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
1909 The Paterno 440 Riverside Drive
– Joseph & Charles Paterno (Kelley Paterno page 285)
Featured in Andrew Alpern’s book Posh Portals page 38.
Featured in Andrew Alpern’s book Apartments for the Affluent pages 64 & 65.
NB 436-1909
Claremont Avenue; Riverside Drive, east side; West 116th Street, intersection
12-sty brick and stone apartment house, 107.6×181.3
COST:
$500,000
OWNER:
Paterno Bros. Co, 510 West 114th st
ARCHITECT:
Schwartz & Gross, 347 5th [Fifth] av
ADDRESS IN REAL ESTATE RECORD:
RIVERSIDE DRIVE, e s Claremont av and 116th st intersection
Located in the Morningside Heights Historic District designated 21 February 2017
The Paterno Brothers soon began the construction of ten- to 12-story apartment houses along West 116th Street, Riverside Drive, Broadway and Cathedral Parkway. Prominent among these are the Colosseum, 435 Riverside Drive (Schwartz & Gross, 1910) and the Paterno, 440 Riverside Drive (Schwartz & Gross, 1909-10) which anchor the corners of Riverside Drive at West 116th Street, their curved facades framing the vista that terminates at the main gates of Columbia University. Built in the Renaissance Revival style, the Colosseum’s stone and tan brick facade features an elaborately decorated entrance surround below a triple window with balcony and pedimented surround with scallop shell. Above the entrance, the architects employed similar decorative devices employed in the larger Paterno begun the previous year. Both facades are delineated by multiple moldings with decorative friezes, and the curved central bays of both feature elaborately decorated surrounds highlighted by balconies and arched tympana with cartouche that in the case of the Paterno is crowned by a distinctive mansard. Unique to the Paterno is its recessed, formal drive-through entrance on Riverside Drive. (source)
The Paterno 1909-1910 (Joseph & Charles aka Paterno Bros.)
440 Riverside Drive at 116th Street
– Schwartz & Gross
– 13 story Renaissance Revival
The Paterno occupied a larger space than the Colosseum. The curved facade wrapped around 98 apartments. Inside there were two luxurious courtyards with a panoramic glassed-in area with three elevators. The building was designed for those who wanted all the amenities of an apartment without giving up the space and privacy of an independent house. The Paterno also offered residents an entrance for cars as well as a large lobby with a barbershop, a hairdresser, and a tailoring shop. (Renato Cantore)
The Paterno, 440 Riverside Drive in City Realty
440 Riverside Drive (aka 440-442 Riverside Drive; 1-3 Claremont Avenue;
653-663 West 116th Street) ( The Paterno )
Borough of Manhattan Tax Map Block 1990, Lot 1
Date(s): 1909-10 (NB 436-1909)
Architect(s) / Builder(s): Schwartz & Gross
Owner(s) / Developer(s): Paterno Bros.
Type: Apartment building
Style(s): Renaissance Revival
Stories: 14
Material(s): Limestone; brick; terra cotta
Status: Contributing
History, Significance and Notable Characteristics
The Paterno at 440 Riverside Drive and the Colosseum at 435 Riverside Drive, were constructed in 1909 and 1910 across 116th Street from one another for the Paterno Brothers, prolific apartment house builders in Morningside Heights between 1898 and 1924. The two buildings featuring rare curved corner facades, with different orientations, anchoring the corners of this major intersection. The Colosseum’s curve faces towards the northwest and begins on Riverside Drive, while the Paterno’s starts on 116th Street where it meets Claremont Avenue. The two buildings were designed by Schwartz & Gross, and both feature stone bases and Renaissance ornamentation. The Riverside Drive facade of the Paterno features a four-story rusticated limestone base broken by three arches supported on pillars that provide access to a semi-circular porte-cochere and the building’s central recessed entrance. The entry door has an arched transom and wrought-iron decorative grille work. The porte-cochere itself has an arched ceiling with decorative terra-cotta details and a herringbone-patterned brickwork floor. Above the base the facade is decorated with a transitional- story cornice, tripartite window groupings with decorative spandrel panels, Flemish-bond brick work, stone quoins, brick window surrounds stone keystone and sills, tripartite window groupings with floral terra-cotta window surrounds, bracketed balconettes with decorative wrought-iron railings and projecting corner pavilions. The curved facade along West 116th Street and Claremont Avenue features a slightly projecting central pavilion with quadruple window groupings, three bracketed balconettes and a mansard with arched pedimented dormer.
Alterations
Riverside Drive Facade: First and second stories obscured by scaffolding; windows replaced throughout facade; additions at north and southwest corner pavilions; herringbone brickwork at porte-cochere floor paved with concrete in several places; several security cameras on facade and at main entrance
Claremont Avenue Facade: First and second stories obscured by scaffolding; windows replaced; secondary entrance door replaced; several security cameras on facade and at main entrance; nonhistoric security grilles at basement and first-story windows
West 116th Street Facade: First and second stories obscured by scaffolding; brick facade
repointed in multiple places; segmental-arched windows replaced
Site
Riverside Drive: Curbed planting beds flanking porte-cochere entrance, tall wrought-iron
security gate; Claremont Avenue: Several curbed planting beds with stone curbs and wroughtiron fencing, deeply sunken areaway with stone stairs and cast-iron railings, tall wrought-iron security gate;
West 116th Street: Several curbed planting beds with stone curbs and wrought-iron
fencing; deeply sunken areaway with stone stairs and cast-iron railings; tall wrought-iron
security gate
Sidewalk / Curb Materials
Concrete sidewalk and metal curb
References
Christopher Gray, “Streetscapes: The Colosseum and the Paterno,” New York Times, August 15, 1999, 8; Columbia Forum, “Building Morningside Heights,” https://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/win99/36.html; “The Apartment Houses of New York,” Real Estate Record and Guide, 85 (March 26, 1910), 644. (source)
1910: The 14-story Paterno apartment house is completed at 440 Riverside Drive, northeast corner 116th Street. Designed by Schwartz & Gross, it has a curved facade and two square light courts separated by a glassed-in elevator core. An eight-room apartment rents for between $150 and $175 per month. The New York Chronology: The Ultimate Compendium of Events, People, and Anecdotes from the Dutch to the Present by James Trager
Spring 2008 Proposed for Designation as Historic Landmarks: Coliseum and Paterno Apartments (1910), 435, 440 Riverside Drive
The Paterno on Wikipedia
Photos of the Paterno on Wikipedia
Living It Up (published 1984) page 261: PATERNO, 400 Riverside Drive/3 Claremont Avenue (northeast corner West 116th Street) A handsome building that curves around West 116th Street onto Riverside Drive, built by Schwartz & Gross about 1910. One of the few residential buildings in NY that curves its corner, the building is echoed across West 116th by the Colosseum. The Paterno brothers were major builders in NY, especially on the West Side, in the first third of the twentieth century.
“I enjoyed yourLW! presentation this week. I serve on the board of that organization. I grew up accessing an internal passage and stairs in the 116th and Riverside Drive apartment building. I often used this passage to escape the wind on 116th Street by entering on Claremont and exiting on Riverside.” Helen T. via email
Nine images above from the collection of Andrew Alpern. His comment: “The co-op did a nice job of restoring that water tower enclosure, but I wish they had recreated the missing cornice and cresting. Note that they removed the original revolving door, which had later required a swinging exit door to be cut into the wall to meet the fire code, which was then no longer needed when the new pair of entrance doors was installed.”
Design Inspiration: The Apartment in the Movie Enchanted by PJ & Thomas
