If the Alwyn Court apartment building in New York was a wedding cake, you might look at it and say, “Somebody went nuts with the icing.” Is it beautiful or it is too much? The creators of this 12-story confection of a building, constructed from 1907-1909 at the corner of West 58th Street and Seventh Avenue, used terra cotta to decorate nearly every inch of the exterior. New York Times writer Christopher Gray called Alwyn Court “the most intricate apartment facade in New York.” Seen through our 21st century eyes, in an age where sleek glass in buildings is king, this place inspires awe, if not always a sense that it’s eye-pleasing.
If you’re walking in this part of Midtown Manhattan, it’s hard to not stop to look at 180 West 58th St.: The building is covered, from top to bottom, with varied Renaissance and Gothic shapes and figures such as urns, floral motifs, vines, mythical animal figures, grotesque human faces, archways, medallions, and much more rendered in terra cotta. Close up, it’s like those children’s puzzles where you suddenly find certain objects within a dense picture.
If you take time, you’ll also notice how flexible and delicate the terra cotta ornamentation is: Paired cherubs have soft fingers and little bellies as if you could touch baby skin, curved leaves are rounded like nature’s live forms. All of the terra cotta makes the Alwyn Court apartments very expressive, even animated.
Cherubs, in terra cotta, on the facade of Alwyn Court
Pitching Apartment Life
Alwyn Court opened up just over 100 years ago, and its flair and style speak of that time period – an Old New York of the early 20th century when apartment buildings were billed as the new lavish housing choice for the rich. The idea was simple: A wealthy person could get as much luxury in a spacious apartment co-op as a palatial single home. The area just south of Central Park contained a considerable number of these apartment houses.
Terra cotta became a prime material of choice for these buildings to conjure up a high-class, dignified appearance and one harkening back to the glory of the past. It was a “smart” construction option of the time, too, because builders could mold and make it into many patterns at a far lower cost than other high-grade materials.
This palace of glazed terra cotta ornament is another of Mindfulwalker.com’s “Terra Cotta Tales.” You can tour a group of these buildings with distinctive – and amazingly varied – personalities in a small section of Midtown Manhattan: Besides the Alwyn Court apartments check out the Rodin Studios, at 200 West 57th St., at the southwest corner of Seventh Avenue, and the Church For All Nations, the former Catholic Apostolic Church, at 417-419 West 57th St.
The Rodin Studios, in my view, has a staid appearance that upon closer inspection reveals its quirkiness, a quality that matches the art world of its inhabitants. In the Catholic Apostolic Church, the terra cotta forms express reverence. At the Alwyn Court, it’s just over-the-top embellishment that says nothing was too much for its rich occupants.
The creators behind Alwyn Court were an artist who became a developer, Walter Russell, and another developer, Alwyn Ball Jr. They hired architects Herbert Harde and R. Thomas Short – Harde & Short – a team that to this day remains somewhat of a mystery, in the view of Times writer Gray, because they split up shortly after designing several extremely unique, opulent buildings. Russell dropped out of the Alwyn Court project, and Ball, working with Harde & Short, fashioned one of the era’s most sumptuous buildings. (It’s Ball’s first name on the building.) The Atlanta-based Atlantic Terra Cotta Co. produced the terra cotta.
Richer Taste, Less Costly
If only we could know how some architects such as Harde & Short settled on the exact style and influences for their buildings. For Alwyn Court, the architects chose the French Renaissance style of the age of Francis I, King of France from 1515 until his death in 1547, which combines Renaissance and Gothic ornamental forms. They even decided on figures of crowned salamanders breathing fire, the symbol that Francis I selected for his emblem. Throughout the ages, many thought that salamanders had protective powers. Many of these creatures decorate the structure.
The salamander with flames shooting out of its mouth and a crown, photographed during a recent snowfall
This is where the architects took advantage of the economy of terra cotta, since a single mold could be used many times to create figures such as the salamanders. A New York Times story of May 14, 1911 about how architectural terra cotta was becoming the rage noted that Alwyn Court would have cost three times as much if the building’s sponsors had employed any other high-grade material.
The rich like their economies, too: Those who sought to woo the wealthy to luxury apartment houses instead of single-home living – seeking to overcome a definite stigma at the time – pointed out that residents would need half as many servants to run a household smoothly, according to an article on Alwyn Court in The Cooperator.
But oh what spaces to draw the well-to-do. Each of Alwyn Court’s floors had only two apartments, each with 14 rooms and 5 bathrooms! The apartments rented for $10,000 a year, the Times reported. (See a rendering of a typical floor plan.) Alwyn Court’s developers matched the opulent exterior with a plush interior: marble fireplaces, gold moldings, parquet floors, glittering chandeliers, and carriage turnabouts.
A Survivor’s Tale
Often when looking at New York architecture, I’m reminded that booms and busts haven’t just happened in mining towns or California subdivisions. They occur on parts of city blocks, too. After an initial fire that fortunately left no one seriously hurt, Alwyn Court became fully occupied in its first decade and throughout the 1920s. However, by the 1930s, wrote the Times’ Gray, Seventh Avenue was no longer an address with cachet and the apartment house fell on harder times. By 1937, Alwyn Court was vacant.
The Dry Dock Savings Institution foreclosed and gutted the interior. The bank and its architect, Louis S. Weeks, reconfigured the Alwyn Court into 75 apartments instead of the two-dozen existing before, though still aimed at the high-income market. Ultimately, the rental numbers rebounded to 100 percent. In 1980, the building went through a conversation to co-ops for purchase and the architects Beyer Blinder Belle oversaw a $500,000 facade restoration.
Through such economic vicissitudes and various owners, buildings go through plenty of change. In the 1938 remodeling, Alwyn Court lost its grand cornice and balustrade crowning the building, which can be seen in the 1911 New York Times article. But until 1966, when it was designated as a New York City landmark, nothing had officially protected its illustrious, ornate exterior, and still for the most part it has survived.
Today the terra cotta décor remains. It’s a slice of Paris’ Renaissance opulence alive and well in 21st century Manhattan. Is it a feast for the eyes? You be the judge.
View the slide show larger in Flickr.
To complete a walking tour of buildings with fascinating terra cotta ornamentation in close proximity in Midtown Manhattan, also see:
I’ve gotten so used to living in 700 or 800 square feet that I can’t even imagine a 14-room apartment! The utility bills! Good article. I would love to live in an old building like that, beautiful decoration, very solid look and feel. I think it would be very comforting to come home to a building like that at the end of the day.
Carol,
Thank you so much. Yes, it’s mind-blowing to think of a 14-room apartment in light of the small studio apartments and such in which many people live today, especially in New York. And of course, a number of rooms were devoted to servants’ quarters, in room dimensions that make me think of the studios that Manhattanites pay a handsome price or rent for today.
But the solid look and feel — yes, that would be nice and comforting!
I enjoy when a column allows a reader to picture herself or himself in such a place!
All the best,
Susan
Susan,
What a wonderful article. I love the photos and they go so well with your article. Your description of this building made me feel like I was there.
Julie
Julie,
What a wonderful comment! I’m happy that you felt like the article transported you to feeling like you were there. That’s what I aim for.
And I know how much you appreciate cities, art, and architecture!
Susan
Congrats Susan, you have done sooo much and still see the world apart from its veneer… and I was glad to find you and your writing again. I actually took that exact same picture of the cherubs at Alwyn Court among my 3,000 or so pictures of NYC a few years back. Your Mindful Walker is my mind’s eye to some extent………I’ve walked in some of your same footsteps, as we may have even crossed paths I am sure!! I had been in London for several months (New York on steroids and inside out), and noted that you were in a much greener, and traditional part of England a few years back and I enjoyed your writing about it.
Peace,
Lynne
Lynne,
How wonderful of you to visit Mindfulwalker.com. Sounds like you have enjoyed thousands of steps yourself, in New York and in London.
Maybe our paths did cross, though we may each have been looking up at building details, eh? And yes, how easy to engage with the cherubs on the Alwyn Court building. They are adorable and they have wonderful energy.
I hope you are sharing some of those 3,000 photos of New York with a wider audience. If so, please share a URL with the Mindful Walker audience, too, so folks can check it out!
Thanks for your wonderful words. I’m honored. Enjoy your explorations!
All the best,
Susan
I just love the Internet – it brings our small town life much closer seeing Carol and Lynne.
Lynne: I would love to hear about your experience in staying in London. Been there twice now during holidays and love it. One of those cities that I would not mind living there for a couple years and then returning home.
Look forward to catching up.
Rose
Is it a coincidence that the salamanders look like dragons, and that many of the features resemble the green man as well as the three feathers? There is no doubt that though Alwyn Ball, Jr. came from a long line of South Carolina plantation owners, the name is undoubtably Welsh.
Ruth,
You raise some intriguing questions. I am going to track down further information on your question about salamanders vis-à-vis dragons. The salamander of ancient and medieval mythology was a creature of fantastic powers, which could — depending on the source — live in, breathe, or extinguish fire. Not entirely sure what you mean by the feathers, however, so I will look into that further, too.
And yes, Alwyn is a Welsh-derived name. Some say it is a version of the English name Alvin. Various sources assert it is derived from the name of the River Alwen in north Wales. (Also, Alwen is the name of a reservoir in Wales.)
Thanks for your comments and questions.
On the research trail,
Susan
The salamander was the emblem of King Francis I of France. It was reputed to regenerate itself from fire, eating it and being reborn. Hence, the crowns, the fire-breathing, etc. Most of the rest is also symbolic imagery of the period.
Hi Marian,
The salamanders are an incredible image, and rendered so skillfully and beautifully in terra cotta. Thank you for your comment and details. In the essay, I included a link to the biography of King Francis I of France.
This very interesting post, from the blog “Writing the Renaissance,” discusses how the chateaux of Francis I are “overrun” with salamander images. It is a marvelous examination of the symbolism and Francis’ embrace of it.
http://writingren.blogspot.com/2009/10/salamander-in-chief.html
I appreciate your observations and would welcome more!
Susan
In the 70s, I used to visit the person who owned Alwyn Court. They had a home in Palm Springs and kept an apartment at Alwyn – Charles Mendelson. I believe famed attorney Louis Nizer had a penthouse in the building.
Doug,
What an interesting step back several decades for this memory with the then-owner of Alwyn Court. Thank you! Did you visit Mr. Mendelson in this building?
I’m assuming by “They” that you are referring to his wife. I haven’t found her name, but have found references in The Desert Sun, the Palm Springs newspaper, to “Mr. and Mrs. Charles Mendelson” attending social events, in the 1960s and 1970s.
One question also: Did Mendelson ever refer to social events or concerts in Alwyn Court? In recent years, the building’s lavish courtyard has been the scene of an annual holiday party, as recounted in this Broadway World article (with photos).
I did not know that Louis Nizer had lived in Alwyn Court. This same article cites other famous residents over the years as well, such as Frederick Steinway, the president of the famous piano company, in the 1920s; Oscar Levant; Fred Allen; and Natasha Richardson.
The building’s penthouse sounds like something else: According to a Douglas Elliman Real Estate listing, it is a sprawling 2,800 square feet, with private terraces facing east, south, and north and an 18-foot-long gallery entrance.
Thanks again, and all the best,
Susan
Susan,
I stumbled on your reply so very late. To answer your questions.
1. No, I did not visit, though I was offered the opportunity. I only visited the Mendelsons at their Palm Springs home.
2. The wife’s first name was Alice. She was Hungarian and much younger. He died and she remarried Clarence Shaver. She soon divorced him. I think she kept the Alwyn apartment until her death, though by then I lost contact.
3. They made no references to social events. However, at least in Palm Springs, they did do some socializing with the Hollywood set. They were members of the PS Racquet Club.
I regret not taking them up on the invitation to visit them in NYC, but this was the 1970s and NYC wasn’t at its best then. I much preferred LA and Palm Springs.