Alwyn Court
The Alwyn Court, also known as the Alwyn, is an apartment building at 180 West 58th Street, at the southeast corner with Seventh Avenue, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, United States. The Alwyn Court was built between 1907 and 1909 and was designed by Harde & Short in the French Renaissance style. It is one of several luxury developments constructed along Seventh Avenue during the late 19th and early 20th century.
The building is thirteen stories tall. Its facade is clad with elaborate terracotta ornamentation in the Francis I style, with a main entrance on Seventh Avenue and 58th Street. Inside is an octagonal courtyard with a painted facade by artist Richard Haas, as well as a location of the Petrossian caviar bar. The Alwyn Court was originally built with twenty-two elaborately decorated apartments, two on every floor, which typically had fourteen rooms and five bathrooms. The interior was subdivided into 75 apartments in 1938.
The Alwyn Court was named after Alwyn Ball Jr., one of the building's developers. Despite a fire shortly after its opening, the Alwyn Court quickly became one of New York City's most expensive apartment buildings. During the early 20th century, ownership changed several times. By the 1930s, the last luxury tenant had moved out, and the building's interior was completely rebuilt. The Alwyn Court was made a New York City designated landmark in 1966, and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. The building was renovated and converted to cooperative apartments in 1980, and the facade was restored in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Site
The Alwyn Court is at 180 West 58th Street, on the southeast corner with Seventh Avenue and one block south of Central Park, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, United States. The site covers, with a width of on Seventh Avenue and a depth of on 58th Street. The Alwyn Court occupies, or about three-quarters of its lot. The remaining area is occupied by an atrium at the center of the building, as well as a small courtyard running on the east and south sides.The Alwyn Court shares the city block with The Briarcliffe to the south and 165 West 57th Street and One57 to the east; it is cater-corner from 200 Central Park South to the northwest. It is also near the Saint Thomas Choir School and the American Fine Arts Society to the west; the Osborne Apartments and the Rodin Studios to the southwest; Carnegie Hall to the south; Hampshire House to the northeast; and the New York Athletic Club and Essex House to the north. The Alwyn Court is one block north of an artistic hub that developed around West 57th Street between Sixth Avenue and Broadway during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, following the opening of Carnegie Hall in 1891. It was one of several luxury buildings developed around Carnegie Hall, on the northernmost end of Seventh Avenue, by the beginning of the 20th century.
Architecture
The thirteen-story Alwyn Court is tall, with twelve full stories and a smaller penthouse. It was designed by Herbert Spencer Harde and R. Thomas Short of the firm Harde & Short in the French Renaissance style, with Francis I detailing on the facade. The Alwyn Court was erected by the Hedden Construction Company. The building is similar in plan to the Dakota, completed in 1884, and the Apthorp, completed in 1908; all three buildings originally contained large apartments arranged around either a light court or courtyard. Although the interior and main entrance have been altered, almost all of the facade remains intact.Facade
In contrast to many luxury apartment buildings erected at the beginning of the 20th century, which contained ornate detailing mostly on the bottom and top stories, the Alwyn Court's decoration is spread throughout all parts of the facade. The decorative terracotta details on the facade include quattrocento-style pilasters, baldachin-like canopies, and crowned salamanders representing Francis I, in addition to fleurs-de-lis, cameos, and escutcheons. The Alwyn Court uses terracotta because, at the time of its construction, it cost one-third as much as other material such as stone. Since it was possible to reuse the molds that were used to bake the terracotta, the amount of decoration was limited only by the number of unique designs.The Alwyn Court's twelve-story facade is divided into three horizontal sections: a four-story base, a five-story shaft, and a three-story crown. These sections are separated by large decorative bands. The northern facade, on 58th Street, is divided vertically into five bays while the western facade on Seventh Avenue is subdivided into four bays. Each bay has three sash windows per floor, which are separated from each other by vertical mullions and spandrels. There are decorative spandrel panels between the windows on each floor. Additionally, the bays are separated horizontally by decorative pilasters topped with Corinthian-style capitals. Above the twelfth story, a cornice projects from the roof.
The northern and western facades are joined by a rounded corner, which contains an ornately detailed, recessed entrance archway. According to architectural writer Frank Winkler, rounded corners were desirable because their "simultaneous command of two streets furnishes an interior attraction which any occupier would be delighted to acquire...". The corner entrance served as the Alwyn Court's main entrance before the building's renovation in 1938, when the ground-floor corner space was reconfigured into retail space. The modern-day main entrance is on Seventh Avenue, closer to the elevators than the original corner elevators.
Interior
As the Alwyn Court's construction predated fire codes, there were no fire escapes, and only minimal space for a single staircase on each floor. The staircase created a potential fire chimney, being open to the entire building. However, the building did contain fireproof materials such as brick exterior walls, as well as concrete floors, walls, and partitions. Each story has ceilings tall. In addition, the basement contained a wine vault for each tenant. The original design contained two passenger elevators and a service elevator. The staircase and elevators originally opened onto the southeastern corner of the atrium. When the building was renovated in 1938, the elevators were relocated.Lobby and atrium
The main lobby on Seventh Avenue, created in 1938, replaces the original lobby at the corner of Seventh Avenue and 58th Street. It contained peppermint-green walls with white plaster ornament, as well as a foyer with glass doors. The lobby contained ornamentation themed to music, including a red-marble mantlepiece in the foyer with carvings of pipes, horns, and violins, as well as lighting fixtures shaped like lyres. Some of this decoration has since been removed. North of the lobby is a retail space, accessed from the corner entrance, which houses the Petrossian caviar bar. Petrossian contains a private residents' entrance from the lobby.The atrium at the center of the building is octagonal, with four longer sides parallel to the main dimensions of the building, as well as four chamfered corners. The atrium was originally an air shaft, with 286 frosted windows overlooking it. Between 1979 and 1981, the air shaft was covered with a skylight. The courtyard was landscaped with a fountain and trees, becoming an enclosed atrium. At the first floor, the atrium was re-clad with multicolored marbles, and some stone benches were installed. In the public corridors surrounding the atrium, the windows were replaced with railings. The atrium's facade contains a trompe l'oeil mural painted by artist Richard Haas. The mural, painted in several hues of tan, depicts imitation architectural detail resembling the facade of the exterior.
Apartments
The Alwyn Court originally had up to 22 apartments, two each on the first through eleventh floors; several residents combined multiple apartments. One of the units on each floor would occupy the southern and western sides of the floor, while the other unit would occupy the northern and eastern sides. Typical apartments had 14 rooms with five bathrooms, but some units contained up to 34 or 35 rooms. The largest unit, comprising three standard apartments, cost $22,000.The apartments had rooms of up to. Originally, a standard apartment had numerous communal rooms such as an entrance gallery, reception room, conservatory, music room, living room, dining room, and salon. Three rooms in each 14-room apartment faced the central courtyard. At the corner of Seventh Avenue and 58th Street, there were several rooms with curved bow windows. The entertainment spaces could be combined to create a single space of about,, or. The building also had wine vaults in the basement for each tenant. Harde and Short were particularly proud of the Alwyn Court's floor layouts, threatening to sue architects who copied their floor plans.
The apartments were decorated throughout with carved woodwork and bronze-and-iron light fixtures, as well as ornamental plaster and imitation Caen stone by McNulty Brothers. Some residents imported their own decorations; one 34-room unit was designed as a replica of a French castle. An article in the Real Estate Record and Guide described an apartment with white-enamel woodwork, silk tapestries, paneled doors, plate-glass compartments and mirrored walls. The suites also had their own conservatories and large millinery closets, the latter with plate-glass shelves. Other suites included ball-gown closets and dressing closets with mirrors on the doors. In addition, there were wood-burning fireplaces and vacuum-cleaning systems. The twelfth floor contained 34 rooms used as servants' quarters. Each of the apartments originally could function with just three to five servants, in contrast to traditional mansions of the same size that required twice as many staff.
During its 1938 renovation, the Alwyn Court was divided into 75 apartments. Each floor typically had six units, and a penthouse story contained three additional apartments. The apartments contained between three and five rooms apiece. Each unit also contained bathrooms and dining galleries, while the penthouses have roof terraces and solariums. Twelve apartments, at the rounded corner, were fitted with large oval living rooms, while some of the units contained large fireplaces. Because the atrium was still an air shaft at the time of the renovation, none of the major rooms of each apartment face the atrium. Following the 1980s renovation, these units were turned into cooperative apartments. The Alwyn Court also contains storage units, a bike room, and a laundry room for residents.