  • New York City Landmark: 1965
Franklin Trust Company Building Recommended Reading
  • NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission designation report (Brooklyn Heights Historic District)
  • Brownstoner – Past and Present blog
  • Brooklyn Heights Blog archive (6 items – be sure to see “Sneak Peek” with video)
  • Street Easy listing
  • Halstead Properties video
  • RKTB (conversion architects) website

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Brooklyn Trust Company Building

Brooklyn, , , , , , , , ,

Brooklyn Trust Company Building, deemed “the most beautiful building on Brooklyn’s ‘Bank Row’,” is well preserved inside and out. The NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission took the unusual step of designating both the interior and the exterior as landmarks.

Chase Bank sold the building in 2007; those owners sold it in 2011, and the new owner is creating condominium apartments (Barry Rice Architects) in the rear (Pierrepont Street) annex.

Brooklyn Trust Company Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 177 Montague Street at Clinton Street
  • Year completed: 1915
  • Architect: York & Sawyer
  • Floors: 5
  • Style: Italian Renaissance
  • New York City Landmark: 1996 (interior and exterior)
  • National Register of Historic Places: 2009
Brooklyn Trust Company Building Recommended Reading

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The Heights Casino

Brooklyn, , , , , , , ,

The Heights Casino is marked by distinctive gables, not tables: Flemish Revival style, applied to a private (and non-gambling) club. It is famed for games, though: tennis and squash; and for high society: the indoor tennis court can be converted to a ballroom.

The club’s former outdoor tennis courts were sold – on condition that the apartment building (Casino Mansions Apartments) to be built would complement the club, architecturally.

(Also see Casino Mansions Apartments.)

The Heights Casino Vital Statistics
  • Location: 75 Montague Street between Hicks Street and Pierrepont Place
  • Year completed: 1905
  • Architect: Boring & Tilton
  • Floors: 5
  • Style: Flemish Revival
  • New York City Landmark: 1965
The Heights Casino Recommended Reading

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