Tag Archives: residential

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 The original red window frames have been replaced by a more neutral tan matching the brick surrounds.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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Keuffel & Esser Company Building

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Keuffel & Esser Company Building, a New York landmark designed by De Lemos & Cordes, is well-preserved Renaissance Revival architecture on Fulton Street.

Like many commercial buildings in lower Manhattan, this has been converted (2010) to residential use – Compass Points Condominiums. “Compass Points” refers to two of Keuffel & Esser’s lines of business: Drafting/drawing instruments and surveying instruments.

Unlike many commercial buildings in lower Manhattan, this facade has been well preserved and restored. The Fulton Street side is the building’s most impressive facade, although the back of the building (42 Ann Street) is actually one story taller.

Architects Theodore W. E. De Lemos and August W. Cordes were successful designers of commercial buildings. Among their accomplishments are the Macy’s department store (original Broadway building), the Siegel-Cooper Department Store (now occupied by Bed Bath & Beyond) on Sixth Avenue, and the original Empire State Building (named for the Empire State Bank), 640 Broadway at Bleecker Street.

Keuffel & Esser Company Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 127 Fulton Street (block-through to Ann Street) between Nassau and William Streets
  • Year completed: 1893
  • Architect: De Lemos & Cordes
  • Floors: 8
  • Style: Renaissance Revival
  • New York City Landmark: 2005
Keuffel & Esser Company Building Recommended Reading

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898 Park Avenue

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Golden-hued 898 Park Avenue is a wonderful 14-story Romanesque building by the same architect who designed the 19-story Art Deco building across the street: both 1920s structures are luxury cooperative apartments.

(John Sloan also designed the Pershing Square Building, similar in color and style to 898 Park Avenue.)

The facade was restored in 2009; the building lost some of its original terra cotta decoration over the years, but what remains is still impressive and beautiful.

When built, 898 Park Avenue had just eight units according to Luxury Apartment Houses of Manhattan: Six full-floor duplex apartments on the upper floors, a one-floor apartment on the second floor, and a doctor’s suite on the ground floor. According to City Realty’s listing, the building is still limited to only 10 apartments.

At this writing (February 6, 2014), two of those apartments are available: A two-bedroom unit for $6 million and a four-bedroom apartment for $9 million.

898 Park Avenue Vital Statistics
  • Location: 898 Park Avenue at E 79th Street
  • Year completed: 1923
  • Architect: John Sloan and Adolph E. Nast
  • Floors: 14
  • Style: neo-Romanesque
  • New York City Landmark: 1981 (Upper East Side Historic District)
898 Park Avenue Recommended Reading

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Millan House

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Millan House (two Ls, please) is a pair of buildings spanning E 67th to E 68th Street, built around a private garden and adorned with a private zoo. If they were built on an avenue – Park or Lexington – this New York architecture would be well known; in their mid-block location they’re a pleasant surprise to passers-by.

The whimsical animals are carved stone, not terra cotta – the building was owned by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., after all. The building is now a cooperative.

Millan House Vital Statistics
  • Location: 115 E 67th Street/116 E 68th Street between Lexington and Park Avenues
  • Year completed: 1931
  • Architect: Andrew J. Thomas
  • Floors: 11
  • Style: neo-Romanesque
  • New York City Landmark: 1981 (Upper East Side Historic District)
Millan House Recommended Reading

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640 Broadway

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640 Broadway, designed by DeLemos & Cordes and completed in 1897, is the original Empire State Building – named for the bank that was housed on the ground floor.

DeLemos & Cordes would go on to design much grander buildings – notably the Keuffel & Esser Company Building, Siegel, Cooper & Co. Department Store, and the R.H. Macy & Co. Department Store at Herald Square.

The building’s original commercial tenants – including the Empire State Bank – have long since departed; a Swatch store now occupies the ground floor; upper floors have been converted to loft apartments.

640 Broadway Vital Statistics
  • Location: 640 Broadway at Bleecker Street
  • Year completed: 1897
  • Architect: DeLemos & Cordes
  • Floors: 9
  • Style: Classical Revival
  • New York City Landmark: 1999
640 Broadway Recommended Reading

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Bleecker Tower

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Bleecker Tower, originally the Manhattan Savings Institution, is a distinctive red sandstone and brick structure. Its chamfered corner and Romanesque arches are on a massive scale – appropriate for the bank that it was. (Lofts filled the upper stories.)

After mergers with two other banks, Manhattan Savings Institution became Manhattan Savings Bank – and closed the branch at 644 Broadway in the early 1940s. “MSI” remains embossed on the building’s copper pediment.

In the 1970s the owners converted the building to residential lofts; in the 1980s the building was converted again, to luxury loft apartments. In 2000 the owners embarked on a major facade restoration.

Bleecker Tower is in good company: Landmarked Empire State Bank Building is across the street; landmark Bayard-Condict Building is next door.

Bleecker Tower Vital Statistics
  • Location: 644 Broadway at Bleecker Street
  • Year completed: 1891
  • Architect: Stephen Decatur Hatch
  • Floors: 8
  • Style: Romanesque Revival / Queen Anne
  • New York City Landmark: 1999
Bleecker Tower 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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