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.

In the closing decades of the 19th century, New York underwent a profound physical and cultural transformation. Fueled by the wealth of the exploding financial and manufacturing sectors, the city rapidly evolved into a world-class metropolis. The bold ambitions of civic and business leaders, architects, and engineers of the era manifested in landmarks such as the vast Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the stately U.S. Custom House, the towering Municipal Building, and the original terminus of New York City’s first official subway line—the ornate City Hall stop. The sweeping interior spaces common to all of these structures, and hundreds of others, depended upon a venerable Mediterranean building technology adapted to contemporary American construction: arched tile ceilings—or vaults—that were not only self-supporting but could also bear the weight of floors or roofs above them. These vaults were designed and built by a single New York firm, founded by Spanish immigrant Rafael Guastavino (1842-1908) and later headed by his son Rafael Jr. (1872-1950). The Guastavinos’ patented system for building domes and vaults involved multiple layers of thin ceramic tiles bonded with quick-drying mortar. The resulting structures were not only exceptionally strong, but also lightweight, easy to build, and inherently beautiful, thanks to intricate patterns of exposed tile that formed finished, decorative surfaces. Guastavino vaults figured prominently in more than 1,000 projects across the nation, including 200 in Manhattan alone. During its 73-year history, the Guastavino Company helped build some of the most impressive interior spaces in America—veritable palaces for the people. This list based on MCNY's exhibition Palaces for the People, contains many of Guastavino's masterpieces in the five boroughs, both those that remain and those that have been lost to the wrecking ball.

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.

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.

Caleb Smith, a librarian at Columbia University, walked the entirety of Broadway in the summer of 2001: from 262nd Street in the Bronx to Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan. The photographs, taken during the walk, capture his view of Broadway, New York's uncompromising main street. (He was later inspired to walk every street in Manhattan, which he did over a two-year period between 2002 and 2004.) This walk is a "best of" Caleb's Broadway expedition.

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.

Take a walk in the beautiful Upper West Side. Start at Columbus Circle and discover the cultural and religious landmarks and the extravagant apartment buildings of this affluent neighborhood.