Manhattan Classic by Geoffrey Lynch

Author:Geoffrey Lynch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
Published: 2014-04-19T16:00:00+00:00

310 RIVERSIDE DRIVE

1929

ARCHITECT: Helmle, Corbett & Harrison with Sugarman & Berger

CROSS STREET: 103rd Street

315 RIVERSIDE DRIVE

1930

ARCHITECT: Boak & Paris

CROSS STREET: 104th Street

440 RIVERSIDE DRIVE

THE PATERNO

1909

ARCHITECT: Schwartz & Gross

CROSS STREET: 116th Street

Riverside Drive’s curves and grassy, rolling hills are reminiscent of a sleepy country lane next to Manhattan’s rigid street grid and tall buildings. But it’s only a short block from its eastern neighbor, West End Avenue, which, in contrast, is loaded up with an astonishing ten million square feet of apartments as it runs dead straight for almost forty blocks. In Morningside Heights, a magnificent curved gateway guides pedestrians from Riverside Park up 116th Street to the gates of Columbia University. Nearby, two giant, curved brick facades face each other on a scale you’d expect on a grand avenue in Paris, not in make-it-straight New York.

Both buildings were designed by prolific architecture firm Schwartz & Gross. The much larger and more imposing 440 Riverside Drive is on the north side of the street; the smaller number 435, originally consisting of full-floor homes, is on the south side. Like the Dakota when it was completed way uptown on a very bare Central Park West in 1884, these two buildings needed to be showstoppers. The building’s young developer, the Paterno Construction Company, commissioned striking architecture to lure renters to this large apartment house so far from the offices downtown.

Completed in 1909, five years after the 116th Street subway stop a block away, the architecture is typical of early apartment houses: grand, showy, and heavily ornamented, it’s almost hard to distinguish from an important civic building. The romantic triple-arched porte cochere of 440 allowed a resident’s horse and carriage to pull in out of the rain. The vast marble lobby inside is well known for its stunning stained-glass ceiling. This building is a superb example of how more-modest apartment houses maintained the richness and urban glamour of those on Fifth and Park Avenues—in this case, with spectacular views and a location steps from one of the best parts of Riverside Park.

Three-bedroom apartments in the building’s southwest corner have the best floor plans. Each has a small foyer; the parlor, dining, and living rooms are aligned in a row and open to one another, separated only by arched openings with lovely French doors. In the corner facing south toward the Hudson River is one of the best master bedrooms in the city. Even the smaller apartments of 440 are charmers, with their tall baseboards, wood paneling, chandeliers, and imposing fireplaces. It’s easy to understand why location scouts proposed 440 Riverside as a setting for the Disney movie Enchanted, about a fairy-tale princess who finds herself in New York City.

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