The Alton (New York City, New York)

 apartment building  Add category

6-story Neo-Renaissance cooperative-apartment building completed sometime around 1900, along with the twin building to the east, The Lorraine. The facade is clad in light grey-beige brick above a rusticated, cream-colored limestone ground floor. It is nearly symmetrical, with a central entrance, on either side of which is a double-window and a pair of single-windows, except that at the east end the last window is replaced by a black metal service door below a shorter window. The ground-floor windows are covered by wrought-iron grilles except at the tops. The main entrance is recessed in a round-arch framed by banded, projecting piers. It has a black glass-and-wooden door with similar sidelight and a fanlight above. A bellflower molding frames the arch, with a keystone, and there are shield and floral ornament in the spandrels around the arch. This is surmounted by a panel with the name of the building "THE ALTON" carved in it, flanked by acanthus-leaf console brackets carrying a thin stone cornice.

The upper floors have nine bays of single-windows with aluminum framing. A stone lintel course tops the 2nd floor, and the 3rd-5th floors have splayed stone lintels with keystones on the windows. The 6th floor is underlined by a stone string course, and there is a brick frieze below the brown metal roof cornice, which has brackets and dentils. A pair of dark-brown metal fire escapes run down the facade.