Chatsworth Apartments and Annex ARCHITECT: John E. Scharsmith DATE: 1902-06 STYLE: Beaux-Arts Prominently sited on the south side of West 72 Street at the foot of Riverside Park on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, the Chatsworth Apartments and Annex are two exceptionally handsome apartment buildings that were constructed early in the twentieth century as luxury “housekeeping apartments” for an affluent clientele. Both structures were designed by architect John E. Scharsmith in the Beaux-Arts manner and feature exuberant French-inspired classical and Beaux-Arts detailing. The Chatsworth Apartments (1902 – 1904) at 344 West 72 Street, the older of the two structures, consists of two twelve-story blocks sharing a common base that extends through the block from West 72 Street to West 71 Street. The smaller Annex (1905 – 1906) at 340 West 72 Street, is a separate eight-story tower linked to the earlier building at its base. These two buildings, which are examples of the early twentieth-century luxury apartment building, are also notable for their Beaux-Arts inspired design.

Ansonia Apartments Strolling along upper Broadway, we are startled at this evocation of Paris with its gay towers and great mansard roofs. Yet there is one great difference: where such a building in Paris might not stand more than six of seven stories high, here, in its American version, it towers to a height of seventeen stories. Designed by the firm of Graves & Duboy for W.E.D. Stokes, it is a happy contribution to our street architecture.

Charles M. Schwab Residence, ca. 1920. This massive, extravagant mansion was the home of steel magnate Charles Schwab. Designed by a relatively unknown French architect, Maurice Hébert, it would take four years to build (1902-1906) and cost of six million dollars. The 75+ room home, called "Riverside" was an eclectic mix of styles both inside and out. The interior included a gym, a bowling alley, a pool, three elevators and furnishing in the styles of Henry IV, Louis XIII, Louis XV and Louis XVI. The exterior was inspired by a number of French chateaus. The home was so massive that Andrew Carnegie (who had a large mansion of his own on Fifth Avenue) supposedly said, "Have you seen that place of Charlie's? It makes mine look like a shack." Schwab lost his fortune nearly overnight at the start of the Great Depression in 1929. He remained in the home for another ten years, before dying penniless while living in a small apartment on Park Avenue in 1939. In his last years he had attempted up unload the structure, trying to sell it for $4 million and offering it to the city as the mayoral residence (LaGuardia refused). Finally in 1948 the mega mansion was demolished and two years later an 18-story apartment building went up in its place.

John and Mary Sutphen House, ca. 1920. Among its important qualities, the Sutphen Residence, designed in the Beaux-Arts style by noted architect C.P.H. Gilbert and built in 1901-02, is an elegant, limestone-fronted townhouse with an American basement plan located on a prominent site near the southern end of Riverside Drive at West 72nd Street. The residence, designed and built in accordance with restrictive covenants in an area long intended for high-quality residential development, is an excellent example of an impressive townhouse designed for that area. Its design, featuring curved bays, stone and copper ornamental details, and a slate mansard roof enlivened by large dormers, as well as its sitting, give it a striking presence at the gateway to Riverside Drive.

Kleeberg Residence, ca. 1975. Described as a "delirium of French Renaissance Revival details" and "like the top tier of a Gothic wedding cake," 3 Riverside Drive was the product of architect C.P.H Gilbert. Perhaps the most ornate of townhouses on the Upper West Side, the building has four terraces, eight and a half bathrooms, nine gaslit fireplaces, and is topped with gargoyles and cherubs. Built between 1896 and 1898 for lace merchant, oil broker, and calculator inventor, Phillip Kleeberg and his wife, only the wife, Marie, would ultimately live in the home. Phillip kept a separate house elsewhere on the Upper West Side. It was here that Maria committed suicide in 1903. During the 20th century the house would be used as a sleep sanitarium, apartment house with rooms rented to showgirls for some time, and finally as a single family home, once again. The home came on the market in 2012 with a $40 million price tag. It finally sold for $17 million in early 2017.

Frederick and Lydia Prentiss ARCHITECT: C. P. H. Gilbert DATE: 1899-1901 STYLE: Beaux-Arts The Prentiss Residence, designed by noted architect C.P.H. Gilbert and constructed in 1899-1901, is an elegant Beaux-Arts style townhouse located on a prominent site at the intersection of West 72nd Street and Riverside Drive and is one of four grand townhouses remaining at that corner. Designed and built in accordance with restrictive covenants in an area long intended for high-quality residential development, it is an excellent example of an impressive townhouse designed for that area. A townhouse with an American basement plan, the Prentiss Residence is faced in limestone and has curved bays at the front and side facades and a mansard roof enlivened with a turret. These features, combined with the siting of the building, give the townhouse a striking presence at the gateway to Riverside Drive.

Ansonia Hotel ARCHITECT: Paul E. M. DuBoy DATE: 1899-1904 STYLE: French Beaux-Arts This apartment-hotel in the grand French Beaux-Arts style occupies the entire blockfront on the West side of Broadway between 73rd and 74th Streets. It rises on its conspicuous site to a height of seventeen stories. Built at the turn of the century, with over three hundred suites, it was at that time one of the largest apartment-hotels in the world. The Ansonia is a symbol of an era of opulence and elegance, and still stands as one of the truly grand buildings of Manhattan’s West Side. The most striking features of this vast structure are the corner towers on Broadway, with their domes and railings, which rise slightly above and repeat the theme of the three story convex mansard roof that crowns the building. Another noticeable feature, the result of a plan which provides maximum light and air, is a series of recessed courts: two on the north side, two on the south side and one on Broadway.

Camp Thomas Paine was what you'd call a "Hooverville," a shantytown set up during the Great Depression. Its name, as you might suspect, was aimed as a criticism of President Herbert Hoover, who offered little aid to struggling Americans after the Crash of 1929. This camp was one of many throughout New York City that were built on parkland or abandoned construction sites. Others included "Hoover Valley" on what today is Central Park's Great Lawn, "Packing Box City" on Houston, "Hardlucktown" in the East Village, and "Tin City" in Red Hook. While most settlements only allowed male residents, Camp Thomas Paine differed in only allowing World War I veterans to board.

Ansonia Apartment, ca. 1905. The Ansonia was built as a residential hotel by William Earle Dodge Stokes, one of nine children born to a banker and a copper heiress. When his father died, he contested the will and sued his brother – a move that netted him a $1 million inheritance. In 1895, Stokes married teenaged Rita Hernandez de Alba de Acosta, older sister to Mercedes de Acosta. Less than four years after their lavish wedding ceremony, she filed for divorce – the same year of the Ansonia’s groundbreaking. Stokes’ hotel opened on April 19th, 1904, comprising 1,400 rooms and 340 suites, and standing 17 stories tall. Pneumatic tubes snaked through the walls for the easy conveyance of messages between residents and staff. The luxurious apartments featured multiple bedrooms, parlors, libraries, and formal dining rooms. In the building’s basement, residents swam in what was, at the time, the world’s largest indoor pool. They also cooled off in the privacy of their own homes – the Ansonia was the first “air-conditioned hotel” in New York City, with a system in the walls pumping a freezing briny mixture. The hotel even had its own art curator, who collected around 600 paintings for the building to display. And today’s urban agriculture enthusiasts would be interested to know the Ansonia once featured a rooftop farm with chickens, duck, and goats – although it was eventually shut down by the health department. Famous residents of the hotel throughout the years included Babe Ruth, writer Theodore Dreiser, the leader of the Baha’i Faith \`Abdu’l-Bahá, conductor Arturo Toscanini, composer Igor Stravinsky, fashion designer Koos van den Akker, and Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld. Stokes, who remarried in 1911, became a particularly notable resident himself after he became embroiled in scandal later that year. A young starlet with whom Stokes had allegedly been involved shot him, and he was found clinging to a balcony at the Varuna hotel, bleeding. The scandal brought droves of reporters to the Ansonia, even though Stokes refused to leave his room. The hotel also played host to Chicago White Sox first baseman Arnold “Chick” Gandil. It is said that on September 21, 1919, a group of Chicago White Sox players assembled in his room to plot the throwing of the World Series for the cost of roughly $10,000 per person. Stokes died in 1926 at age 74. His son eventually sold the building in 1945 to Samuel Bronxmeyer, a man widely regarded as a crooked landlord. In 1968, Bronxmeyer rented its abandoned basement pool to a man named Steve Ostrow, who turned it into the famous Continental Baths. This gay bathhouse operated an incredible cabaret to entertain its towel-clad denizens. Over the years it featured future stars like Bette Midler, Barry Manilow, and Patti Labelle, as well as established stars like Cab Calloway, Lesley Gore, Peter Allen, and even the Andrews Sisters. The bathhouse closed its doors in 1977 and was quickly converted into Plato’s Retreat under the ownership of Larry Levenson. At this membership-based swingers club, “committed heterosexual couples were the base of support,” according to the New York Times. Levenson explicitly forbid homosexual activity between men. The city shut the club down in the wake of the HIV epidemic; it served its final patrons on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve in 1985. The Ansonia was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 and still accepts tenants today.

234-236 West 74th Street, ca. 1911. In this photograph its seems that the home on the right (no. 236) is empty, evidenced by the covered and darkened windows. Both homes have had major alterations in the century since the photo was taken. No. 234 has had it stoop and mansard roof removed. The staircase on no. 236 has been straightened, but it also looks like the door from the 1911 photograph might, in fact, still be in place, or, at least, a very purposeful replacement.

“Three modernized brownstones,” Wurts Bros., 1936. The Gristedes supermarket chain was founded by German brothers Charles and Diedrich Gristede in 1891. By 1948, their business had grown from a storefront at Second Avenue and 42nd Street to include 141 locations in New York, Westchester County and Connecticut.

Jackson Residence, ca. 1907. This townhouse was built for a C.D. Jackson in 1906 was designed by Trowbridge and Livingston. This firm is better known for their commercial, civic and cultural buildings including the St. Regis and Knickerbocker Hotels, B. Altman & Company department store, the Bankers Trust Company building, and the 1935 Hayden Planetarium at the Natural History Museum.

What do Stravinsky, the Black Sox, Bette Midler, and a swinger’s club have in common? At one point they were all inside New York City’s Ansonia Hotel.

Level Club, 1928. Organized by a group of Freemasons called the The Levelers, the Level Club was a Mason social club. Opened at first only to The Levelers, quickly the club was opened to all Free Masons. In 1923 the club purchased four brownstones and razed them for a new building. Designed by the firm of Clinton Russell Wells George and Holton, the Art Deco the hotel and club opened in 1927 and featured luxury amenities, including a grand dining, lounge and club rooms, a 1,500-seat theater, an Olympic size pool and a roof garden. The set backed facade of the building was designed with Mason iconography in mind. A number of building features reflect biblical descriptions of the Temple of Solomon and the facade includes carvings of important Mason symbols such as the all-seeing eye, the hourglass, the level, the hexagram, the beehive and the Bible. Following the financial crash of 1929 the club and hotel was opened to anyone, regardless of their Mason affiliation, but the money issues persisted and the building was foreclosed on in May 1931. The Level Club was a series of hotels (with various reputations) over the next few decades. In 1984 it became a condominium complex.

My Archive Spring 2019 "This is my young son in front of the building we lived in being a "businessman". I think he was selling his old toys. One of our neighbors is making a purchase." —Stephen Harmon

Orphan Asylum ca. 1899-1900 The oldest of its kind in the United States, the Orphan Asylum Society was founded in 1806, according to the 1893 King's Handbook of New York, to "minister to the wants of the parentless children of the community, and train them up in the paths of virtue." The Riverside Drive site was secured in 1835, and accommodated 250 children. Only children under age ten were admitted, and they were sent on to "Christian homes" when they reached age fourteen.

Spencer Aldrich Mansion, ca. 1975. An elaborate Romanesque Revival mansion designed by Gilbert Schellenger for the family of Spencer Aldrich, a real estate developer, President of the Real Estate Exchange, and society figure. Construction was completed in 1897. During the 1950s, significant alterations were made to the building’s entrance and lower floors: the stoop was removed and the ground floor was converted to include retail storefronts.