The West 73rd–74th Street Historic District is a historic district on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, New York, US. The district comprises a series of rowhouses and buildings bounded by 73rd Street, 74th Street, Central Park West, and Columbus Avenue, mostly built between 1885 and 1904. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1983. The NRHP district overlaps with the Central Park West–West 73rd/74th Street Historic District, designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) in 1977.
The original 28 houses on 73rd Street, built between 1882 and 1885, were designed in the German Renaissance style. Another 18 houses on 74th Street, built between 1902 and 1904, were designed in the Georgian Revival style. Some of the other buildings in the district were built in the mid-20th century; the neo-Gothic-style Park Royal apartment complex was constructed in 1926, and another building at 10 West 74th Street was built in 1941. All of the houses were originally subject to a covenant that restricted their height. The LPC district includes one additional structure, the Langham apartment building, which is part of the neighboring NRHP-listed Central Park West Historic District.
Description The West 73rd–74th Street Historic District consists of two overlapping historic districts on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, New York, US. The NRHP district consists of 45 buildings occupying much of a city block (Block 1126 under the Borough, Block and Lot system) bounded by Central Park West to the east, 73rd Street to the south, Columbus Avenue to the west, and 74th Street to the north. The city district includes all of these buildings, plus an adjacent property on Central Park West (The Langham at 135 Central Park West), the latter of which is part of another NRHP district, the Central Park West Historic District. The entire district is also overlaid by a second city district, the Upper West Side/Central Park West Historic District. The houses are designed in the Beaux-Arts, Georgian Revival, and German Renaissance styles. Multiple architects, including Henry J. Hardenbergh and Percy Griffin, designed the district's houses. Clinton & Russell designed the Langham.
+Developers and architectsAddressNameLocationCompletedDeveloperArchitect3–11 West 73rd StreetNorth side of 73rd Street1903William W. and Thomas M. HallWelch, Smith & Provot15A–19, 41–67 West 73rd StreetNorth side of 73rd Street1884–1885Edward Cabot ClarkHenry Janeway Hardenbergh21–39 West 73rd StreetPark RoyalNorth side of 73rd Street192623 West 73rd Street CorporationGeorge F. Pelham6 West 74th StreetSouth side of 74th Street1904William W. and Thomas M. HallWelch, Smith & Provot8–14 West 74th Street10 West 74th StreetSouth side of 74th Street194110 West 74th StreetH. Herbert Lilien16 West 74th StreetSouth side of 74th Street1891Cornelius W. LuysterJohn H. Duncan18–52 West 74th StreetSouth side of 74th Street1902F. Ambrose ClarkPercy Griffin289–295 Columbus AvenueArt Studio BuildingSoutheast corner of 74th Street and Columbus Avenue1903F. Ambrose ClarkGeorge Henry GriebelThe LanghamWest side of Central Park West1907Abraham Boehm and Lewis CoonClinton & Russell
73rd Street Eastern houses and Park Royal
The houses at 3–11 West 73rd Street, at the eastern end of the block, were designed by Welch, Smith & Provot. These buildings are all five stories tall, with Beaux-Arts details at their ground-level English basements, along with more classical details on their upper stories. The ground levels are clad in limestone and have railings surrounding recessed areaways. The upper stories of each house are level with each other and are decorated with brickwork. There are different decorations on each of the five houses. For example, number 3 uses brown brick instead of red; number 5 has central tripartite windows; and numbers 7, 9, and 11 have ground-level arches and a variety of upper-story motifs. Due to the terms of the site's restrictive covenant, the easternmost section of 3 West 73rd Street had to be set back a shallower distance from the rest of the facade; as a result, that building contains a curved bay.
At 21–39 West 73rd Street is the Park Royal, which was developed in 1926 and designed by George F. Pelham in the Gothic Revival style. The building is 15 stories high. The Park Royal's lowest two stories are clad in limestone and granite. The upper stories are clad in brick and have light courts, giving the floor plan an E shape. There are vertical brick buttresses, horizontal spandrel panels, and Gothic tracery on the upper levels, along with terracotta-trimmed setbacks.
Midblock and western houses
There were originally 28 buildings at 13–67 West 73rd Street, designed by Hardenbergh, extending from midblock toward the rest of the block. The Park Royal replaces ten of these houses. Built starting in 1882, the townhouses are variously described as being designed in the German Renaissance, medieval, or early Renaissance styles. The outermost private residences—number 15A (formerly number 13) and number 65—and the center residences at numbers 37–41 were also given distinctive treatments. The houses were built in two phases; the houses in the eastern phase, at 13–27 West 73rd Street, are slightly wider and older than those at 29–67 West 73rd Street.
The houses all have raised basements and four above-ground stories, although they all have distinct designs due to the mixing and matching of multiple elements; only six of the houses is stylistically paired with another. The houses are clad in sandstone up to the top of the first floor, where a stone band course runs horizontally across each facade. The houses are all built with stoops, many of which remain intact, and have arched or square-headed doorways. Except for the outermost and center houses, the houses mostly have red-brick facades and either of two types of mansard roof. Houses 15A, 37–41, and 65 were built with buff brick facades and quoins; all of these except number 39 had hip roofs, and number 65 and 15A have protruding bays. The fenestration, or window arrangement, varies from building to building. A combination of narrow windows or wider segmental arches is used on the first and second floors, while the third story generally contains two windows (which in some cases are separated by panels).
The westernmost building in the row, 67 West 73rd Street ( 281 Columbus Avenue) at the northwest corner of 73rd and Columbus, was built as an apartment structure but shares some similarities with the houses in the row. It is clad with buff brick. The southern section of the building (facing 73rd Street) was originally topped by a hip roof and is higher than the northern section, with a protruding three-story bay. There is an entrance facing 73rd Street, and a combination of small windows, large tripartite windows, and bull's-eye windows on the upper stories.
74th Street
6 West 74th Street, the lone survivor of a pair at numbers 6–8, was designed by Welch, Smith & Provot and is clad in yellow brick. It is stylistically similar to the firm's earlier work at 3 West 73rd Street, and is subject to a similar setback restriction; the eastern section has a protruding entrance bay. Number 6 has ashlar limestone ground-level cladding, decorative lintels, second-floor French windows with balconies, horizontal band courses. Slightly farther west is 16 West 74th Street, the lone survivor of four at numbers 10–16 designed by John Hemenway Duncan. The brick structure originally stood four stories high, with decorations such as first-story pilasters, a second-story oriel window with dentils, third-story windows with eared frames, and fourth-story windows with lintels and modillions. Atop the building is a frieze and a more modernistic fifth story. Between numbers 6 and 16 is the 10 West 74th Street apartment building, which replaced four rowhouses there. Designed in the Art Deco style by H. Herbert Lilien, it rises ten stories and has decorations such as striated stone, wrap-around windows, a recessed facade, and setbacks.
There are 18 houses at 18–52 West 74th Street. Built between 1902 and 1904, the townhouses were designed by Griffin in the Georgian Revival style, with a variety of ornamentation. The houses each occupy lots of about across. Each house rises five stories, its attic being recessed. They are mostly set back a similar distance from the street, with areaways in front. The exception is number 52 (the westernmost house), which is L-shaped because of a protruding western portion; this is due to a restrictive covenant, which allowed the western portion of number 52 to be recessed a smaller distance from the other houses. The house designs are of two general types: a first type with a single, wide window on the second and third stories, and a second type with three windows on these stories (and optionally a portico at the entrance). The first and second types of facade designs alternate with each other and generally share similar features, such as stone cornices and protruding dormer windows. Each house was split into 17 to 19 rooms; the interiors had marble-and-wrought-iron vestibules, wood-paneled rooms, and large kitchens.
The building at 289–295 Columbus Avenue (the Art Studio Building), at the southwest corner with 74th Street, was designed by George Henry Griebel as a six-story storage structure; it has since been converted into apartments. It has a brick and limestone facade. 289–295 Columbus Avenue is divided into three horizontal layers. The first story is higher than the others and has rusticated limestone piers decorated with medallions and garlands. The second through fourth stories retain these rusticated piers, with tripartite windows between them. The fifth and sixth stories, set off by a terracotta cornice above the fourth story, have pilasters and a brick cornice.
Central Park West
The Langham, occupying the entire western side of Central Park West between 73rd and 74th streets, was designed by architects Clinton & Russell. It is variously cited as being in the Beaux-Arts or French Second Empire style. The lowest two stories are clad in rusticated blocks of limestone, and there is an ornate segmental arch and a glass-and-iron canopy at the Central Park West entrance. The third floor has brick-and-limestone panels and stone balustrades, while the fourth story has iron balconies. The fourth through eleventh floors have limited ornamentation, divided into seven sections clad in either terracotta, limestone, or brick. There are decorative terracotta windows beneath the cornice. The mansard roof has terracotta dormers and four smaller hip roofs. The Langham has U-shaped floors surrounding interior light courts. Each floor originally had four apartments, which were later subdivided further.
History Before European colonization of modern-day New York City, the site was inhabited by the Lenape people. After the British established the Province of New York, the area became part of the "Thousand Acre Tract", owned by several English and Dutch settlers, in 1667. The tract was later subdivided; by 1745, the area had become part of the farm of Teunis Somarindyck (also spelled Somerindyke), running between 73rd and 77th streets. The land was further subdivided and resold in the 19th century. The construction of Central Park in the 1860s spurred construction on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, but similar development on the Upper West Side was slower to come. This was in part because of the West Side's steep topography and its dearth of attractions compared with the East Side. Major developments on the West Side were erected after the Ninth Avenue elevated line opened in 1879, providing direct access to Lower Manhattan, and after the American Museum of Natural History and the Dakota apartment building were constructed nearby in the 1870s and 1880s.
Initial development