Bryant Park Studios
The Bryant Park Studios is an office building at 80 West 40th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, at the corner of 40th Street and Sixth Avenue. The building, overlooking the southwest corner of Bryant Park, was designed by Charles A. Rich in the French Beaux-Arts style. Built from 1900 to 1901 by Abraham A. Anderson, the building is one of several in Manhattan that were built in the early 20th century as both studios and residences for artists.
The Bryant Park Studios is 10 stories tall with several mezzanine levels. The lowest two stories of the facade are clad in rusticated blocks of terracotta, while the other stories have pink brick with terracotta and stone decoration. The brickwork of the facade contains both broad and narrow bays, and the northern side facing 40th Street contains large studio windows facing Bryant Park. The Cafe des Beaux-Arts once operated at the ground story and basement. The upper stories had forty units, the largest of which was Anderson's own double-story penthouse. Since the late 20th century, the former studios have served mostly as offices and showrooms, and the lower stories have contained storefronts.
The Bryant Park Studios was developed by Anderson, who leased the building to another company in 1920. Anderson lived in his penthouse until his death in 1940, after which his family sold the building. By the late 20th century, the building was converted for office use. The Bryant Park Studios was designated a city landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1988. The building has been owned since 1980 by the Mountain Development Corporation, which restored the building in the late 1980s and the 2000s.
Site
The Bryant Park Studios is at the southeast corner of 40th Street and Sixth Avenue in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It overlooks the southwestern corner of Bryant Park. The building occupies a rectangular land lot with an area of and a frontage of along 40th Street and on Sixth Avenue.The Bryant Park Studios is one of several structures on 40th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, which forms the southern end of Bryant Park. On the same block are the American Radiator Building, Engineering Societies' Building, Engineers' Club Building, The Bryant, and 452 Fifth Avenue to the east, as well as the Haskins & Sells Building to the southeast and Bryant Park Studios to the west. Other nearby places include the New York Public Library Main Branch across 40th Street to the northeast, as well as 7 Bryant Park and the Springs Mills Building to the west. Immediately outside the Bryant Park Studios is an entrance to the New York City Subway's 42nd Street–Bryant Park/Fifth Avenue station, which is served by the.
The site had historically been occupied by the Hotel Royal, which burned down in the late 19th century. The site was assembled from four lots that collectively cost $3,200 in 1900. The surrounding block of 40th Street had contained brownstone row houses through the 1920s, before they were replaced by several other multi-story structures.
Architecture
The Bryant Park Studios building was designed by Charles A. Rich in the Beaux-Arts Gothic style. It was developed by Abraham Archibald Anderson, a prominent watercolor artist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The building was popularly known as the Beaux Arts Building after the Café des Beaux Arts on the ground floor. Robinson & Wallace were the general contractors. The Bryant Park Studios contains ten full stories. It is tall and has its main roof at above ground. A two-story mansard roof on the building's western section dates to a 1923 renovation. The building is New York City's oldest surviving high-rise studio building that was purposely designed for artists.Facade
The facade is made of pink brick, stone, and terracotta. When the Bryant Park Studios were built, the facade was visible on all sides, though subsequent development obscured the south and east elevations. The north elevation facing 40th Street, as well as the west elevation on Sixth Avenue, remain visible and are both divided into three horizontal sections: a base, midsection, and upper section. The 40th Street elevation is divided vertically into five bays. The building has wide studio windows on 40th Street, which generally measure. The Sixth Avenue elevation is generally arranged as a central bay flanked by two end bays.Base
The first two stories are made of rusticated terracotta, which is carved to look like rusticated stone. The three center bays on 40th Street contain double-height archways. The center archway serves as the building's main entrance and contains a plate-glass door, above which is a keystone with a cartouche. The remainder of the ground story on 40th Street and Sixth Avenue contains signs and storefronts. The Sixth Avenue elevation has had a storefront since the building's opening, but the storefront was redesigned at some point in the 20th century.At the second story on 40th Street, the center arches have decorative mullions. Above these arches are heavy stone brackets, which support a balcony with carved foliate motifs and swags. Within the center bay on Sixth Avenue, there are three narrow arched windows with volutes above them. The outermost bays on both elevations have segmental arches. A simple cornice runs above most of the second story, except at the center arches on 40th Street.
Midsection
The third story is a transitional story with alternating bands of pink brick and terracotta. On 40th Street, the central bay has two narrow windows. The other four bays on that elevation have wide studio windows, which are separated horizontally by terracotta bands and contain broad square-headed lintels. The windows' keystones are volutes, and the third story on 40th Street is capped by a narrow stone cornice. A simpler arrangement appears on Sixth Avenue; the outermost bays are broad square-headed openings, which flank three narrower windows. Above these openings are splayed lintels, as well as volutes serving as keystones.The fourth through eighth stories are clad with pink brick and have terracotta and stone ornamentation. On the 40th Street elevation, most windows are full-height; the center bay has two narrow windows, while the remaining bays have a large studio window. All bays, except the center one, have a balcony at the fourth story. The outermost bays are flanked by continuous brick piers from the fourth to eighth stories, with a volute above the sixth story and a balcony at the seventh. The three middle bays are arranged differently. At the fourth and fifth stories, the center bay's windows are topped by volutes, and the second-outermost bays have double-height stone frames topped by pediments. At the sixth through eighth stories, the three middle bays have full-height recessed windows, each with volutes and splayed lintels above them. A window sill connects the three middle bays at the sixth story. On the eighth story, all openings contain segmental arches.
The midsection on Sixth Avenue contains seven rows of windows. The fourth and fifth stories correspond to those on 40th Street, The outermost bays have double-height stone frames topped by pediments, while the center bay has three windows, each with volutes and splayed lintels above them. The sixth through eighth stories contain five offset duplex levels, with mezzanines above the sixth and eighth stories. The windows are arranged in a 1-5-1 configuration, with one sash window in each of the outer bays and five in the center bay. There are generally splayed lintels and volutes above each window, except for those above the eighth mezzanine level. On both elevations, there is a large overhanging cornice just below the ninth story, supported by large brackets and modillions.
Upper stories
At the ninth floor, there is a balcony and a metal balustrade above the cornice. On 40th Street, the outermost bays are flanked by continuous brick piers, as with the midsection, and contain windows flanking small doorways. Between these is a recessed set of windows, with two large windows flanking two narrow windows. These windows are separated by wide pilasters, above which are decorative capitals. On Sixth Avenue, the ninth-story windows are rectangular and contain volutes and splayed lintels above them. There is a mezzanine above the ninth story on Sixth Avenue, which has plain openings. Two of the center windows on the ninth mezzanine have been combined into a modern-style opening.The tenth story contains a recessed bank of windows on 40th Street. When the building was completed, it had an angled skylight at the center and antefixes to the west and east. A mansard roof on the western side was built in 1923, and the antefixes were removed. A brick chimney is at the north end of the mansard, while a brick dormer is at the south end. The skylight itself, illuminating Anderson's penthouse, was subsequently covered with paint outside and tar inside.
Features
Ground floor and basement
The ground floor and basement originally housed the Cafe des Beaux Arts, which had a kitchen and a ratskeller, or German beer hall, in the basement. The restaurant featured a women's-only bar, which in the early 20th century was still relatively uncommon., the ground-floor space was occupied by a branch of bakery chain Ole & Steen, which also had a mezzanine above the ground floor.The building's basement has a "Vault Museum", as well as the New York City office of Mountain Development Corporation. The "museum" contains artifacts from the Bryant Park Studios' last 123 years including: former tenants, such as art, letters, and pictures. It is open to the public but is not highly publicized, and visitors must request a tour in advance via email. The building's manager David Seeve gives tours to people every month; the visitors typically study art or history, or they may have read the landmark-designation plaque on the facade. The "Vault Museum" includes such items as the cafe's original tiling, an antique crystal fireplace, and a letter Irving Penn wrote to Mia Fonssagrives-Solow that was lodged in the mail chute for several decades.