Alwyn Court
Credits
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. 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 on the southeast corner of 58th Street and Seventh Avenue, one block south of Central Park, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The site covers 12,525 square feet (1,164 m2), with a width of 100 feet (30 m) on Seventh Avenue and a depth of 125 feet (38 m) on 58th Street. The Alwyn Court occupies 9,500 square feet (883 m2), 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 (also known as the Art Students League of New York building) 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 149 feet (45 m) tall, with twelve full stories and a smaller penthouse. It was designed by 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
Entrance in the rounded corner
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. 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.