To date, the number of Paterno family buildings in Manhattan that I’ve been able to positively identify has been 163. Today I am delighted to add another to the catalog, though the 164th it is a very different kind of building.
The Paterno building that stood at 345 Riverside Drive at the corner of 107th Street in 1937 was not a tall apartment house, but a prefabricated steel tiny house. It was a curious Paterno project that began with great intentions for what would have been Dr. Charles V. Paterno’s last building project before his death after completing Castle Village. However a quirky deed restriction thwarted Dr. Paterno’s plans.
As was common practice by apartment house builders, narrow single homes and lots that averaged 25 feet wide street-side and 100 feet deep were purchased to conjoin four or five consecutive lots to become 100′ x 100′ or larger to accommodate an apartment house.
To orient the reader to the 1930 map above, find the white dot. It sits on a brick (denoted by the color pink) house on a lot that is numbered 326 along W. 107th Street. This is the address for this house. The number 30 below 326 designates the width of the lot. This lot is 30′ wide. The underlined 5 represents how many stories there are in the home with this one being 5-stories tall. The number inside the circle represents the depth of the main structure. This house is 58′ deep on a lot that is 100.11′ deep (see length of empty lot next door.) The 31 indicated on the lot (in the white area) marks it as being Lot 31 on Block 1892 (see the large numbers in the center of the block).
Dr. Charles V. Paterno first purchased the empty corner lot at 328 West 107th Street (Block 1892 Lot 32) in 1923 which ended up being the problematic lot. Perhaps Dr. Paterno didn’t learn about the stipulation until after the purchase (unlikely) or he was not dismayed by the stipulation thinking that he could easily satisfy or maneuver around it.
Curiously Lot 32 was the only lot on the block which had never been developed.
The stipulation was that for Lot 32 at 328 West 107th Street, the first building to be constructed had to be a single-family residence. Dr. Paterno was not in the business of single-family homes. He was a well-known developer of fine apartment houses.
When Charlotte Anne Mount (1836-1904) owned Lot 32 she was approached by Samuel Gamble Bayne (1844-1924) who was, at the time, the President of the Riverside Drive Property Association and lived in a grand mansion at the corner of 108th Street and Riverside Drive. Bayne asked neighboring property owners to sign a restriction agreement on 9 December 1897 stating that only “high class residences” with no more than two detached homes were to be built on each lot. When Charlotte’s Mount’s estate sold Lot 32 to Dr. Charles V. Paterno in 1923, along with it came the deed restriction.
Nonetheless, Dr. Paterno went on to purchase the lot and structure at 326 West 107th Street (Block 1892 Lot 31) in May 1930 and three more lots and structures at 320, 322, and 324 West 107th Street (Block 1892 Lots 28, 29, and 30) in June of 1930. This assembled for Dr. Paterno a five-lot site measuring 100.11 feet by 125.2 feet which is adequate for an apartment house. It seems that in 1930 Dr. Paterno was ready to construct a new apartment house facing Riverside Drive, however, the stipulation could not be ignored and had to be honored. Additionally, at that time, The Great Depression was descending.
Here are the four row houses at 320, 322, 324, and 326 West 107th Street with the empty lot at the corner along Riverside Drive. (photo source)
The Depression (1929-1939) put a halt on most new building construction. In the meantime, Dr. Charles V. Paterno and his son Carlo Paterno leased office space in 1936 on the 64th floor of the 77-floor Chrysler Building at 405 Lexington Avenue which opened in 1930 and was designed by William Van Alen.
[Side story: Carlo, my grandfather, recounted to his grandchildren that before they left their office for lunch each day they had to call down to the lobby receptionist to see if it was raining outside. Being so high up in the clouds, it wasn’t possible to know the current weather status at street level.]
Perhaps it is here that Dr. Paterno and Carlo became aware of and/or met William Van Alen, the architect of the Chrysler Building, who in 1935 had started working with a new company National Houses, Inc. designing prefabricated steel houses to offer affordable housing during The Depression. While this tiny steel house may not have met Bayne’s “high class” residence demand it did meet the “private residence” demand. To finally satisfy the deed restriction for 328 West 107th Street, Dr. Paterno had Van Alen design and construct a tiny steel house.
In 1936 Dr. Charles V. Paterno, representing Karlopat Realty Corporation, filed for a new building permit (NB 281-1936) at 328 West 107th Street for a 1-story dwelling.
In 1937 The New Yorker wrote about the “small, square, white-pointed, single-story modernistic house at the corner of Riverside Drive and 107th Street…accessible by a flight of steep wooden steps” which clearly was perched upon Manhattan schist boulders.
The Van Alen-designed structure cost between $3,000 and $4,000, measured 29.7′ x 24.7′, and included a compact kitchen, a dinette paneled with stained plywood, a 12×12 living room, two bedrooms, and a bathroom. Made from 2-by-4-foot steel panels bolted together, with four windows, it met Federal Housing Authority standards and was classified as a “low cost workingman’s residence.”
After resolving the deed dilemma with the tiny home in place, Dr. Charles V. Paterno got busy in 1938 demolishing his residential castle to build Castle Village and building his new Greenwich, CT, estate home called Round Hill. The Van Alen steel tiny home stood for approximately five years and was demolished in 1941 (DP 214-41). Dr. Paterno’s wife died in 1943 after a prolonged illness, he remarried later that same year, and he died in 1946. Perhaps he was too busy with other construction projects and personal life events, not to mention national attention on World War II (1939-1945), to focus on building an apartment house at 345 Riverside Drive. His son, Carlo, sold the five lots – all now free and clear of deed restrictions – in 1951 to the builder who would construct the 6-story apartment house that still stands at 345 Riverside Drive today.
Welcome to the 164th Paterno building! It clocks in as the smallest Paterno project that just happened to be designed by a very famous architect.
Deep appreciation is owed to Tom Fedorek who did an extensive amount of research on 345 Riverside Drive to create a 70th anniversary presentation for his fellow-residents of the apartment house that was completed in 1951. You can view his presentation video on my research page HERE.
Impressive research project!
Thank you Cheryl!