One of the more monumental
edifices along Riverside Drive,
this 16-story building occupies an entire blockfront and like many of
its
neighbors facing Riverside Park has an asymmetrical
plan because of the drive's curves.
Built in 1926, it
was
designed by J. E. R. Carpenter.
The 167-unit building has
large apartments and is large mass is tempered by three major courses
that run
across its facade as well as chamfered corners.
It stretches from 89th to 90th Streets and has entrances on both
sidestreets.
The spectacular renaissance
that began in the 1980's along Broadway, especially in the 80's has
made such
solid buildings as this significantly more desirable. Indeed, it is
amazing
that Riverside Drive,
with its attractive and large park and Hudson River vistas could ever
have
fallen in value, especially since the walk to the Upper West Side's
main thoroughfare, Broadway, is much nicer, and
shorter, from Riverside Drive
than from Central Park West.
The building,
which was
converted to a cooperative in 1986, has one of the most elegant
settings along
the drive as it is across from the Soldiers and Sailors
Monument that was designed by Stoughton & Stoughton
with Paul Emile Marie Duboy and based on the Choragic Monument of
Lysicrates in
Athens.
The building has a 24-hour
doorman, a live-in superintendent, a children's playroom,
recreation/game room,
a bicycle room, a gym, and a laundry.
It has no sundeck, no garage and
no
balconies.
Entrance
The
building has a
three-story limestone base and a beige-brick façade. The
ground-floor, 4th and top-floor windows
have arched elements above the windows and the building has bandcourses
above
the third and top floors.
There is a
balustraded roofline and the façade has limestone quoins and sidewalk
landscaping.A
handsome entrance surround
is flanked by pairs of fluted Corinthian pilasters.
The building is a landmark
and has an "English-style" garden with a fountain.
The original floor plan for
an 11th floor four-bedroom unit had a 26-foot-wide entrance gallery
that lead
to a 25-foot-long living room with an electric fireplace, a
22-foot-long study,
a 22-foot-long dining room next to a 12-foot-wide pantry and a
17-foot-long
kitchen, a 13-foot-long servants’ hall and two maid’s rooms.
Penthouse 16F is a
three-bedroom unit with a 10-foot-long entry foyer that leads to a
24-foot-square
living room with 96-foot-long, angled terrace on one side and a
25-foot-long,
angled terrace on the other side and is next to a 16-foot-long dining
room next
to a 20-foot-long kitchen. Two of the
bedrooms has small sun rooms.
Apartment 7H is a three-bedroom unit with a 15-foot-long
entrance gallery that leads to a 24-foot-long living room with a
fireplace and
an 18-foot-long dining room next to a pantry and kitchen and a
10-foot-long
maid’s room.
According to Andrew Alpern,
“the land for this building had been brought in 1921 by Francis
Paterno, who in
turn sold it to” Anthony Campagna and it “had been site of two
important
houses: the 1900 neo-Georgian Clark-Potter mansion designed by Ernest
Flagg,
and the 1887 turreted rough-stone pile of Cyrus Clark."
In his very fine book, “The
New York Apartment houses of Rosario Candela and James Carpenter,” Mr.
Alpern
noted that “originally specifications called for the penthouse to be
quarters
for the resident superintendent and janitor,” adding that the
building’s
Gothic-inspired ornamentation, proportions and chamfered corner give it
an
appearance that bears an uneasy similarity to Rosario Candela’s
apartment house
at 47 Plaza Street in Park Slope, Brooklyn.”
The building is across 89th Street from
the very handsome red-brick former Isaac L. Rice mansion that was
erected in
1903 and bought by Solomon Schinasi in 1907 who sold it to Yeshiva
Chofetz
Chaim (later Yeshiva Ketana).
