Tag Archives: central park west

Bolivar

Bolivar

Bolivar is a Georgian-styled co-op of red brick accented with white stone and terra cotta. Its 15 stories contain mostly smaller apartments – studios and 1 BR. Some apartments were combined, though, so even 4BR units are available. One four-bedroom unit recently sold for $10.3 million, according to StreetEasy NY.

Seinfeld reportedly liked the place so much he held onto his bachelor pad even after he got married and moved two blocks away to the Beresford. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

The Bolivar has an unusual feature – a brick roof. Tenants use it as a sun deck and garden. (See photos in the Condopedia article.)

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65 Central Park West

65 Central Park West

65 Central Park West is one of nine Central Park West landmarks* designed by famed Emery Roth. Less dramatic than Roth’s towered San Remo, Beresford, or El Dorado, this Neo-Renaissance co-op is still impressive New York architecture.

The building’s location, across from Tavern on the Green and just a three-block walk from Lincoln Center, is idyllic.

Apartments here are currently listed at between $975,000 and $5.5 million.

* One of the Emery Roth landmarks, Mayflower Hotel (1925), was demolished in 2004 to make way for Robert A.M. Stern’s 15 CPW. Roth’s other Central Park landmarks are still standing. Besides 65 CPW they are (moving uptown): San Remo (1930), Beresford (1929), Alden (1926), 275 CPW (1930), 295 CPW (1940), El Dorado (1931), and Ardsley (1931).

65 Central Park West Vital Statistics
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15 Central Park West

15 Central Park West

15 Central Park West is one of the newest, yet most famous addresses on the avenue. The asymmetrical condominium towers take up a full block. The 20-story “House” is on Central Park West; the 43-story “Tower” is on Broadway. The two are connected in a courtyard that also serves as a private driveway, to shield rich and famous tenants from paparazzi.

Privacy is prized as much as luxury (10- to 14-foot ceilings throughout) and amazing views of Central Park. The 202 apartments are arranged so that only two units share an elevator landing.

The $950 million building is sheathed entirely in limestone – unusual (and costly) for a structure of this size. Coincidentally, the limestone came from the same quarry used by another all-limestone landmark – the Empire State Building.

The towers are too new to be considered for official landmark status, but they replace the Mayflower Hotel, which very well might have had that honor. The Upper West Side-Central Park West Historic District begins across W 62nd street.

15 Central Park West Vital Statistics
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295 Central Park West

295 Central Park West

295 Central Park West is a lesser-known work of Emery Roth, the preeminent New York apartment building architect. The 19-story-plus-penthouse building stands at W 90th Street, and is part of the Upper West Side-Central Park West Historic District.

The facade is quite plain, even for Art Moderne. A modest stone surround marks the centered entry on Central Park West; a decorative brick bandcourse separates the first and second floors. The only other significant architectural detail is the use of rounded corners (and rounded corner windows).

The building has so far resisted conversion to condominium or co-op.

295 Central Park West Vital Statistics
295 Central Park West Recommended Reading

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322 Central Park West

322 Central Park West is the only work of prolific New York architects George and Edward Blum to be located on Central Park West. The Blum brothers designed many Upper West Side apartment houses – why only one on CPW? Possibly because the avenue was slower to develop than other streets. The biggest park-side landmarks were erected at or after the end of the Blums’ practice.

The 15-story building rests on a three-story limestone-block base; its ornately carved, arched entrance is on W 92nd Street. As in many Blum apartment buildings, windows on the top three stories have elaborate terra cotta surrounds.

322 Central Park West has 49 apartments, and became a cooperative in 1962.

322 Central Park West Vital Statistics
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279 Central Park West

279 Central Park West, completed in 1988, is among the youngest buildings on the avenue, yet it is part of New York’s Upper West Side/Central Park West Historic District. I suspect that it’s included because it was easier for the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission to leave the building in the district than to specifically exclude it.

The architect, Constantine Kondylis, is often associated with Donald Trump projects (including Trump International Hotel and Tower at the foot of Central Park West). But 279 Central Park West is a far cry from the black or gold glass boxes that The Donald is fond of.

As a modern building, it lacks the ornate facades typical of the district, but 279 is still pleasing for its three-story limestone base, inset bay windows, curved corner windows, and eight terraced setbacks. Thanks to luxury amenities and location (or in spite of location, if one doesn’t want to be so far uptown), apartments in this condo have million-dollar price tags. Or you can rent. At this writing, there’s a three-bedroom, 2,855 sq. ft. duplex available for just $22,000 a month.

279 Central Park West Vital Statistics
279 Central Park West Recommended Reading

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Kenilworth

The Kenilworth has an impressive entry flanked by banded columns reminiscent of the Prasada and the Lucerne. Last of the Second Empire-style buildings to be built on Central Park West, remarkably the structure looks unchanged from 1908, except that the wood-frame windows were replaced.

Even the interiors have been preserved. Architectural historian Andrew Alpern wrote, “The Kenilworth has three apartments on each floor, two of which are of a modified long-hall variety. While not exceptional in their planning or appointments, these suites have been kept surprisingly intact.” (New York’s Fabulous Luxury Apartments: With Original Floor Plans from the Dakota, River House, Olympic Tower and Other Great Buildings)

Overshadowed by neighboring San Remo apartments, the 12-story Kenilworth was built without the benefit of a steel frame, or the 1929 building code that liberalized residential height restrictions. The structure’s limestone and red brick walls actually hold the building up, they’re not just for appearance.

Speaking of appearance, the heavy contrasting ornamentation and copper-trimmed slate mansard roof give the building presence beyond its mere dozen stories. The two-story columns and dry moat are just icing on the cake.

The Kenilworth was converted to a cooperative in 1957.

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San Remo

San Remo is one of the high points – literally and figuratively – of the Central Park West skyline, and of the career of architect Emery Roth. The NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) gushed that the building “…epitomizes Roth’s ability to combine the traditional with the modern, an urbane amalgam of luxury and convenience, decorum and drama.”

Following closely after his triple-towered Beresford (1928), San Remo became the first twin-towered apartment building on the avenue. But where the 22-story Beresford’s stubby “towers” were mainly to hide water tanks, 27-story San Remo’s towers had 14 floors of deluxe apartments. This was possible because a new (1929) building code raised the height limit for residential buildings.

Roth also designed the Oliver Cromwell (1928) on W 72nd Street, was a consultant on the twin-towered El Dorado (1931), and designed the Normandy Apartments (1938) on Riverside Drive.

The San Remo was praised by architectural critics for its height, for the classical Greek-styled “temples” atop the towers, and for the “foyer plan” that minimized hallways.

“Despite its popular success,” said the LPC, the property “…fell prey to the pervasive economic mayhem of the 1930s. A full year after it had officially opened, nearly a third of its apartments remained vacant, and the Bank of the United States which held its $5 million mortgage had collapsed, its officers charged with recklessly ‘gambling’ on the San Remo.”

The building bounced from one owner to another via bankruptcy until 1940, when San Remo and Beresford were sold in a package for $25,000 over the mortgage. Now, individual apartments cost tens of millions of dollars.

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Majestic

The Majestic Apartments, like sister building The Century, is a scaled-down version of Irwin Chanin’s original concept. Nonetheless, it is a New York architectural landmark for its Art Deco style – simultaneously bold and austere.

According to the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), Chanin envisioned a 45-story full-service apartment hotel for the site. The single-tower design was to replace the Hotel Majestic of 1894. The stock market crash changed all that; The Majestic became a twin-towered 32-story apartment house. Chanin’s “experimental” use of Art Deco in a residential context was stripped to its essentials, relying almost entirely on economic brickwork for ornamentation.

The design contrasts with even his own Art Deco commercial design, the 1929 Chanin Building. The office tower employed marble, bronze and terra cotta ornamentation of the base and tower. (Although the Chanin Building was designed by the Sloan & Robertson firm, Chanin supervised the exterior detailing, the LPC said.)

The Majestic’s cantilevered steel frame was an important innovation, which made wraparound “solaria” windows possible.

The building became a cooperative in 1958.

The Majestic Vital Statistics
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Century

The Century Apartments is among New York’s finest examples of Art Deco and residential architecture, and a nationally-recognized landmark. Yet it was only the architect’s “Plan B”!

The building is one of a pair of twin-towered Art Deco landmarks (the other is The Majestic) designed and built by Irwin S. Chanin along Central Park West. Both were constructed almost simultaneously, though The Majestic started and opened earlier. Both buildings were named for their predecessors – Century Theatre and Hotel Majestic. And both buildings used then-innovative cantilevered steel frames that allowed corner windows.

According to the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission report, Chanin considered The Century to be the finer of the two buildings. But the structure is a far cry from what Chanin had envisioned. He had purchased the entire block and in 1929 proposed a 65-story “Palais de France.” The office and hotel tower were to house the French consulate and tourist board, offices of French commercial firms, three stories of exhibition space for French goods, and shops on the ground floor. Chanin failed to secure financing from French banks, however, and he abandoned Palais de France in 1930. The Century was half as tall and half the area of Chanin’s dream.

The building’s apartments were scaled down from those of The Majestic because of the difficulty in renting large apartments during the Depression. Originally the structure held 417 suites in 52 different layouts. Over the years, some apartments have been combined; the building now has about 350 units.

An investment group purchased The Century in 1982 and attempted to turn it co-op. The NY Attorney General nixed the deal, but in 1989 a condominium conversion passed after a long, bitter battle with tenants.

The Century has been home to numerous celebrities, but the most recent celebrities paid no rent: Peregrine Falcons nesting in the south tower!

The Century Vital Statistics
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