Beaux-Arts Apartments
The Beaux-Arts Apartments are a pair of apartment towers on 307 and 310 East 44th Street in the East Midtown and Turtle Bay neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. Designed by Raymond Hood and Kenneth Murchison, the Beaux-Arts Apartments were constructed between 1929 and 1930. The complex was originally designed with 640 apartments.
Beaux-Arts Apartments
Residential
Manhattan, New York, US
307 East 44th Street
310 East 44th Street
February 1929
January 1930
The Brodsky Organization
Brick, limestone, glass (facade)
17
George A. Fuller Company
July 11, 1989
1668, 1669
The Beaux-Arts Apartments consist of two towers on East 44th Street; number 307 is on the north sidewalk while number 310 is on the south sidewalk. The two towers are 16 stories and are faced with limestone at the base, dark brick between windows on the upper stories, and light brick between each story. The top four stories of both buildings contain numerous setbacks, which form terraces for the upper-story units. The interiors largely consist of studio apartments measuring 22 by 13 feet (6.7 by 4.0 m) on average; they are lit by large windows on the outside. The ground floor of the south building, number 310, contains a cafe.
The apartment complex was built just east of the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design, which had moved to the area in 1928. Plans for the apartment complex were announced in February 1929, with the buildings being financed by stock issues rather than mortgage loans. The buildings opened to residents in January 1930 during the Great Depression. The Beaux-Arts Apartments avoided foreclosure due to their financing arrangement and were initially popular among businesswomen. The buildings were sold to the Brodsky Organization in 1973 and the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the complex as a city landmark in 1988.
Site[edit]
The Beaux-Arts Apartments are a pair of apartment towers on 307 and 310 East 44th Street, between Second Avenue and First Avenue, in the East Midtown and Turtle Bay neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. 307 East 44th Street is on the north side of the street, while 310 East 44th Street is on the south side.[1][2] Number 307's rectangular land lot covers 15,865 square feet (1,473.9 m2),[3] with a frontage of 158 feet (48 m) along 44th Street and a depth of 100.42 feet (30.61 m).[3][4] Number 310's rectangular land lot covers 17,572 square feet (1,632.5 m2),[5] with a frontage of 175 feet (53 m) along 44th Street and a depth of 100.42 feet (30.61 m).[4][5] Number 310 is directly adjacent to the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design building at 304 East 44th Street to the west. The apartments are also near the Ford Foundation Building to the south and the Millennium Hilton New York One UN Plaza hotel and the Church Center for the United Nations to the east.[3][5]
In the early 20th century, a large portion of Turtle Bay's population was involved in the arts or architecture. Structures such as the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design and the residential Turtle Bay Gardens, Tudor City, and Beekman Tower were constructed for this community.[6] William Lescaze's renovation of an existing brownstone townhouse on 48th Street, and its subsequent conversion into the Lescaze House, inspired similar renovations to other structures in the neighborhood, such as 219 East 49th Street.[7][8]
Critical reception[edit]
When the buildings were completed in 1930, the New York Herald Tribune called the apartments "a type of building distinctly different and yet lacking none of the conveniences expected and demanded in modern apartments".[31] Upon Hood's death in 1934, a few years after the buildings' completion, the New York Daily News called the buildings "among the finest modern achievements in architecture", along with Hood's American Radiator Building, Daily News Building, and McGraw Hill Building.[82] In the book New York 1930, architectural writer Robert A. M. Stern characterized the buildings as the "most interesting side street apartments" of the period between the two world wars.[83] In 1997, Christopher Gray wrote an article headlined "A Matched Pair of 1930 Monuments to Art Deco" for The New York Times, in which he said of the ongoing restoration: "the original jazz-age optimism of this unusual project is more idea than reality".[2]