Category Archives: New York

New York City

Beresford

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The Beresford is among the most celebrated creations of one of New York’s most celebrated architects, Emery Roth. The building’s 200-foot-square, 22-story mass is highly visible, its three towers permanently etched in the skyline – the view protected by Central Park to the east and the American Museum of Natural History to the south.

Beresford was built just in the nick of time – completed just weeks before the stock market crash. Nonetheless, the Great Depression eventually claimed the grand building, and it was sold at auction in 1940. (See Luxury Apartment Houses of Manhattan: An Illustrated History for more details.) But Beresford bounced back, becoming a cooperative (1962) and attracting the rich and famous.

The Renaissance-style structure is built around a T-shaped courtyard that opens to the west, providing light and air to interior-facing rooms. There are four entries: Two on W 81st Street, one (the main address) on Central Park West, and a service entrance on W 82nd Street.

Emery Roth’s other major works include the San Remo and Ardsley, also on Central Park West; the Normandy (Riverside Drive), Oliver Cromwell (W 72nd Street), Ritz Tower (W 57th Street) and Hotel Belleclaire (Broadway).

Beresford Vital Statistics
  • Location: 211 Central Park West between W 81st and W 82nd Streets
  • Year completed: 1929
  • Architect: Emery Roth
  • Floors: 22
  • Style: Renaissance
  • New York City Landmark: 1987
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1982
Beresford Recommended Reading

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75 Central Park West

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75 Central Park West is a lesser-known work of a master of New York apartment house architecture, Rosario Candela.

This building seems to have reversed the normal progression of older, luxury buildings: Apartments have been combined rather than divided; the original 55 units are now 48.

Over the years, many of the windows have been altered. Originally, all of the windows were pairs of three-over-three double-hung windows. Many of the pairs have been combined and/or changed to casement or fixed windows.

75 Central Park West Vital Statistics
  • Location: 75 Central Park West at W 67th Street
  • Year completed: 1929
  • Architect: Rosario Candela
  • Floors: 15
  • Style: neo-Renaissance
  • New York City Landmark: 1990
75 Central Park West Recommended Reading

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Poppenhusen Institute

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Poppenhusen Institute represents not only post-Civil War architecture in New York, but also the amazing power of a single individual. Or two.

A modest brick and brownstone building, the Institute is five stories high including its mansard roof. Round-arched windows and strong horizontal bands mark it as Italianate style, while the mansard roof crowns the building in French Second Empire.

Conrad Poppenhusen, a German immigrant, became wealthy in the 1800s manufacturing whalebone products: combs, corset stays, etc. In 1852 he switched from whalebone to the just-invented Goodyear-process hard rubber. Poppenhusen’s factory was in what is now College Point, and he was dedicated to the welfare of his community. So dedicated that in 1868 he gave $100,000 to build the Institute, and in 1871 another $100,000 endowment to maintain the building and its work. That work included the country’s first free kindergarten (a German invention, after all), free vocational classes for adults, library, and civic center.

The generous endowment couldn’t last forever. By 1980 the Institute’s Board of Control, after selling art works and other assets, decided to sell the building. Enter Susan Brustmann, who proved to be just as dedicated as Conrad Poppenhusen to continuing the Institute. She organized a grass-roots fight to save and restore the Institute and to this day continues to fight for financial support – NY State assistance ended in 2008. (See Christopher Gray’s Streetscapes column. See the Queens Tribune story for an update.)

The Poppenhusen Institute continues to offer community services, exhibits, classes and events; the Institute is open weekdays – check the website for details. The Institute is close to Flushing’s historic sites and Chinatown (there’s frequent Q65 bus service to/from Main Street).

Poppenhusen Institute Vital Statistics
  • Location: 114-04 14th Road at 114th Street
  • Year completed: 1870
  • Architect: Mundell & Teckritz
  • Floors: 5
  • Style: Italianate with French Second Empire
  • New York City Landmark: 1970
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1977
Poppenhusen Institute Recommended Reading

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River Mansion

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River Mansion has had a storied life, starting as the residence of a wealthy Broadway actress, devolving into a rooming house, then the home of (minor) royalty, back to a rooming house, then as a music school and now restored as a residence. It is part of New York’s Riverside-West 105th Street Historic District, an enclave of just 30 five-story town houses sharing similar architecture.

The building (and its neighbor 322 W 106th Street) was completed in 1902, just four years after completion of Riverside Park.

For the fascinating story of the River Mansion’s occupants, read the Daytonian in Manhattan blog. And to get a better sense of the house’s neighbors, read The New York Times‘ account, “The Heist, the Getaway and the Sawed-Off Leg.”

River Mansion Vital Statistics
  • Location: 337 Riverside Drive at W 106th Street
  • Year completed: 1902
  • Architect: Robert D. Kohn
  • Floors: 5
  • Style: Beaux Arts
  • New York City Landmark: 1973
  • National Register of Historic Places:
River Mansion Recommended Reading

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Ardsley

Manhattan, , ,

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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