speculation photos on Flickr

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I liked this side view of a couple of violets in my backyard, enjoying the afternoon sun. OM 90mm at probably f4.

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Visit my blog at ideonexus.com for science news and speculation.

Reining in food speculators - Brussels stunt 04.09.13 by Global Justice Now

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On 4th September 2013, EU negotiators met to agree new rules on food speculation. On the morning of this crucial meeting, WDM campaigners joined up with other European campaigners (Friends of the Earth Europe, Oxfam Germany, SOS-Faim, CNCD, Fairfin) to perform a comedic street theatre production to call on decision makers to remove loopholes in legislative proposals. The key members of the European parliament came to hear our demands and were presented with some of the barrier tape to remind them of the 35k people who have signed up to call for an end to bankers betting on hunger.

Washington Apartments by Emilio Guerra

Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States of America

If you want to know more about my walks and photos, check out my blog.

The Washington Apartments, built in 1883-84 for the speculative developer Edward H.M. Just, was the earliest apartment building constructed in central Harlem. This eight-story brick building, with stone, iron, terra-cotta and pressed brick trim, was designed by the talented and productive architect Mortimer C. Menitt in the popular Queen Anne style, incorporating neo- Grec details. Merritt created a lively and picturesque composition using contrasting materials, and provided textural interest through the use of projecting balconies and cornices, a prominent overscaled frontispiece, and numerous decorative panels.

The extension of the elevated transit lines, which by 1881 connected lower Manhattan to 129th Street, served as an impetus to the development of this area, previously the location of small farms and shantytowns. The amount of real estate speculation and new construction which occurred in Harlem from the 1880s through 1904 was unmatched in New York's history.

Harlem was transformed from a rocky and marshy backwoods to a premier middle-class neighborhood. The Washington Apartments was built at the start of this tide of development, when much of the nearby construction took the form of single-family rowhouses and occasional small flats. Throughout New York, multi- family living arrangements were just gaining acceptance among the middle and upper classes. A large apartment house such as the Washington, was quite conspicuous amid rows and rows of brownstone-fronted rowhouses. Not only does the building retain its distinctive presence in the Harlem community, it is also one of the few surviving apartment houses of the early 1880s in New York City.

Development of Harlem

That part of New York known as Harlem embraces generally the area of Manhattan north of 110th Street. The original village of Harlem was established in 1658 by Peter Stuyvesant and named Nieuw Haarlem after the Dutch city of Haarlem. Rich farms were located on the region's flat, eastern portion, while some of New York's most illustrious early families, such as the Delanceys, Bleekers, Rikers, Beekmans, and Hamiltons, maintained large estates in the western half of the area, enjoying the magnificent views proffered by Harlem Heights. Several small villages and isolated shanties were also scattered throughout the area, helping Harlem retain its rural character beyond the middle of the nineteenth century.

Harlem's stability was shaken in the 1830s. The lush farmland became depleted, worn out from decades of cultivation. Many farms were abandoned and the great estates were sold at public auction. The area became the refuge of those desiring cheap property and housing, including many newly-arrived and destitute immigrants who gathered in scattered shanty towns. However, most of the scenic topography was left untouched and the striking vistas and unspoiled country attracted fashionable downtowners on picnics and day trips, particularly after the 1860s.

It was the advent of new and better forms of transportation, as well as the rapidly increasing population of New York which brought about the change in Harlem from a rural village (population at mid-century of approximately 1500) to a fashionable middle- and upper-class neighborhood. As the population of New York City swelled after the Civil War, mounting pressures for housing pushed the development of neighborhoods further northward until, in 1873, Harlem was annexed to New York City. Although the New York & Harlem Railroad had run trains from lower Manhattan to Harlem beginning in 1837, service was poor and unreliable, and the trip was long. The real impetus for new residential development in this area came with the arrival of three lines of elevated railroads which, by 1881, ran as far north as 129 th Street.

Between the 1870s and 1910 Harlem was the site of a massive wave of speculative development which resulted in the construction of record numbers of new single-family rowhouses, tenements, and luxury apartment houses. Almost all the houses which stand in Harlem today were built during that time. Commercial concerns and religious, educational, and cultural institutions were established to serve the expanding population. Electricity came to Harlem in 1887 and the telephone arrived the following year.

The west half of Harlem, although developed slightly later, became a prosperous and fashionable neighorhood and boasted elegant homes such as the King Model Houses, later known as Strivers Row (in the St. Nicholas Historic District, West 138th and 139th Streets) and Astor Row, 8-62 West 130th Street (1880-83, all designated New York City Landmarks), as well as luxurious apartments with the most modem amenities such as the Graham Court Apartments, 1923-1937 Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard (1899-1901, a designated New York City Landmark). More modest housing was built as well. The area also contained the popular Polo Grounds and the distinguished Harlem Opera House on West 125th Street. Some speculators made tremendous profits by buying and reselling land and by developing properties, including Oscar Hammerstein I, Henry Morgenthau, and August Belmont.

Development of the Washington Apartments

The land on which the Washington Apartments was constructed was typical of Harlem real estate just ripe for development. Until 1851, the property was held by members of the Benson family, descendants of Captain Johannes Benson who settled there in 1696/ Samson Adolphus Benson sold a large tract (including this property) to John Bruce, a well-to-do Brooklyn resident and hardware dealer in New York. Bruce was clearly interested in the investment possibilities as he subdivided the land and sold off lots to numerous buyers. This property was held briefly by a succession of owners, without development, until Harlem began to blossom.

Edward H. W. Just (d.1893), the developer of the Washington Apartments, was one of the speculators who profited from the tremendous early Harlem building boom. Born in Eisleben, Germany, Just arrived in New York in the 1830s. He and his brother John (and later his nephew Carl) were the owners of the Just Brothers Fine Shirt manufacturing company, which had stores in the fashionable Ladies' Mile area during the 1880s and into the 1890s. Edward Just invested heavily in Harlem property, turning his attention to real estate full time shortly before his death in 1893. He left an estate valued at more than $2 million.

The site of the Washington Apartments, at Seventh Avenue (Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard) and 122nd Street, was near the newly expanded elevated railroad line, although previous to 1883, nothing had been constructed on this block or those immediately surrounding it. An 1880 map of the area of central Harlem (Fifth to Eighth Avenues from 124th Street to 131st Street), shows several rows of brownstone-fronted, single-family rowhouses as well as many older, wood-framed houses. The only large buildings were a few churches and a grammar school. The section of central Harlem just to the south, from 117th to 124th Streets, shows very little construction of any kind, with nothing at all south of 123rd Street. An 1884 map of the same area (Fifth to Eighth Avenues, from 117th to 124th Streets) shows several rows of individual houses on 123rd and 124th Streets, as well as the elegant houses lining Mount Morris Park. The Washington is the only large apartment house in this section.

The section from 124th to 131st Streets was much more heavily built up by 1884, with many rows of masonry-fronted rowhouses, several slightly larger flat houses, several churches, stables and a grammar school. Two small, walk-up apartment houses (the Beverly and the Eisleben, also a Just property) of three and four stories, respectively, are also shown, opposite each other at the intersection of Sixth Avenue and 125th Street.

Edward Just was concerned about providing solid middle-class housing in Harlem and was an advocate of the large apartment house, a building type which in 1883 had only recently begun to gain popularity and enough cache to be acceptable to New York's middle class. In 1885, in an article discussing the extensive development in Harlem, The Real Estate Record & Guide recorded primarily single-family homes under construction, while in 1893 a local magazine listed fifty-five apartment houses in Harlem.

Multi-Family Housing in New York

Although multi-family housing existed early in New York's history, this generally took the form of boarding houses, hotels, and subdivided rowhouses and was not considered desirable for respectable middle-class families. Middle-class values stressed the importance of a "home" as a refuge from the world, the significance of privacy for the family unit, and the concept that societal levels should not be mixed in living quarters. These ideas came to be modified, however, as population growth and economic factors made single-family houses too expensive or forced them to be located too far from a person's place of work. Overcrowded tenements were for the poor, but new solutions were needed for people of greater means.

By the mid-nineteenth century buildings were constructed in New York which were labelled "French Flats," so named to evoke the multi-famity residences found in Paris, in an attempt to distinguish them from common tenements. The term was recognized as a classification by the Department of Buildings in 1874 to describe multiple dwellings with apartments containing private baths and toilets. By the mid-1880s French flats were becoming accepted for middle-class residences. "Flats" became known for their more spacious accommodations, for the inclusion of more amenities, and for more architecturally distinguished exteriors than were typical of tenements. They were often built with wider street frontages than the standard twenty-five foot wide city lot, and by about 1875 could rise eight to ten stories in height with the inclusion of a passenger elevator, a relatively recent innovation.

Within ten years of the construction of the precedent- setting Stuyvesant Apartments (Richard Morris Hunt, 1869-70, 142 East 18th Street), several hundred expensive "flats" geared to the middle and upper classes had been constructed in New York, with ninety more built in the five years from 1880 to 1885. The eight-story Washington Apartments, an elevator building with a frontage of 101 feet on Seventh Avenue and an estimated construction cost of $200,000, was among this group. Today, only a few of these early flats buildings are still extant, such as the Manhattan (244 East 86th Street, 1879-80) and the Windemere Apartments (400-406 West 57th Street, 1880-81).

Mortimer C. Merritt

Mortimer C. Merritt, the architect chosen to design the Washington Apartments, was a talented and prolific designer, having produced a variety of types of buildings in numerous styles throughout New York City. Merritt (18407-1931) was born in New York and graduated from the College of the City of New York (now City College) in 1859. He was established as an architect by 1868 and always worked independently. Merritt designed many commercial structures, the most well-known being the large, cast-iron-fronted department store on Sixth Avenue for Hugh O'Neill in 1887. That building and two others by Merritt are located within the Ladies' Mile Historic District. The others are: the Ely Building at 37 East 18th Street (1896-97), a neo- Renaissance store and loft building with a brick, stone and terra-cotta front; and the granite-clad store and loft building at 53-55 West 21th Street (1901-02).

A cast-iron-fronted store and loft building designed by Merritt in 1879 at 71-73 Grand Street is located in the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District. Merritt worked throughout the city, and another of his designs is found on a Medieval Revival style rowhouse at 128 West 73rd Street (1883-84, in the Upper West Side/Central Park West Histric District).

The Washington Apartments

For the Washington Apartments, Merritt designed a substantial brick-fronted building facing the broad avenue. A corner building of eight stories, this was the first structure built on this block as well as the first large apartment house in central Harlem, and thus set the tone for the surrounding area. In the building's design Merritt used the Queen Anne style, which had become a popular residential style in this country in the late 1870s, particularly following the Centennial celebration of 1876 which sparked interest in America's Colonial past. First developed in England and associated with the work of architect Richard Norman Shaw, the style was modified in this country by including decorative elements typical of Colonial architecture, such as applied pilasters, pediments, and foliate friezes, and was mostly used for residential buildings.

In the Washington Apartments the quality of picturesqueness, so desirable in the Queen Anne style, has been successfully achieved by the combination of materials, including red brick with contrasting light stone at the base and trim, as well as elements of terra-cotta and iron. Fluted pilasters and colonnettes which separate and flank some of the windows are also indicative of this style. On the lively main façade, the central portion of the building is emphasized by the projections of the bays, the overscaled iron frontispiece composed of a triangular pediment with side panels embellished by sunbursts, and the series of bracketed balconies (missing their balustrades) which embellish the center windows. Both façades are further enhanced by terra cotta and pressed brick panels of foliate design, stone stringcourses, and diapered brick spandrels and panels. The addition of delicate incised ornament at the impost blocks, typical of the neo-Grec style, was common in Queen Anne buildings in New York.

When constructed, the building housed thirty middle-class families. The occupants included doctors, lawyers, bankers, public accountants, and builders, many of whom had servants who lived with them. A number of residents had offices in lower Manhattan and were able to live in Harlem and conveniently commute to work because of the recently constructed elevated railroad.

The character of Harlem changed considerably during the early years of the twentieth century. Proposed subway routes to West Harlem in the late 1890s had sparked another wave of real estate speculation which led to highly inflated market values. Tremendous numbers of new residential buildings were constructed around the turn of the century. This overbuilding resulted in extensive vacancies and artificially high rents, causing a general collapse of the real estate market in 1904-05 as loans were withheld and mortgages foreclosed.

Taking advantage of the deflated market and the housing surplus which followed, a black businessman named Philip Payton and his Afro-American Realty Company, founded in 1904, played a major role in the development of Harlem as a black community. In the aftermath of the real estate collapse, Payton acquired five-year leases on white-owned properties and rented them at higher rates to black families. African-Americans who could afford high rents had begun moving to Harlem at the turn of the century. A dramatic increase in Harlem's black population came, however, as hundreds of black families were uprooted when their homes in the Tenderloin area near 34th Street were destroyed during the 1906-10 construction of Pennsylvania Station. For the first time good housing in large quantities was available to New York's black population.

Just as Harlem had been a middle-class white community, it became a middle-class black community, with approximately 50,000 blacks living there in 1914. By 1920 the area from 130th to 140th Streets and from Fifth Avenue to Eighth Avenue was predominantly black, housing 73,000 people including two-thirds of Manhattan's African-American population. The black migration to Harlem continued to increase during the 1920s as people came from the American South and the West Indies in record numbers. The years that followed, saw the "Harlem Renaissance." By 1930 Harlem became the urban cultural center of black America, with its central location being around 125th Street.

With all the changes occurring nearby, the Washington Apartments maintained its white, middle- class residents through the 1920s. Interior changes made from 1915 through 1920 did, however, create smaller apartments so that the building, which had been constructed to house thirty families in 1883, was home to sixty-three families and a restaurant in 1932.

The Washington Apartments was sold in 1894 after the death of Edward Just. The building was purchased for investment by businessman Ross Browning, the owner until his death in 1925; Browning's heirs held it until 1936. After that, it was owned by a series of real estate corporations until it was taken over by the City in 1977. Rehabilitation began in the late 1980s.

Description

Located on the southwest corner of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard and 122nd Street, the eight-story building known as the Washington Apartments is clad in red brick highlighted by stone, iron, terra-cotta and pressed brick trim above a stone base (now painted). The building is currently unoccupied and is being rehabilitated by the New York City Department of Housing, Preservation and Development. Almost all of the windows have been replaced by double-hung, one-over-one and two-over- two, aluminum sash windows.

The main façade faces Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard and is symmetrically arranged with a wide projecting pavilion which extends through the height of the building and is crowned by an overscaled galvanized iron frontispiece. This element is formed of a triangular pediment carried on pilasters and buttressed by a split panel enhanced by a sunburst motif. Projecting iron finials (one of which is partially missing) capped by anthemia finish the composition. Originally this element was incorporated into a broad cornice (now removed) which surrounded the building above the seventh story. Beneath this frontispiece, each story in the central bay is comprised of three sets of paired windows. The central pair is joined by a small stone engaged pilaster and crowned by a shallow-arched pediment ornamented with terra-cotta designs. The flanking pairs of windows are linked by continuous stone sills and lintels.

The windows of the third through seventh stories of the central bay are fronted by stone balconies carried on brackets. Their stone balustrades have been removed.

The one-story base, with its central entranceway, is faced with rusticated stone and has a one-bay return on the 122nd Street façade. A small replacement stoop and a ramp for handicapped access have been added to the main entrance. A pair of rectangular window openings flanks the doorway within the central bay, while each of the other bays at this level also have two similar window openings, now closed by boards.

Stone stringcourses divide the building horizontally above the first, third, and fifth stories, with two-story brick piers creating vertical bays between these horizontal divisions. The stringcourses are enhanced at the third and fifth stories by panels of terra-cotta foliate ornament which also form pilaster capitals. The windows below these bands are marked by stone impost blocks incised with neo-Grec floral motifs, while the levels between have spandrels of brick diaper work framed by contrasting stone sills and lintels. The eighth-story windows are segmentally arched and have projecting brick hoods. Above the eighth story a brick corbel table supports a simple sheet-metal cornice, parts of which are missing. This façade has two historic fire escapes.

The 122nd Street façade has five bays, the easternmost bay serving as a return of the main façade and carrying the same decorative motifs. The major elements of the composition continue on this façade as well. At the central bay the paired windows of the second through sixth stories share common ornamental motifs: continuous stone sills and lintels, brick relieving arches with terra-cotta ornament, and flanking decorative brickwork suggestive of pilasters. To each side of the central bay, continuous stone sills and lintels link the windows of each bay.

At the seventh story all of the windows except those in the east bay are segmentally- arched. The eighth-story windows have the same treatment as on the main façade. At the ground story, beyond the first bay, the square-headed window openings are set in brick and have stone lintels which are continuous within each bay and a stone sill course extends across the façade.

Parts of the rear and south elevations are visible above the tops of the neighboring buildings. These elevations are not ornamented.

- From the 1991 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

Century Apartments by Emilio Guerra

Upper West Side, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States

The Century Apartments, extending along the entire blockfront of Central Park West between West 62nd Street to West 63rd Street, anchors the southern end of one of New York City's finest residential boulevards, tfith twin towers rising 300 feet from the street, this building is one of a small group of related structures that help give Central Park West its distinctive silhouette. Designed in 1930 by Irwin S. Chanin of the Chanin Construction Company, the Century Apartments is among the most sophisticated residential Art Deco buildings in New York and is a major work by one of America's pioneering Art Deco designers.

Built in 1931, the Century was among the last buildings erected as part of the early 20th-century redevelopment of Central Park West. Central Park West, a continuation of Eighth Avenue, runs along the western edge of Central Park. Development along this prime avenue occurred very slowly, lagging substantially behind the general development of the Upper West Side. When Frederick Law Olmsted laid out Central Park he saw that the presence of the park would raise the value of land immediately adjacent to it. Olmsted expected these areas to develop as prime residential streets. Land speculation did indeed occur on Central Park West. However, the west side of the park never attracted the extremely wealthy people who could afford the inflated prices of land bordering on the park. Thus, while the side streets of the Upper West Side were built up with rows of speculative houses, Central Park West remained largely undeveloped.

A survey of Central Park West published in February 1893 shows that of the three blocks between 60th and 96th Streets (the American Museum of Natural History, located between 77th and 81st Streets is counted as one block) nineteen were either totally vacant or contained old shanties and frame houses. Other blocks were partially vacant. South of 71st Street every blockfront was empty except for the southernmost frontages which contained the Durland Riding Academy and the Van Norman Institute. 1

The earliest residential improvement on Central Park West, and one of its great architectural monuments was the Dakota, a designated New York City Landmark, at 72nd Street. Built in 1880-84, this eight-story building established Central Park West's character as a street of multiple dwellings. In 1890, by which time the Dakota had been joined by two apartment hotels, the St. Remo on 75th Street and the Beresford on 81st Street, as well as several flat houses, real estate broker F. R. Houghton noted that:

Central Park West seems to have only one future— it is destined to become an avenue of grand apartment houses and hotels. Everything tends that way. It is too public a thoroughfare to become a private residential avenue 3

However, it wasn't until several years later that Central Park West experienced the construction boom that Houghton had predicted.

The first concentrated building boom on Central Park West occurred at the turn of the century when a significant number of elegant residential and institutional buildings were erected south of 96th Street. These include some of the finest apartment houses in New York, such as the Prasada (1904) at 65th Street, the Langham (1905) at 73rd Street, the Kenilworth (1908) at 75th Street, and the St. Urban (1904) at 89th Street, as well as such institutional structures as the Ethical Culture Society School and Meeting House (1902, 1909) at 63rd and 64th Streets, Holy Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church (1903) at 65th Street, the Second Church of Christ, Scientist (1898) at 68th Street, the Congregation Shearith Israel Synagogue (1895) at 70th Street, the Universalist Church of the Divine Paternity (1898) at 76th Street, and the Progress Club (now the Walden School, 1902) at 88th Street.

The presence of these fine apatment buildings and institutions on Central Park West reflects the coming of age of the Upper West Side. The Upper West Side had developed in the final decades of the 19th century as an enclave of upper middle-class life. Affluent middle-class families were attracted to the area by the quality of its housing, the presence of Riverside Park and Central Park, and by the accessibility of the neighborhood. As the Upper West Side became more and more desirable, developers began to build on the more expensive sites bordering the parks, and Central Park West began to be transformed into an elegant avenue of tall buildings that contrasted dramatically in scale to low rise residential Fifth Avenue. 4

In 1909 the new Central Park West apartment houses and institutions were joined by one of New York City's most sumptuous buildings, the New Theatre designed by Carrere & Hastings. This elegant limestone structure extended along the entire blockfront between 62nd Street and 63rd Street and was erected to house a subsidized theater company that would be artistically and physically separate from the commercial theaters centered around Times Square. This was not a successful artistic venture and the effort to establish a classical theater company at the New Theatre failed. In 1911 the theater was renamed the Century and it became a commercial house, albeit one located far from the commercial theater center. In 1920 the Shubert Organization gained control of the theater, and they managed it until its sale to the Chanin Construction Company in 1930.

During World War I construction on Central Park West slowed, but between 1920 and 1931 the area was transformed as the vacant sites were filled and many of the early apartment hotels and flats were replaced by new apartment houses. This final phase of Central Park West's development culminated in 1929-31 with the construction of the four twin-towered buildings that gave Central Park West its characteristic skyline. The distinctive form of the Century at 62nd and 63rd Streets, the Majestic (1930) at 71st-72nd Streets, the San Remo (1929) at 74th-75th Streets, and the Eldorado (1929) at 90th-91st Streets has come to symbolize the high quality of residential design of New York's Upper West Side.

Two of these great twin-towered buildings, the Majestic and Century, are Art Deco style structures designed and constructed by Irwin S. Chanin, one of New York City's leading builders and a pioneer in the design of Art Deco buildings in America. Irwin Salmon Chanin was born in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Soon after his birth the family returned to its native Ukraine, remaining there until 1907 when they moved back to Bensonhurst. Chanin graduated from Cooper Union in 1915 having studied engineering and architecture. His earliest employment was as an engineer working on subway construction in New York and Philadelphia. In 1919, after a brief stint in the army, Chanin began his building activities by constructing two houses in Bensonhurst. The success of this modest venture led to the construction of other one- and two-family houses in Bensonhurst as well as the formation of the Chanin Construction Company. In 1924 Chanin entered the real estate field in Manhattan with the erection of the Fur Center Building.

Also in that year Chanin began the construction of the first of a series of Broadway theaters. These theaters— all designed by architect Herbert Krapp—the 46th Street, Biltmore, Mansfield (now Brooks Atkinson), Royale, Majestic, and Masque (now Golden) have excellent sightlines and acoustics and only a single balcony; they remain among the finest Broadway houses. Chanin also built three large movie houses—the Loew's Coney Island (1925), Reilly & Hall, architects; the Roxy (1927), Walter Ahlschlager, architect; and the Beacon (1927-28), Walter Ahlschlager, architect. In 1925 Chanin spent four weeks in Paris visiting the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes. This decorative arts exhibition had a profound influence on American architecture as American architects began to adapt the ornamental forms they had seen in Paris to their buildings. The first architects In the United States to use what have come to be known as Art Deco forms on major architectural works were Chanin and Ely

Jacques Kahn, both of whom had visited the Paris exhibition.^ Art Deco motifs first appear in Chanin's work at the Lincoln Hotel (now the Milford Plaza Hotel) built in 1927 as part of a complex of buildings that included the Royale, Majestic, and Masque Theatres.

The Lincoln was a traditionally styled structure designed by Schwartz & Gross. For the lobby and dining room, however, Chanin designed Art Deco wall panels and furnishings. The Lincoln Hotel interiors were followed by the Chanin Building of 1927-29 located at the southwest corner of East 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue. At the time the Chanin Building was designed, Chanin was not a registered architect. Chanin hired Sloan & Robertson, a rather conservative architectural firm responsible for the nearby Graybar Building, to examine the plans prepared by the Chanin Construction Company* Sloan & Robertson were only responsible for the exterior form of the building. Chanin personally supervised the decoration of the building. The building is filled with French-inspired Art Deco motifs, many executed under Chanin's direction by French-trained sculptor Rene Chambellan.

In 1930 Chanin became a registered architect and he was responsible for the design of the two Central Park West apartment buildings, but both projects had their genesis in plans for other building types. In April 1929, the Chanin Construction Company purchased the old Hotel Majestic on Central Park West between 71st Street and 72nd Street, intending to replace the old structure with a 45-story hotel.^ As designed, this was a dramatically-massed Art Deco structure, but the building situation in New York following the stock market crash precluded the construction of such an ambitious and risky project. In June 1930 it was announced that a 29-story twin-towered apartment house would rise on the site. According to Chanin, the design of this building was somewhat experimental—he wished to see if Art Deco forms would be accepted for a residential building.

Chanin's official involvement with the Century site began on May 28, 1929, when it was announced that the Chanin Construction Company would purchase the entire city block bounded by Broadway, Central Park West, West 62nd Street, and West 63rd Street. The site included the Century Theatre on Central Park West, Daly's Theatre on 63rd Street, and an apartment house and two garages on Broadway. Chanin announced that he would build a 65-story skyscraper on the site, that would, according to the New York Times, "be revolutionary in design and use."8 The Century Theatre was the property of the Shubert Organization, and in order to acquire the Central Park West site, Chanin was forced to sell them his interest in the Royale, Masque, and Majestic Theatres. The Shubert Organization had purchased a half interest in these theaters in 1928 and, according to Chanin, had had an interest in acquiring full control.

In August 1929 Chanin announced specific plans for the newly acquired Century Theatre site. He proposed to build an office and hotel that would be "an innovation in international relations."^ The building, to be known as the Palais de France, was to house the French consulate and tourist board, and the offices of French commercial firms. Chanin was to design the new building which would be in a "modern French [style] adapted to the exigencies of American skyscraper construction.In other words, this was to be an Art Deco style building using forms similar to those already in evidence at the Chanin Building. The building was to have three stories of permanent exhibition space for the display of French manufactured goods and for an international display of automobiles, airplanes, and yachts. There would also be shops on the ground floor. The next 27 stories were to be a hotel, while the top 30 stories were to be the French offices.

The conception of a Palais de France for New York reflects Chanin's interest in France and French culture. He wished to provide a building where French and American art and commerce could be united. While Chanin was impressed with European, and particularly French, modern design, he felt that America had successfully adapted these forms to create its own design idiom:

While Europe is the motherland in the development of the so-called modernistic tendencies in design, it is my own opinion that America is rationalizing these ideas and is making them fit into the scheme of things more successfully than Europe. I did not see abroad'any modernistic interiors or furniture that approaches either in beauty or usefulness that which is becoming fairly common in New York.H

The Palais de France was to unite a modern American structure with the finest modern French products.

Chanin and banker S.W. Straus traveled to France to arrange the sale of the Century site to the French. Negotiations seemed to be progressing, but no money was forthcoming from French banks, and in October 1930, Chanin announced that the Palais de France scheme had been dropped and that he would build a twin-towered apartment house similar in concept to the Majestic, then under construction. This building was to contain small apartments of from two to seven rooms "to meet the demand for this type of housing accommodation along Central Park West."12 According to Irwin Chanin the Century's apartments are smaller than those of earlier buildings because of the difficulty in renting large apartments during the Depression. The earlier Majestic had large apartments, some of which were difficult to rent and so the Century was planned with smaller, but still carefully laid out units.^ The Century, designed a year after the Majestic, is considered by Chanin to be a finer work.

He particularly noted that the crown of Century is a more complex creation and that the building has finer bay windows and balconies, and special glass.

The Century was the last of the four great Central Park West twin-towered apartment buildings. It is these buildings which prompted the New York Times to write that the west side "skyline bids fair to be ere long as beautifully fantastic as it is where the river mingles in the bay."^-^ The tower forms of the Century, Majestic, San Remo, and Eldorado came about as a result of the multiple dwelling law passed by the New York State Legislature in 1929. This law mandated an increase in yard and court area, but allowed residential buildings to rise higher than before, legalizing setbacks and towers in this building type for the first time. The bill limited the height of street walls to time the width of the street, but, on plots of over 25,000 square feet, allowed towers that could rise up to three times the width of the street.

The Century is a sophisticated essay in "modern American" or Art Deco design. The facade exhibits a complex balance of horizontal an^ vertical elements that creates a dynamic design tension. The nineteen-story superstructure forms a street wall that hugs the lot line on all three main elevations and lines up with the older pre-1929 buildings on Central Park West, while the towers rise up to proclaim the advent of a new zoning scheme and a modern style of architecture. The bands of tan and light brown brick, the long corner windows, and the cantilevered balconies lend a strong horizontal force to the design, but these are balanced by the vertical thrust of the projecting bowed window bays with their vertical brick ornament, by the rust-colored brick spandrel panels, and by the recessed window bays of the towers. The geometric masses that crown the towers also display this complex balance of horizontal and vertical forms.

On a smaller scale, the pattern of window mullions echoes the balance of horizontal and vertical elements found elsewhere. This is particularly true at the corner solaria with their strong horizontal mullions and rhythm of narrow and wider vertical mullions. These solaria are an important feature of the Century's design, and they, along with the other windows of the building, were equipped with a special imported English glass that allowed ultra-violat rays Into the apartments. Much of the Century's interest lies in the manipulation of such structural features as the brickwork, windows, bays, and balconies. Ornament, placed sparingly on the exterior, is used to highlight major focal points of the building such as the entrances, setbacks, and crowns. It is the crowns, visible from Central Park and as far east as Fifth Avenue, that are, appropriately, given the most dramatic ornamental form. The buttressed crowns with their corner fins and arched rear projections are one of New York City's major architectural adornments.

When it opened, the Century contained 417 suites and 1,688 rooms. Among its special features were sunken drawing rooms with fireplaces, creak-proof floors of walnut and selected hardwoods, free standing showers, duplex suites, and lobbies adjacent to the three entrances that displayed the finest in contemporary American design. In addition, there was a private landscaped garden located within the U-shaped plan of the building. The garden walls are faced with the same brick used for the street facades, reflecting Chanin*s effort to have the eighty-foot wide garden take on the form of a street, so that when residents looked out of their garden windows they did not have the feeling of living in a dark court.

The quality of the Century's design and its location near Hidtown offices and the theater district have attracted many prominent tenants including members of the Chanin family, Ethel Merman, Lee Shubert, Nanette Fabray, Jack Dempsey, Joey Heatherton, Mark Connolly, Theodore Sorensan, Carol Lawrence, Robert Goulet, Bill Cullin, and Leo Lindy (of cheesecake fame).

Description

The Century Apartments faces onto Central Park West between 62nd and 63rd Streets and extends back 250 feet on both side streets. The massing of this 30-story building is divided into a massive nineteen-story base that runs along the lot line on all three elevations and a pair of tall towers set at the Central Park West corners. The structure rests on a low rose-colored granite watertable, above which is a one- and two-story ochre-colored stone base. In the center of the Central Park West facade, the one-story stone base is pierced by the main entrance. The lobby is entered through a pair of glass doors protected by stylized geometric Art Deco style grilles of "white metal." The doors are set within a modest white metal enframement. The entrance ensemble is surrounded by the same rose-colored granite used on the watertable. This surround is framed by quoin-like forms ending in raised vertical moldings. To either side of the entrance are window groups and doors leading to professional apartments.

There are stores at either corner. The storefronts are not original, but they are set within the original openings. The commercial space at the 62nd Street corner was originally planned to house a bank, but due to the Depression the two-story space remained vacant. After World War II the space was divided and an apartment was created .on the second floor.

In its massing and ornamentation the Century Apartments displays a sophisticated balance between horizontal and vertical elements. Vertically, the main mass of the symmetrical apartment house can be divided,into five pavilions, each separated by shallow bow windows. The three central sections are faced with a tan brick that was chosen because of its resemblance to the color of limestone. The facade is enlivened with wide bands of light brown brick set between all of the windows with the exception of those beside the vertical bowed bays at either end. The central pavilion, above the entrance, is articulated by two windows on each of the floors between two and fifteen (exterior floor numbers may not always correspond with the interior numbering system). As with all of the windows of the building the sash consists of metal casements. Each window is divided into several movable and stationary panes by thin metal mullions.

The balance between the vertical and horizontal mullions echoes the overall balance of the building. In the central section each window consists of two movable casements. Long rectangular panes flank the casements while four stationary panes are set above and four jalousie windows are set below. There are concrete sill bands below each window.

Flanking the central section and separated from it by pairs of bowed window bays are pavilions that consist of pairs of small single casement windows and a double casement. The bowed bays rise vertically from the second floor. Bands of tan and light brown brick are located between the bays of each pair. The bowed window of each apartment is set below the level of the other windows indicating the presence of sunken drawing (living)rooms. Each of the bow windows Is divided into five parts with three narrow casements flanked by stationary panes. There are fixed transoms above and jalousies below. The bays are enlivened by the use of rust-colored brick spandrels ornamented with vertical bands of projecting bricks laid at an angle.

The rows of angled bricks continue the vertical Lines of the window mullions. Each window in the bay has a concrete sill and a brick lintel.

The corner sections of the building are faced entirely in tan brick and are articulated by large glass solaria. The end pavilions are separated from the central portion of the building by single bowed bays identical in form to those already described. These bays rise to the seventeenth floor, two stories higher than the central bays. Each solaria consists of eight windows on Central Park West and three on the side street. With the exception of the end panes on Central Park West all of these are movable casements. These large window groups have strongly articulated horizontal metal mullions and a rhythm narrow and wider mullions.

The sixteenth through nineteenth floors form a transitional zone between the main mass of the building and the towers above. Each of these floors contains cantilevered concrete balconies guarded by metal railings ornamented with Art Deco style chevron patterns.

The twin towers soar upwards to the ornamental crowns that identify the building from afar. The towers are faced with tan brick with light brown bands at the corners. The windows, with their metal mullions, are of the type discussed above. On Central Park West, beginning above the twentieth floor, the four central windows of each tower are ornamented by bold goemetric brick patterns. At the thirtieth floor each tower sets back to form the unique top that gives the Century its distinctive, recognizable silhouette. Like the massing and ornamentation of the facades and^the arrangement -a£»ithe windows _ these crowns exhibit a complex interaction of horizontal and vertical elements. Each consists of a main geometric mass (housing a water tower) that is supported by buttresses. The vertical thrust of the buttresses is countered by concrete "fins that straddle each corner of the towers.

At the northwest corner of the north tower and the corresponding southwest corner of the south tower arched projections with incised channels rise almost to the roofline (that to the south has been poorly rebuilt). These add to the dynamic silhouette of each tower.

The side street elevations of the Century step down in accordance with zoning rules. There are four major levels on each side street elevation, each of which is topped by projecting concrete balconies. The tan brick facades are interrupted in three locations by pairs of ornamental rust-colored brick window spandrels. On the ground floor are a succession of doors leading to professional offices and secondary residential entrances similar in design to that of the front elevation. At the rear, on each street, are geometric Art Deco gates leading to the service entrances. Geometric water tower pavilions, similar in form to the tower crowns, are located above the roofline of each side street facade.

The main mass of the Century is laid out on a U-shaped plan with a central garden that is visible from the public park and drive of the Lincoln Plaza Apartments off Broadway. The inner elevations of the Century are faced with the same tan brick used elsewhere and are articulated with a similar fenestration pattern. The use of the same face brick on the private inner court that was used for the public facades was unusual and evinces a desire on Mr. Chanin's part to design and build a building of the highest residential quality. The court created by the U-shaped plan was laid out as a garden for the enjoyment of the tenants. This garden, with its four brick pylons, survives.

There have been only two serious alterations to the Century since its completion. These are the alteration to the arched fin of the south tower, previously noted, and the removal of the original windows and brickwork from the twentieth and twenty-first floors of the Central Park West elevation of the south tower. Other alterations have occurred to the windows of the north tower penthouse and to several other apartment windows.

The Century Apartments stands today as a testament to the vision of architect and builder Irwin S. Chanin. In its characteristic twin-towered form, it remains one of the landmarks of Central Park West and is one of the major Art Deco style apartment buildings in America.

- From the 1985 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

Century Apartments by Emilio Guerra

Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States of America