The Dorilton

Coordinates: 40°46′41″N 73°58′54″W / 40.77806°N 73.98167°W / 40.77806; -73.98167
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Dorilton
The Dorilton as seen from Broadway and 71st Street
Map
Location171 W. 71st St., Manhattan, New York
Coordinates40°46′41″N 73°58′54″W / 40.77806°N 73.98167°W / 40.77806; -73.98167
Arealess than one acre
Built1900
ArchitectJanes & Leo
Architectural styleBeaux Arts
NRHP reference No.83001723[1]
NYCL No.0858
Significant dates
Added to NRHPSeptember 8, 1983
Designated NYCLSeptember 8, 1983

The Dorilton is a luxury residential

New York City designated landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places
.

The Dorilton is roughly H-shaped in plan, with recessed

light courts facing south and north. The southern light court, along 71st Street, functions as an entrance courtyard with a gateway. The limestone-and-brick facade is divided into three horizontal sections: a three-story base, six-story shaft, and three-story upper section with mansard roof. The decoration on the facade includes bronze bay windows curving outward, as well as sculptures, decorative terracotta, and balconies. Inside, the building had its own mechanical plant and three elevators. The lobby had several classical details, while the upper stories had 48 apartments, which by the 21st century had been divided into 60 apartments. The unit contained decorations such as paneling, Queen Anne style
fireplaces, French doors, and round window bays. When the Dorilton was completed, its design generally received positive acclaim from architectural critics.

Weed bought the site in February 1900 and hired the firm of Janes & Leo to design a twelve-story apartment hotel on the site. The building cost $750,000 and was intended to attract middle-class residents who otherwise would not have lived in apartments. Storefronts on the ground floor were added after 1919, many decorative elements were removed or had deteriorated by the 1950s. The Dorilton was sold several times over the years before becoming a housing cooperative in 1984. The exterior was restored in the late 1980s and again in the 1990s, and the interior spaces were restored in the mid-2010s.

Site

The Dorilton is at 171 West 71st Street, at the northeast corner with

Manhattan street grid. The land lot covers 13,393 square feet (1,244.3 m2),[3] with a frontage of 110 feet (34 m) on 71st Street.[4][5] The Broadway frontage has variously been cited as 100 feet (30 m),[6] 105.5 feet (32.2 m),[5] or 109 feet (33 m).[4] The northern boundary of the site measures 150 feet (46 m) wide.[7]

The building is near several other structures, including the Rutgers Presbyterian Church and the Ansonia apartments to the northwest, the Apple Bank Building one block north, the Triad Theatre to the east, and the Church of the Blessed Sacrament and the Pythian Temple to the southwest.[2][3] Directly west of the Dorilton is Verdi Square and an entrance for the New York City Subway's 72nd Street station.[3]

Architecture

The building was designed by

71st Street, at Broadway.[8][9] The building has a Beaux-Arts style limestone and brick exterior, featuring monumental sculptures, richly balustraded balconies, and a copper and slate mansard roof.[10] The Dorilton is twelve stories high; the facade rises ten stories before the mansard roof.[11][12]

Form and facade

The Dorilton's facade as viewed from 71st Street. There is elaborate stone and brick detail.
View of the facade from 71st Street

The Dorilton is roughly H-shaped in plan, with recessed

light courts facing south and north.[13][14] The southern light court, along 71st Street, functions as an entrance courtyard with a gateway divided into three sections.[15] The outer two sections of the gateway contain large wrought-iron gates, behind which was a small, U-shaped driveway, while the center section contains a pedestrian entrance. The gateway also contains four limestone columns, which flank each section; the tops of the columns contain crestings and limestone spheres. In addition, between the two center columns is a frame that surrounds the pedestrian gate, which is decorated with a shield and two cherubs.[11]

The facade is divided into three horizontal sections, similar to the base, shaft, and

areaway, which was infilled in the 20th century.[17] The ground and second stories of the facade are clad with rusticated blocks of limestone, while the third story is clad with alternating limestone-and-brick bands.[11] The ground level contains storefronts facing Broadway.[13][18] Historical photographs indicate that the ground level facade on Broadway originally contained windows.[19] There is a large balcony above the third story, which is supported by heavy brackets, some of which are grouped in pairs.[11] The balcony also contains a balustrade,[13] which was originally topped by red or gray terracotta vases.[20]

The midsection is clad largely in brick, except for the corners, which have limestone

three-centered arch,[11] which is supported by a steel truss.[21] There are shields at either end of the arch, as well as deep voussoirs and a central keystone on the arch itself; the top of the arch is flat.[11]

The tenth story once contained another balcony, decorated with a balustrade and urns.

dormer windows on the mansard roof.[13] Some of the copper cresting on the roof remains intact, and there are also chimneys.[15]

Features

Originally, the Dorilton's entrance vestibule was decorated with

putti that flanked a cartouche, similar to the motifs above the center section of the 71st Street gateway. The lobby had several classical details, many of which were later painted over.[13] The building originally had two passenger elevators and one service elevator, the latter of which was used by freight and servants.[12] The Dorilton also contained a lighting, heating, power, and refrigeration plant in one of its courtyards.[12][25] The basement contained a storage room for every tenant, as well as an "automobile storage and charging room", which at the time was a novel feature for a New York City apartment building.[25] When the Dorilton opened, each apartment and hallway had a telephone connecting with a janitor's office, and all tenants could use electricity from the building's power plant for free.[12]

Apartments

Historical floor plan of the upper stories, showing the arrangement of the apartments
Historical floor plan of the upper stories

The upper stories originally had four apartments per floor.[13] These apartments were arranged in suites with five, seven, eight, or ten rooms;[25] there were one to four bedrooms in each unit.[26] By 1923, there were 48 units in total, each with five to eight rooms, and each floor contained two to three bathrooms that were shared by all of the apartments.[27] When the building was developed, the space under the mansard roof was intended to be leased out as artists' studios.[25] The top of the building contained a roof garden, in addition to "sun parlors" measuring 35 by 35 feet (11 by 11 m).[12]

The units were decorated with mahogany, oak, white-enamel, and maple trim. The hallways contained paneled

parquet pattern, Each residence had a parlor clad with white enamel and mahogany; the dining rooms had high wooden wainscoting, oak-and-mahogany finishes, and beamed ceilings.[12] Many of the apartments were illuminated by the curved oriel windows of the facade.[28] In contrast to later apartment buildings, the apartments typically had much fewer bathrooms than bedrooms, and the closets were extremely small.[26] The hallways were also smaller than in later apartment buildings.[28][29]

Over the years, many of the apartments have been divided into smaller units. These apartments retain some of their original decorations, such as paneling, Queen Anne style fireplaces, French doors, and round window bays.[13] By the early 21st century, the building had 60 apartments, which vary in layout, and some of the units are duplexes. For instance, one of the eighth-floor duplexes has four bedrooms, two each on the upper and lower levels, in addition to various other rooms.[30] Another unit, a two-bedroom apartment, contains a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, and outdoor terrace.[31] Some of the apartments have fireplaces in both the living room and the dining room, in addition to curved bay windows.[30] Other apartments have design elements such as private libraries, French doors, and balconies;[32] one of the penthouses has a 2,000-square-foot (190 m2) terrace with a Jacuzzi, dining area, and plants.[33]

History

The city's first subway line was developed starting in the late 1890s, and it opened in 1904 with a station at Broadway and 72nd Street.[34] The construction of the subway spurred the development of high-rise apartment buildings on Broadway, such as the Ansonia and the Dorilton.[21] Before the routing of the subway line had been finalized, in early 1899, developer Hamilton M. Weed paid $175,500 for a plot on the corner of Broadway and 71st Street in February 1899.[35][a][26]

Apartment house

1900s to 1920s

The main entrance to the Dorilton
Main entrance

In February 1900, the media announced that Weed had bought the plot from Oppenheimer & Hamershlag and had hired the firm of Janes & Leo to design a twelve-story

West End Avenue,[26] which Janes & Leo had also designed.[40] Weed's development was one of several large apartment buildings developed on the Upper West Side in the early 1900s, along with such structures as the Ansonia and the Astor.[41][42] The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company gave Weed a $725,000 construction loan for the site in February 1901 so Weed could complete the edifice.[43]

The building was known as the Dorilton when it was completed in 1902 for $750,000.[26] According to writer Elizabeth Hawes, the "Dorilton" name was intended to "validate the decision to live in an apartment" and "give the building a sense of permanence and longevity and breeding".[44] The elaborate design was intended to attract middle- and upper-class people who would have otherwise lived in townhouses.[45] Weed sold the Dorilton in March 1902 to a group of investors from Buffalo, New York, and Providence, Rhode Island; the building was valued at $1.25 million.[4][35] At the time, only one of the building's 48 units was vacant.[46] The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) wrote that the building was frequented by musicians and actors.[47] Among the building's early tenants were actress Bernice Golden, who was the ex-wife of F. Augustus Heinze,[48] as well as businessman Henry Osborne Havemeyer.[49] The building's owner, the Dorilton Corporation, filed plans in 1908 to renovate the first story by adding a new entrance with a canopy.[50]

The Dorilton Corporation sold the building in November 1915 to an investor, at which point the structure was valued at $1.5 million.[51][52] The buyer, George Noakes, gave the Dorilton Corporation two apartment houses as partial payment.[53][54] Noakes took over a $674,000 mortgage that had been placed on the property.[53] Noakes resold the Dorilton in 1919 to Sydney H, Sonn, the president of the Transit Realty Company, at which point it was fully occupied and provided $111,000 a year in rental income.[55][56] Subsequently, Sonn added storefronts and renovated the interior.[27] Frederick Brown purchased the Dorilton in February 1923 at an assessed value of $1.5 million; by then, annual rental income from the building had increased to $200,000.[7] Three months later, Brown resold the building to a syndicate of investors led by Max Raymond. The New-York Tribune reported that the building had six stores and 48 apartments.[27]

1930s to 1970s

The bay windows on the western facade of the Dorilton
Bay windows

The Dry Dock Savings Bank initiated foreclosure proceedings against the Dorilton in 1938, as the owners, the Seventy-first Street and Broadway Corporation, had failed to pay $1,263,904 on the mortgage.[57] The bank acquired the building at a foreclosure auction that month.[58] By October 1939, the building's managing agent reported that the Dorilton was fully rented.[59] Isaac Prussin bought the building from the bank in 1945 at an assessed valuation of $900,000.[60][61] At the time of Prussin's purchase, the building contained three stores, as well as 55 apartments with between four and seven rooms each.[60] Prussin co-owned the Dorilton with Irving Stolz for five years. The men sold the building in February 1950 to a syndicate represented by Max Uviller; at the time, the building was worth $655,000.[62]

One of the Dorilton's cornices was removed at some point after 1945,[63] and many decorative elements were removed or had deteriorated by the 1950s.[26] A syndicate led by Sam Sobel bought the building in 1956 at an assessed valuation of $700,000; they assumed the building's $440,000 mortgage and paid $260,000 in cash. The buyers planned to spend $150,000 on upgrading the elevators and installing a central air-conditioning system. At the time, the building's ground floor contained the Fifth Avenue Bar and the Stanwood Cafeteria, while the upper stories included 60 standard apartments and two penthouse apartments.[64] The Dorilton's tenants by the 1960s included vocal coach Phil Moore, who operated a studio in the building.[65] The LPC proposed designating the building's facade as a city landmark in May 1974[66] and voted that October to designate the building as a New York City landmark.[67] The Dorilton was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.[1][68]

Co-op

The Dorilton became a housing cooperative in 1984. The next year, workers began renovating the Dorilton, particularly its roof; John Wright Stephens and Jonathan Williams were hired as the renovation architects. Stephens and Williams repainted the eleventh-story facade in a trompe-l'œil pattern, since there was not enough money to fund the restoration of cornices on the 10th and 11th stories.[26] According to a shareholder for the co-op, this was the first time that the LPC had allowed a trompe-l'œil pattern to be installed in lieu of original ornamentation. The restoration of the roof, which included rebuilding the cresting and dormers, was completed in 1990 at a cost of $1.5 million.[26] In addition, in the late 1980s, commercial landlord Crescent Properties bought the master lease for the stores at the Dorilton's base for $2.5 million. Crescent planned to divide a former doughnut shop at the building's base into three smaller storefronts that paid nearly twelve times as much monthly rent.[69]

The exterior masonry, decorative terra-cotta work and chimneys and roof were restored in 1998 by the Walter B. Melvin architectural firm.[70][71] The signage outside the building's storefronts was removed during the 1990s.[17] During the first decade of the 21st century, interior designer Lucretia Moroni renovated the building's common spaces for $172,800. The project included installing new cast-iron benches in the entrance courtyard, as well as installing seats in the foyer and lobby, which had never previously had any seating areas. In addition, Moroni repainted the lobby's walls in pale green, complementing the courtyard's plantings, and repainted the stairways and walls in yellow.[72] Among the residents of the co-op was actor Nathan Lane.[32][73]

Critical reception

The western facade of the Dorilton as seen from across Broadway
Seen from Broadway

When the building was under construction, the New-York Tribune wrote that "the imposing architecture of this lofty structure has, since the completion of its ornate facades and picturesque, domed roof, attracted the attention of every resident of the Upper West Side".[25] Montgomery Schuyler criticized the design in 1902, describing "the wild yell with which the fronts exclaim, 'Look at me,' as if somebody were going to miss seeing a building of this area, 12 stories high".[26][20] Schuyler further regarded the roof as oversized, saying: "this roof, under pretence of being a roof, three full stories in tinware, including the parapet story, ostensibly of brick and stone, with scarcely any reduction in area from its substructure, and the fact would give it a squeezed and skintight look, no matter how it was treated in detail. But it is treated with extreme cruelty."[24]

In 1978, Peter Carlsen and Christopher Gray wrote for GQ magazine that "this fine madness, thought to be indigestible for decades, suddenly seems worth taking a little more seriously".[29] Paul Goldberger wrote of the building the next year: "Now the building seems more to be pitied than censored, a rather too eager-to-please piece of Second Empire foppery",[18] while another GQ article in 1979 described the Dorilton's design as "outlandish".[74] In the 1983 book New York 1900, Robert A. M. Stern and his co-authors wrote that the building's "almost overblown Modern French" design contrasted with the "restrained, almost severe Classicism" of earlier townhouses designed by Janes & Leo.[37] Architecture historian Andrew Dolkart regarded the Dorilton as "the most flamboyant apartment house in New York", with its striking, "French-inspired" sculpted figures and an enormous iron gate "reminiscent of those that guard French palaces."[8] Architecture historian Francis Morrone considered it one of the city's great apartment buildings.[9] The novelist Thane Rosenbaum wrote that the "white, ghostly faces" of the facade's sculptures "look not so much threatening as beleaguered".[75]

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ The New York Times gives an alternate figure of $275,000.[26]

Citations

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  6. ^ a b "Apartments, Flats and Tenements". The Real Estate Record: Real estate record and builders' guide. Vol. 65, no. 1665. February 3, 1900. p. 195. Archived from the original on March 8, 2023. Retrieved May 24, 2023 – via columbia.edu.
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  13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k National Park Service 1983, p. 2.
  14. ^ Architectural Record 1902, p. 221.
  15. ^ a b c Landmarks Preservation Commission 1974, p. 1; National Park Service 1983, p. 2.
  16. ^ a b c Architectural Record 1902, p. 223.
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  20. ^ a b Architectural Record 1902, p. 224.
  21. ^ a b c d Stern, Gilmartin & Massengale 1983, p. 383.
  22. ^ a b Landmarks Preservation Commission 1974, p. 2; National Park Service 1983, p. 2.
  23. ^ Architectural Record 1902, pp. 223–224.
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Sources

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Dorilton&oldid=1194593444"