Osborne Apartments ARCHITECT: Architect: James E. Ware DATE: 1883-85 STYLE: Romanesque Revival, Renaissance Revival

The Osborne Apartments was one of the earliest luxury apartment buildings in New York City. Constructed in what by 1890 had become New York’s first apartment house district, near Central Park, this architecturally-impressive building is a rare surviving example of the original development in this city of multi-family dwellings for well-to-do residents, an increasingly important building type in the 1880s.

The design draws elements from the popular Romanesque Revival style, such as the heavy, rusticated stone exterior with deeply set windows, for a sense of solidity; these are combined in a bold and original manner with the refinement, proportions, and strong horizontality of the emerging Renaissance Revival style.