Tudor City
Tudor City is an apartment complex on the East Side of Manhattan in New York City, bordering the Turtle Bay and Murray Hill neighborhoods. It lies on a low cliff east of Second Avenue, between 40th and 43rd Streets, and overlooks First Avenue to the east. Designed and developed by the Fred F. French Company, the complex is named for its Tudor Revival architecture. Construction commenced in 1926, making it one of the first residential skyscraper complexes in the world.[5][6] Tudor City was also one of the first and largest examples of a planned middle-class residential community in New York City.[7] The complex is a New York City designated landmark district and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The 13-building complex consists of 11 housing cooperatives, one rental apartment building, and one short-term hotel; these buildings collectively house 5,000 people. Most of Tudor City's buildings are arranged around 41st and 43rd Streets, which slope upward east of Second Avenue; the eastern ends of the two streets are connected by Tudor City Place, which crosses over 42nd Street. Two parks flank 42nd Street, and there was originally an 18-hole miniature golf course in the southern park. The buildings generally contained stone, brick, and terracotta facades, as well as ornate Tudor-style details. The Fred F. French Company advertised Tudor City heavily, erecting large signs on the roofs of two buildings on 42nd Street.
Before Tudor City was constructed, tenements and slums dominated the area. Following the development of the nearby Grand Central Terminal and office buildings during the early 20th century, Fred F. French began planning a residential enclave in Midtown Manhattan. French announced plans for Tudor City in December 1925, and the first 12 structures were completed in phases between October 1927 and late 1930. The section of 42nd Street through Tudor City was widened in the 1950s with the construction of the nearby United Nations headquarters, and the complex's last residential building, 2 Tudor City Place, was finished in 1956. The French Company sold the Hotel Tudor in 1963. Harry Helmsley bought most of the remaining buildings in 1970 and, over the next decade and a half, attempted to redevelop Tudor City's private parks. Helmsley resold the buildings in 1984 to Philip Pilevsky and Francis J. Greenburger, who converted most of these structures to co-op apartments.
Community[edit]
From 1934 to 1969,[330] residents published their own magazine.[297] One issue was published every month and was distributed to residents for free. Originally published by W. L. Lightfoot as the Tudor City Service, the magazine was renamed the Tudor City View in 1938;[330] the magazine was unaffiliated with the French Company.[331] Warren C. Eberle was the magazine's longtime publisher,[332] printing 351 issues from January 1941 to May 1969.[331] The magazine reported on events in residents' lives, including weddings, births, and deaths, in addition to other society news stories, such as residents' vacations to remote locales.[330] Under Eberle's leadership, the magazine also printed stories about Tudor City's history.[331]
There were other organizations within Tudor City as well.[297][333] These included a camera club,[297] a debate forum, and a "Tudor City Club" where residents could play games, attend events, or read magazines.[333] The Tudor City Tennis Club attracted players such as Pancho Segura, Bobby Riggs, Bill Tilden, Rudy Vallée, and Katharine Hepburn from the 1930s to the 1950s,[140] and the courts hosted the United States Pro Championship for the only time in 1936.[79] The United Nations Tennis Club also used Tudor City's tennis courts following World War II.[299]
Rooftop sign[edit]
The Fred F. French Company advertised Tudor City heavily from its initial announcement until 1943.[334] Included in the early campaign were two rooftop signs composed of incandescent light bulbs, one on either side of 42nd Street – on the north roof of Tudor Tower and the south roof of Prospect Tower – that could be seen from blocks away.[334][244] The signs measured about 30 by 50 feet (9.1 by 15.2 m). Tudor Tower's sign was obscured by the Woodstock and was removed c. 1933.[244]
The sole remaining sign is that atop Prospect Tower, which was retrofitted with neon in 1939. After falling in a storm in September 1949, it was replaced. By the early 21st century, the replacement sign had lost its lighting tube several years prior and was a neglected, rusting iron shell.[335] In 1995, the co-op board of Prospect Tower requested the LPC's permission to remove the sign, calling it ugly and dangerous, but the commission refused, on the ground of historical significance.[244] As of 2020, the sign's steel support structure and pan letters have undergone a complete restoration but plans to re-illuminate the sign have not materialized.[336]
Critical reception[edit]
Immediately after the project was announced, an article in The New York American stated that "the decadent section east of Third Ave. is resurrecting".[337] An editor for The New York Times wrote that "New York is promised – or threatened with, as the event may prove – a vast community settlement overlooking the East River from the high ledge at the foot of Forty-second Street".[337] The Christian Science Monitor compared the proposed development to the luxurious residences along Riverside Drive on Manhattan's Upper West Side.[10]
According to author and architect Robert A. M. Stern, the complex was French's vision of a "dense urban suburbia".[338] In the words of architectural historian Andrew Dolkart, the site was "a complex of apartment houses and residence hotels that would be so convenient, well-planned, well-built, and well-priced that middle-class families and single people would be more attracted to these Manhattan buildings than to houses or apartments in the outer boroughs or the suburbs."[17][18] A reporter for The New York Observer wrote in 2001 that "because of its location between the U.N. and Grand Central, Tudor City is a particular kind of place".[320] In 2014, the New York Daily News characterized Tudor City as "obscure and mysterious to those who live beyond its borders".[339] Justin Davidson wrote of Tudor City for New York magazine in 2017: "Though the city has evolved around it, a verdant retreat in midtown Manhattan still seems like an incongruous apparition."[290]
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