Tuesday, June 14, 2022 – JUST STAND OUTSIDE AND ADMIRE THE DETAILS
TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2022
701st Issue
ALWYN COURT
Manhattan’s
most ornate early
apartment house
comes back into view
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
In 1907, the developers behind Alwyn Court announced their plans to build this 12-story luxury apartment house on the corner of Seventh Avenue and 58th Street. “It will have ornamental facades of limestone, with terra cotta trimmings,” the New-York Tribune dutifully reported.
That ho-hum description of the facade hardly did the Alwyn justice. When the aristocratic edifice opened to well-to-do tenants two years later—advertising itself as a place of “city homes for people with country houses”—the limestone and terra cotta facade proved to be one of the most ornate ever unveiled.
Alwyn Court’s exterior is an “intricate stone tapestry” of baroque scrolls, floral motifs, grotesques, angels, and crowned salamanders. The salamanders represent Francois I, the French king during the Renaissance whose style the building emulates. (The Alwyn is one of two New York buildings that feature salamanders on the facade, both by the same architects, Harde & Short.)
“This is the finest building of its type in New York City,” states the 1966 Landmarks Preservation Commission report, which designates Alwyn Court a city landmark.
Most luxury apartment buildings of the era only used terra cotta on the base of the facade and thus didn’t have excessive room or ornamentation, the LPC report explains. “Here at Alwyn Court, instead of limiting the decoration, the architects went to the other extreme, leaving hardly any surface undecorated,” states the report.
A lot has changed at the Alwyn since 1909. Originally the building had two apartments per floor with at least 14 rooms and five baths each, along with personal wine cellars for tenants and other exclusive amenities. (Remember, apartment living for the rich was still a new concept, so they tried everything to lure in residents.)
But that layout was eventually altered in favor of more apartments per floor that had fewer rooms. In the 1930s, the lobby was redone, then remade again in 1982 when an air shaft was turned into a central atrium. After a protracted battle with longtime tenants (including many senior citizens living in rent controlled units), Alwyn Court went co-op in the early 1980s.
The airshaft is now an interior atrium
By Berenice Abbott in 1936 Now, following a long stint behind construction scaffolding, Alwyn Court’s filigreed facade is fully on view. It looks as beautiful as it did in 1936, when Berenice Abbott photographed a portion of the building for her book, Changing New York. [Last photo: Sotheby’s]
Tuesday Photo of the Day
SEND YOU RESPONSE TO ROOSEVELTISLANDHISTORY@GMAIL.COM
Answers will be acknowledged on Thursday
MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
Although it is know that the Blackwell Island Lighthouse was built by the City of New York in 1872 under the supervision of architect James Renwick Jr., who also designed several other buildings on the island for the Charities and Correction Board as well as more famous works such as St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
Legends abound about the actual construction of the lighthouse. Two names, John McCarthy and Thomas Maxey, are associated with the various legends. The 1870 report of the warden of the lunatic asylum indicated that an industrious patient had built a seawall near the Asylum that had reclaimed land. The legends indicate that an inmate of the asylum built a fort to defend the island against a British invasion that he feared. Some versions indicate that he had incorporated Civil War cannons. The legend indicates that the builder was bribed with bogus money to demolish the fort for the construction of the lighthouse. Other stories indicate that an Asylum inmate constructed the lighthouse. For many years, this stone could be found near the lighthouse, with the following inscription: This is the work – Was done by – John McCarthy – Who built the Light – House from the bottom to the – Top All ye who do pass by may – Pray for his soul when he dies.
ED LITCHER GOT IT!
Gloria Herman, Aron Eisenpreis and Laura Hussey also got it!
Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Sources
https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/temperance-movement-new-york-city/
May 4, 2013
https://imbibemagazine.com/history-of-the-new-york-cocktail/
https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/tag/temperance-movement-new-york-city/
May 4, 2013
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-20/new-york-in-the-1880s-was-crammed-with-beer-saloons
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/raines-sandwich
https://ourcommunitynow.com/promotions/the-raines-sandwich-how-one-disgusting-sandwich-helped-america-stay-boozy
https://spiritofyork.com/cocktail-history-manhattan/#
https://blogs.shu.edu/nyc-history/prohibition-era-new-york/
https://nypost.com/2013/11/23/prohibition-was-the-perfect-excuse-for-nyers-to-run-wild/
ttps://prohibition.themobmuseum.org/the-history/the-prohibition-underworld/the-speakeasies-of-the-1920s/
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