The San Remo

The San Remo is a cooperative apartment building at 145 and 146 Central Park West, between 74th and 75th Streets, adjacent to Central Park on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was constructed from 1929 to 1930 and was designed by architect Emery Roth in the Renaissance Revival style. The San Remo is 27 stories tall, with twin towers rising from a 17-story base. The building is a contributing property to the Central Park West Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is a New York City designated landmark.

The 17-story base surrounds an internal courtyard to the west, while the 10-story towers rise from the eastern portion of the base. There are numerous setbacks between the 14th and 17th stories, which double as terraces. The first three stories are clad in rusticated blocks of limestone, with two main entrances at ground level. The remainder of the facade is made of light brick with terracotta ornamentation, as well as movable windows to improve air circulation. The tops of the towers contain "temples" with round colonnades and lanterns. The building has twin terrazzo and marble lobbies with molded plaster ceilings. On the upper stories, many apartments contain living and dining rooms arranged around a central gallery, as well as bedrooms in the rear. There were originally 122 apartments, each with six to sixteen rooms, but several apartments have been split or combined over the years.

The San Remo replaced an 11-story apartment building with the same name, built in 1891. The current apartment complex was the first building on Central Park West to incorporate large twin towers. The building opened in September 1930, attracting large amounts of commentary from the media. It soon went into receivership following the collapse of the Bank of United States, which held the mortgage. The San Remo experienced financial difficulties throughout much of the 1930s before being acquired in 1940 by an investment syndicate. The building was converted to a housing cooperative in 1972 following a failed conversion attempt in 1970. Over the years, the San Remo has been renovated several times. Its residents have included directors, actors, and musicians.

Site

The San Remo is at 145 and 146 Central Park West in the Upper West Side neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The building occupies the western sidewalk of Central Park West (formerly Eighth Avenue) between 74th Street to the south and 75th Street to the north. The San Remo occupies a nearly rectangular land lot with an area of . The land lot has a frontage of along Central Park West, on 74th Street, and on 75th Street. Nearby places include the Kenilworth apartment building immediately to the north, the Langham apartment building to the south, and the Ramble and Lake of Central Park to the east. In addition, the Dakota is two blocks south and the New-York Historical Society library and museum is two blocks north.

The San Remo is one of several apartment buildings on Central Park West that are primarily identified by an official name. Even though a street address was sufficient to identify these apartment buildings, this trend followed a British practice of giving names to buildings without addresses. By contrast, buildings on Fifth Avenue, along the eastern side of Central Park, are mainly known by their addresses. Christopher Gray of ''The New York Times'' described the San Remo as one of several apartment buildings in Manhattan that were named after 1920; according to Gray, such structures usually "were either truly grand or had hotel-like features". The San Remo's name is derived directly from a previous building on the site.

Previous structure

The construction of Central Park in the 1860s spurred construction in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, but similar development in the Upper West Side was slower to come. Major developments on the West Side were erected after the Ninth Avenue elevated line opened in 1879, providing direct access to Lower Manhattan. The first large apartment building in the area was the Dakota, which opened in 1884. The city installed power lines on Central Park West at the end of the 19th century, thus allowing the construction of multi-story apartment hotels with elevators.

Among the early apartment hotels was the original San Remo at 74th Street. The structure was built in 1891 by contractor Michael Brennan and designed by Edward L. Angell. The old San Remo was 11 stories tall with 90 apartments. It was decorated in the Gothic and Romanesque Revival styles and had peaked towers at its corners. The old San Remo was operated by Brennan following a dispute in 1892 with Wilson C. Morris, a hotel operator.

Architecture

The present San Remo was designed by Emery Roth. It is variously described as being in the neo-Renaissance or late Italian Renaissance style. Theodore Hofstatter decorated the building's lobby, while Lou R. Strauss Jr. designed the internal garden and exterior landscaping. Unlike other large buildings on Central Park West, which were typically attributed to a single developer, no one took credit for developing the San Remo specifically. The syndicate that developed the San Remo had also erected the Beresford, seven blocks north, shortly before the San Remo was completed.

Form

The San Remo's base is 17 stories high and surrounds a "T"-shaped interior courtyard to the west, giving the lower stories a "U"-shaped plan. The presence of the courtyard allowed each apartment to receive natural light from several elevations.

There are setbacks at the 14th, 16th, and 17th stories. The setbacks are covered in slate and double as terraces for some units. Two towers rise an additional ten stories from the eastern portion of the base and are arranged symmetrically. The San Remo is one of four buildings on Central Park West with a twin-towered form; the others are the Century, the Majestic, and the El Dorado. By splitting the upper stories into twin towers, as opposed to a single bulky tower, the developers could increase the amount of space that was near a window. To increase natural-light exposure to the upper-story apartments, the towers were designed in an "L" shape (wrapping around the courtyard), rather than as square masses. Roth designed spires that were high; according to general contractor HRH Construction; this made the building one of New York City's tallest residential structures.

The massing of the San Remo, and those of similar buildings, was shaped primarily by the Multiple Dwelling Act of 1929. Under this legislation, the "street walls" of apartment buildings could rise one and a half times the width of the adjacent street before they had to set back. On lots of more than , the street walls could rise three times the width of the adjacent street. Apartment buildings could rise up to 19 stories; additional stories were allowed on large plots, but the floor areas of these stories were limited to 20 percent of the lot area. These upper stories were allowed on plots of at least and were required to be set back on all sides. The San Remo was the earliest apartment building on Central Park West to be built with twin towers following the passage of the Multiple Dwelling Act of 1929.

Facade

The facade contains metal, stone, and terracotta decorations. These details include pilasters, engaged columns, rounded and triangular broken pediments, and balustrades, as well as smaller motifs such as roundels, scrolls, urns, cartouches, garlands, and consoles. The lowest three stories of the facade are made of rusticated blocks of limestone, while the rest of the building is clad with beige brick. The limestone blocks on the first and second stories are vermiculated. Above the base, there is a small amount of terracotta ornament, which is used to emphasize the otherwise plain brick facade. The ornament on the upper stories is oversized, allowing it to be seen from the ground.

All elevations of the facade are divided vertically into several bays. On the lower stories, the Central Park West elevation is divided into 26 bays from north to south, while the 75th Street elevation contains 16 bays and the 74th Street elevation contains 19 bays. There are two groupings of six bays near the north and south ends of the Central Park West elevation, as well as a three-bay-wide "pavilion" on either end. Additionally, the center bays on Central Park West are divided into three pairs, flanked by two single bays. Hence, the Central Park West elevation is divided in a 3-6-1-2-2-2-1-3 configuration. The six center bays and three outermost bays are treated as "pavilions", which rise above the setbacks. The towers are five bays wide on all elevations. A band course runs around the facade above the 13th story.

The windows on the primary elevations were divided horizontally into three tiers: a set of large movable casements, with movable transoms above and below. The casements and upper transoms swung outward, while the lower transoms swung inward. This design feature was intended to improve air circulation and temperature regulation, as air conditioning was uncommon when the building was completed. Roth anticipated that the upper and lower transoms would provide suitable air circulation most of the time and that the casements would only need to be opened on especially hot days. The windows on the rear elevations were arranged into multiple layouts, some of which have been altered.

Entrances

On the ground story, the Central Park West elevation has two main entrances, each two bays wide and placed in the middle of the six-bay-wide sections (bays 6–7 and 20–21 from south). Both entrances contain a set of bronze-and-glass double doors topped by a paneled bronze transom. Each door is divided into three glass panels with acanthus-leaf borders, as well as bronze medallions that resemble sunburst motifs. The sidewalk in front of each doorway is covered by a canopy. There are Art Deco metal-and-glass lanterns on either side of the doors. Above each set of doors is a triangular broken pediment and a single window on the second story. These entrances are surrounded by a limestone frame with pilasters on either side, which are topped by composite capitals. These pilasters support a curved broken pediment with corbels, as well as a central scrolled cartouche with garlands.

There are two secondary entrances: one in the 14th bay from east on 74th Street and the 13th bay from east on 75th Street. Each secondary entrance consists of a set of pilasters topped by a console table. A single bronze-and-glass door, similar in design to those on Central Park West, is recessed deeply within either entrance. There are metal-and-glass lanterns on either side of the doors. Above each doorway is a scrolled cartouche.

There are also nine entrances to individual offices on the ground floor: four on Central Park West, three on 74th Street, and two on 75th Street. Each doorway contains a single door, recessed within the rusticated limestone facade. The bronze-and-glass office doors are simple in design and are topped by a bronze-and-glass transom panel. On the far western end of the 74th and 75th Street frontages, there is a short standalone wall of rusticated blocks, which contains an archway topped by a rusticated keystone. There is a metal service gate below each archway, topped by a panel with the word "service". The westernmost end of the 74th Street frontage, next to the service gate, contains a metal fence atop a brick parapet, which encloses an unused courtyard.

Lower stories

The second-easternmost bays on 74th and 75th Streets (bays 2–3) and the second-outermost bays on Central Park West (bays 2–3 and 24–25) have ornately decorated windows on the third and fourth stories. The third-story windows in these bays are flanked by limestone frames with rosettes and consoles; these support small balustrades at the fourth story. On either side of the second-outermost windows on all three elevations, a set of pilasters supports an entablature and a triangular broken pediment, both with dentils. There is a central keystone inside the pediment. Above the 13th story, there are console brackets flanking each of the second-outermost windows, above which is a balcony with a balustrade. These bays are flanked by brick pilasters at the 14th and 15th stories, which support large curved broken pediments and a scrolled escutcheon above the 15th story. There are rosettes at the tops of each pilaster. There are smaller curved broken pediments above the 14th-story windows, with escutcheons at the center as well as floral decorations and garlands below.

On Central Park West, bays 5–8 and 19–22 contain balconies at the fourth story. The balconies project from the facade and are supported by four console brackets. Behind each balcony, the two middle openings (bays 6–7 and 20–21) are surrounded by a limestone frame and separated from each other by a limestone wall panel. Above this frame is a triangular broken pediment with an escutcheon, garland, and tablet at its center. In bays 5–8 and 19–22 on the 11th story, there are two more balconies supported by four console brackets. Behind each balcony, bays 6–7 and 20–21 are recessed at the 11th and 12th stories and are flanked by brick pilasters; the recessed walls are decorated with embossed rosettes. Above the 12th story, and between bays 6–7 and 20–21, are cartouches with rosettes, similar to those above the main entrances on Central Park West.

There is another cartouche above the center of the fourth story on Central Park West, corresponding to bays 13–14. The numbers "19" and "30" flank the cartouche, signifying the year of the building's completion. Above the 13th story, there are console brackets flanking bays 13–14, above which is a balcony with a balustrade. At the 14th and 15th stories, bays 13–14 merge into a single bay, which is flanked by brick pilasters and designed much like the second-outermost bays. The cartouche above the 15th story is flanked by a curved broken pediment instead of a triangular one. Additionally, the brick pilasters extend to the 16th and 17th stories; there are rosettes at the tops of each pilaster. The window on the 16th story is topped by a tablet with garlands and a broken triangular pediment, while that on the 17th story is capped by a cartouche.

Towers

The towers above the 17th story are five bays wide and contain protruding piers at each corner. The north tower's northern and eastern elevations, as well as the south tower's southern and eastern elevations, contain ornamentation on the upper halves of each tower. On the 23rd story, the central windows on each of these four elevations contain ornate frames and are topped by curved broken pediments with keystones. On the 26th and 27th stories, the three center bays of these elevations are ornately decorated. The center bay of each grouping is flanked by a pair of double-height engaged columns; these are supported by projecting brackets at the 26th story and are topped by foliate capitals above the 27th story. The outer bays of each grouping are flanked by flat pilasters, which are also topped by foliate capitals. Above the 27th story, there is a curved broken pediment with a cartouche in the center bay, as well as a triangular broken pediment in either of the outer bays.

Both towers contain a triple-level penthouse section above the 27th story. On the 29th story of both towers, corresponding to the second level of the penthouse, the northern, southern, and eastern elevations each contain a window within a limestone frame. This window is flanked by pilasters with rosettes on their capitals. On the 30th story, there are three protruding dormers on either tower, each with a single window and a rounded roof. The top and bottom edges of the dormer windows are rounded. There are console brackets flanking each dormer window, above which is a curved pediment.

Each tower is topped by a "temple" designed in the Corinthian order. According to Steven Ruttenbaum, the temples were patterned after the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates. The base of the temple is quadrilateral and contains eight large pedestals (two on each side). The pedestals contain console brackets, and the tops of the pedestals are decorated with urns and garlands; the finials of the urns measure tall. Between the pedestals on each side, there are cartouches with balustrades above them. The temples themselves rest on brick podiums and contain circular colonnades of smooth columns. Each column in the colonnade measures tall. Above the colonnades are friezes with dentils, as well as a terrace enclosed by a balustrade. Above the terrace level, a circular podium supports a set of console brackets, atop which is an electric copper lantern with windows on four sides. The lantern is tall.

Features

Lobbies

Each of the entrances on Central Park West leads to its own lobby. The floors of each lobby are composed of large square tiles of beige terrazzo, each of which contains a smaller inlaid gray-marble tile. The beige terrazzo tiles are surrounded by a multicolored band of mosaic tiles and a dark-green marble border. The lower sections of the lobbies' walls are wainscoted in oxblood red and beige, while the remainder of the lobby walls are a salmon-beige color with inlaid dark-brown panels. The walls are flat and contain red-and-brown marble doorways leading to various rooms, as well as lighting sconces made of glass and metal. There are "art glass" windows on the walls, overlooking the courtyard. The ceilings have elaborate bas-reliefs and contain flat, vaulted, and sloped surfaces. The ceiling originally had a polychrome color scheme, which was painted white in subsequent years. Hanging from the ceilings are metal-and-glass chandeliers shaped like inverted pyramids.

There are ten elevators in the San Remo, grouped into four banks. There are square-headed archways leading from each lobby to each set of elevators; the lintels are decorated with multicolored marble panels. Each of the elevator doors in the lobbies is made of bronze with geometric motifs.

Apartments

, the New York City Department of City Planning cites the San Remo as having 138 residential apartments and 8 non-residential units. Initially, there were 122 apartments in the building. Each apartment was designed with six to sixteen rooms, including single-story and double-story apartments. Each of the 17 lowest stories generally contained seven apartments per floor. Three of these units faced Central Park West and had eight, ten, or eleven rooms, while two units each faced 74th and 75th Streets, with six to eight rooms. This contrasted with other buildings on Central Park West, where four units on each floor shared a frontage on Central Park. A 1940 news article described the building as containing 132 apartments with five to fourteen rooms, with a total of 1,000 rooms. In the basement, each resident had their own laundry room, which was covered in tiles.

In larger apartments, common rooms such as the living room were arranged around a central gallery. A short hallway led to bedrooms in the rear, providing privacy for residents. The developers advertised the building as having atypically large rooms. There were several closets in each apartment, and the master bedroom of each unit also adjoined a dressing room. There were butlers' pantries and maids' rooms leading off each kitchen. Some of the westernmost units also contained "sun rooms", which measured up to . Over the years, apartment layouts have been modified to accommodate the needs of individual tenants, and obliquely shaped spaces such as semicircular dining rooms were also created.

In the tower stories, each apartment originally occupied an entire floor. The original plans had called for five duplex units in the south tower, each with thirteen rooms across two stories, and ten simplex units in the north tower, each with six rooms on a single story. The lower level of each south-tower unit contained a library, dining room, kitchen, pantry, and two maids' rooms. A spiral staircase led up to four bedrooms and three maids' rooms on the upper level, thus providing a clear separation of "public" and "private" rooms. With the exception of the topmost unit, the south-tower duplexes were all split into two single-story units during the 1930s, each containing seven rooms. Some of the tower apartments have been combined and expanded over the years. For instance, musician Bono combined the 27th floor of the north tower with a portion of the former mechanical space above it, creating a duplex with of terraces. The duplex atop the south tower was also combined with the mechanical space above it in the 2010s, forming a triplex unit.

All of the ceilings are suspended from the structural beams and finished in plaster. Some ceilings have molded plaster reliefs, although even the simplest ceilings had molded plaster cornices. Ceiling heights varied in different rooms: larger rooms had ceilings of up to , while smaller rooms had shorter ceilings. Some apartments were subdivided in the 1930s and decorated with similar details. There are wood-burning fireplaces in the living rooms, with ornate fireplace mantels. The fireplaces were inefficient and outdated at the time of their construction, but they were nonetheless included for symbolic reasons. Roth designed steel-and-glass cabinets for the kitchens, which also had cork floors, tiled walls, and chromium-plated plumbing pipes. Underneath one window in each kitchen, there were compartments where fresh food could be stored; these compartments had vents facing outdoors. Each bathroom was tiled in a polychrome color scheme.

History

By the late 1920s, high-rise apartment buildings were being developed on Central Park West in anticipation of the completion of the New York City Subway's Eighth Avenue Line, which opened in 1932. Central Park West was concurrently widened from . Under the Multiple Dwelling Act of 1929, this allowed the construction of proportionally taller buildings on the avenue. Just before the passage of the act, Emery Roth had designed the Beresford, seven blocks north of the old San Remo Hotel. In contrast to the San Remo, the Beresford had three towers, which were octagonal and relatively short.

Development

The ''New York Herald Tribune'' reported in mid-November 1928 that the original San Remo Hotel might be replaced with a 30-story apartment hotel. Two weeks later, a syndicate led by Henry M. Pollock bought the old San Remo from the Brennan estate, as well as several adjacent four-story houses to the west. The Pollock group planned to spend $7 million on a new building on the site. In April 1929, the Times Holding Corporation (which owned the San Remo Hotel) acquired a house at 4 West 75th Street. The firm planned to raze the house, which occupied part of the footprint of the new building's courtyard. The San Remo Hotel closed the same month, and the Ravitch Brothers filed plans for a new apartment hotel on the same site. That July, San Remo Towers Inc. transferred a $5 million mortgage loan on the new building to the Bank of United States. Within a month, leasing agents Pease & Elliman were renting out apartments at the new San Remo.

The San Remo Hotel had been demolished by September 1929, and the site of the new building was being excavated. The next month, Emery Roth filed plans for a 16-story apartment building on the site of the San Remo Hotel to cost $2.5 million. The plans were subsequently revised to a 26-story building, and the HRH Construction Corporation was hired that December as the general contractor.

The Bank of United States provided a $5 million loan in January 1930 to City Financial Corporation, one of its subsidiaries, which owned the building. The bank acquired 100 shares of San Remo Towers Inc. for about $1 million as part of a larger, $8 million transaction. By then, L. J. Phillips & Co. had taken over as the building's leasing agent. The San Remo ultimately cost $5.5 million to construct. HRH was paid $125,000 for its role as general contractor at the San Remo. HRH also agreed to manage the San Remo (as well as the Beresford, which it also built) in exchange for two percent of the buildings' gross profits. In a ''New York Herald Tribune'' article on September 14, 1930, the HRH Construction Company indicated that the San Remo would open that October.

Rental house

Opening and receivership

The building was completed on September 21, 1930. The developers advertised the San Remo as "The Aristocrat of Central Park West". Almost immediately, the San Remo experienced financial issues, despite critical acclaim in the architectural media. The surrounding area had suffered after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and shantytowns were built directly across the street from the San Remo during the Great Depression. After the Bank of United States experienced a bank run in December 1930, it shut down and its top officials were charged with recklessly using depositors' funds for speculation. The New York State Banking Department took over the bank's holdings, including the San Remo's mortgage. Early the next month, contractors placed $423,000 worth of liens against San Remo Inc., and the Bank of United States moved to foreclose on the building's $5 million mortgage loan. Joseph Ravitch, head of HRH Construction, testified that the bank and its affiliates owed him $40,000 for the San Remo's construction. In April 1931, a court-appointed receiver for the San Remo received permission to borrow $60,000 to pay the building's property taxes.

In spite of all these issues, a broker claimed in mid-1931 that large apartments at the San Remo were being steadily rented. Following further negotiations, the Banking Department liquidated all claims against the San Remo except for its own lien. The Banking Department announced in October 1931 that it would foreclose on the building. At the time, 88 of the 128 apartments had been rented, representing 70 percent of the units. These tenants paid an estimated $513,000 annually, more than sufficient to cover the operating costs. In early 1932, a court-appointed referee recommended that the building and land be sold together. The San Remo was placed for sale at a foreclosure auction that February, and the Bank of United States (still part of the Banking Department) acquired the building, bidding $1,021,000. In December 1932, the bank gave a new first-mortgage loan of $1.5 million to the San Remo Realty Company, a subsidiary of the bank that had taken over the building.

1930s to early 1970s

Throughout the Depression, the building went bankrupt several times and passed to numerous owners. The owners reduced rents and created 20 additional apartments by subdividing four of the duplexes in the south tower and some vacant units at the base. The Banking Department announced in July 1935 that it would refinance the building with a $3.1 million loan from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and would use the funds to distribute dividends to the Bank of United States' depositors. Some creditors expressed opposition to the mortgage, but a representative of the Banking Department said the state government wished to sell the building and that a mortgage would facilitate such a sale. A state judge approved the mortgage that September. By 1938, there were 117 families in the building. As the state was trying to find a buyer for the building, its staff went on strike in March 1938 and again in November 1938. The journalist Peter Osnos wrote that the San Remo and other Central Park West apartment houses contained many Jewish residents during the 1930s and 1940s, since these buildings were not "restricted", unlike others on the East Side.

In July 1940, a group of anonymous investors acquired the San Remo and Beresford, assuming a combined $7.4 million in mortgages on the two structures. The buildings themselves cost only $25,000, although they had cost a combined $10 million to build. One observer likened the sale to "buying the ''Queen Mary'' and the ''Queen Elizabeth'' for pocket change". The investment group was known as the Sanbere Corporation, a portmanteau of the two buildings' names. The San Remo's staff occasionally went on strike, such as in 1942 and in 1950. The San Remo also had twenty rooms for maids, many of which had been converted to tenant storage spaces or offices by the early 1960s.

By the mid-1960s, a dozen apartment buildings on Central Park West had been converted into housing cooperatives. At the end of the decade, Harry B. Helmsley and his partner Lawrence Wien

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