Watch “The Paterno Family: Chronicling a New York Real Estate Legacy” video on YouTube
Read ‘The Paterno Brothers & Their Manhattan Apartment Houses‘ Look Book
This building is featured in the video The Paterno Monograms: Art of Personalizing Apartment Buildings
1915 885 West End Avenue
– Joseph Paterno (Kelley Paterno page 285)
NB 281-1915
West End Avenue, 881-889; West 103rd Street, northwest corner
12-sty fireproof apartment house, 100×100
Cost:
$500,000
Owner:
The 885 West End Av. Corp, 601 West 115th st
Architect:
Gaetan Ajello, 1 West 34th st
Address in Real Estate Record:
WEST END AV, 881-889, n w cor 103d st
Located in Riverside – West End Historic District Extension II designated 23 June 2015
885, 895 and 905 West End Avenue, at the corners of 103rd and 104th Streets
– designed by Gaetan Ajello 1912 to 1917885 West End Avenue
Date: 1915
NB Number: NB 281-1915
Borough of Manhattan Tax Map Information: Block 1890, Lot 61
Type: Apartment Building
Architect: Ajello, Gaetan
Developer/Owner/Builder: The 885 West End Avenue Corporation
NYC Landmarks Designation: Historic District
Landmark Designation Report: placeholder
National Register Designation: N/A
Primary Style: Renaissance Revival
Primary Facade: Brick, Limestone, and Terra Cotta
Stories: 12
Historic District: Riverside Drive– West End Historic District Extension II
Decorative Metal Work: Second-story balconettes
Significant Architectural Features: Tripartite composition with three-story base, nine-story middle section, and one-story capital; brick facade with granite watertable, limestone trim; lower stories feature full limestone window enframements with bracketed sills; double-height, three-bay-wide limestone entrance enframement with molded pilasters topped with cartouches and scrolled brackets supporting balconette below third story; second-story windows within entrance enframement feature iron balconettes, the central window segmental-arched; denticulated beltcourse below third story, molded beltcourses below fourth; upper stories feature bracketed window sills; alternating pattern of terracotta window lintels; stone balconette below sixth-story windows, which feature full terra-cotta enframements with cartouche ornament; 12th-story windows with cartouche and swag-ornamented spandrels; 13th-story windows feature terra-cotta enframements, every other window with stone balconette and round-arched tympanum; modillioned cornice
East Facade: Designed (historic, base painted)
Door(s): Replaced primary door; non-historic door in west 103rd street secondary entrance
Windows: Replaced
Security Grilles: Historic (upper stories)
Cornice: Original
Sidewalk Material(s): Concrete
Curb Material(s): Bluestone (West End Avenue); concrete with metal plate (West 103rd Street)
South Facade: Designed (historic)
Facade Notes: Similar to West End Avenue facade; non-historic secondary entrance door; brick spandrels above most ground-floor window openings within limestone enframements, reflecting sloping site
West Facade: Not designed (historic) (partially visible)
Facade Notes: Yellow brick side wall; regular arrangement of window openings
North Facade: Not designed (historic) (partially visible)
Facade Notes: Yellow brick side wall; regular arrangement of window openings; metal stair to sunken concrete yard accessed through historic metal fence
WEST END AVENUE DOCUMENTATION Survey 2008
Address: 885 West End Avenue, northwest corner West
103rd Street
Block / Lot: 1890/53
NB Number: 281-15 Date: 1915
Original Use: Apartment House No. of units:
Stories: 12 Height: 135’
Estimated Cost: $500,000
Façade Materials: main material brick
base stone lower floors brick
trim terra cotta cornice terra cotta
Structure: steel
Original Owner: The 885 West End Avenue Corporation, 601 West 115th Street, Joseph Paterno, president
Architect: Gaetan Ajello, 1 West 34th Street
Landmark Status: None
Comments: For this building, Gaetan Ajello employed the white brick that he favored on his pre-World War I apartment buildings. It is ornately trimmed with Renaissance-inspired terra cotta. Many windows have unusual soldier course lintels. Joseph Paterno’s initials appear in a roundel above the central window on the second story. The original plan consisted of two one-bedroom, two two-bedroom, and one three-bedroom apartment on each floor.
Bibliography: Alpern, Andrew, The New York Apartment Houses of Rosario Candela and James Carpenter (New York: Acanthus Press, 2001), 342-43. (source)
Both 895 and 905 West End Avenue were designed by Gaetan Ajello, as well as nearby 885 West End Avenue. Born in Sicily in 1883 and trained as an architect and engineer, he then emigrated to the U.S in 1902. Working for the Paternos and others, Ajello had a distinctive style, derived from the Renaissance palazzi of his native Italy, that is particularly evident in 885, 895 and 905 West End Avenue. All three are of creamy white glazed brick. The entrance is within a two-story high stone frame. He makes bold use of terracotta ornament around the window openings, which are often double width. The facades are further decorated with stone or metal balconettes. (In the recent renovation of 905, the deteriorated stone balconies have been replaced by fiberglass.).
Ajello’s buildings are usually easy to identify. He made a point of signing the cornerstone with “G. Ajello, Architect.” He also provided clues identifying his clients. On most of his buildings, centered directly above the entrance, is a stone cartouche with one or more initials, for example, a P for Paterno; a C for Charles Paterno; a J, M, or A for one of the other brothers.
Building heights today are controlled by zoning, but decades before New York City adopted its first zoning law in 1916, there were regulations that limited the height of residential buildings. These were embodied in the Tenement House Act which, despite its name, applied to all multifamily dwellings. In 1902 the act was amended to allow buildings of fireproof construction to rise to one and a half times the height of the street. The height
limit for West End Avenue, which is 100 feet wide, was thus 150 feet. With the ceiling heights customary at that time, a builder could erect a building of 12 or 13 stories within a rise of 150 feet. The earliest such buildings usually had 12 floors, perhaps to avoid an “unlucky” 13th floor. Note that 895 West End Avenue, completed in 1916 but designed in 1912, has 12 floors. 905 West End Avenue, designed four years later, has 13 floors. In the 1920s reduced ceiling heights, combined with construction techniques that allowed
thinner floor slabs, enabled developers to ft 15 or even 16 floors within the 150-foot limit.
West End Palazzos, 905 and 895 Brought “High” Rises to the Block by Gilbert Tauber
The last of the three Ajello-Paterno projects, No. 885, has a fancy canopy and far too fancy replacement doors, but no one has stripped the stone of its paint. Who knows what delights hide under it? STREETSCAPES | WEST END AVENUE A Preservation Handbook in a Few Short Blocks By Christopher Gray
