The Majestic (New York City, New York)

 high-rise, Art Deco (architecture), apartment building, 1931_construction, housing cooperative

345-foot, 31-story Art-Deco cooperative-apartment building completed in 1931. Designed by Irwin S. Chanin and Jacques Delamarre, it is one of four buildings on Central Park West that feature two towers, the others being: The San Remo, The Century (also designed and built by Chanin), and The Eldorado. The 3-story base is is clad in limestone (with a polished red granite water table), with the upper facade clad in light-brown and tan brick. The building's 19-story lower section wraps around a courtyard, with setbacks beginning at the 14th floor, and with its two towers fronting Central Park.

There are lobby entrances on all three main facades, centered on Central Park West, and closer to the west end on 71st & 72nd Streets. All have red granite enframements, and glass-and-metal double-doors covered by rounded, dark-red canvas canopies extending out over the sidewalk. These enframements are simply detailed with grooves. Office doors also appear at the ground floor.

At the center of the east facade there are two bays of narrow windows above the entrance. To either side are two bays of tripartite windows, and then four bays of double-windows corresponding with the four main bays of the towers above. At the ends there are three more window bays, the outer two joining into wide window bands that wrap around the corners beginning at the 4th floor. The brick piers between these wide corner bays and the next bays are horizontally ribbed. Uninterrupted piers articulate the base of the building on all three facades directly beneath the towers, and also appear on the side elevations surrounding the entrance bays. These piers also continue in the towers, creating a strong vertical element in the elevations. Beneath the windows that are flanked by these brick piers (below the towers) are panels of simple rectangular brown tiles, which form a slight convex curve, animating the wall surface.

The south facade on 71st Street has four narrow bays at the east end, with the end bay wrapping around the corner. The next seven narrow bays are below the south tower, and have the same piers and spandrels as seen on the east facade. To the west there are two bays of tripartite windows, four bays of double-windows, another tripartite-window bay, and two narrow end bays. The far west end bay sets back above the 8th floor, the next two above the 10th floor, and those on either side of the tower set back above the 14th floor. Each setback is marked by a projecting stone balcony with metal railings. The 14th-floor setbacks and balconies are also on the ends and middle of the east facade.

The north facade on 72nd Street is slightly longer. It also has four narrow bays at the east end, followed by the seven bays below the tower, and then three tripartite-window bays. West of this however, are seven more narrow bays with tile spandrels, just like those below the tower, but ending at the 16th floor, and then a double-window and tripartite-window bay, and two narrow end bays. On this facade, all the setbacks begin above the 14th floor, except at the tower, and the other 7-bay section.

The two towers continue the 4-bay pattern on their east faces, but slightly set back from the base. Recessed on the outer sides are two bays of windows on the north tower, and one wider bay on the south tower, and recessed at the inner sides are a single bay of windows. These recessed bays have horizontal banding on the piers around the windows, alternating with smooth brick on the spandrels. The banding wraps around to two bays of windows on the east ends of the north and south elevations. The projecting middle sections of these facades have three narrow bays of windows, again with the curved tile spandrels, and the west end has one wide bay of windows on the north tower, and two smaller bays on the south tower. The walls on the slightly protruding tower facades extends as piers to the top to form riblike protrusions. On the west side, the wings of the tower have similar, albeit curved, tops of true Art-Deco nature. These curved forms are reminiscent of old radios or jukeboxes. Interestingly, the rear of the towers are different; the north tower has four major curved ribs while the south tower has only three.

The building was converted to a co-op in 1958, with 221 apartments. Among the notable past and present residents of the Majestic are actors Milton Berle and Zero Mostel, and newspaper columnist Walter Winchell. Fashion designer Marc Jacobs lived there as a teenager with his grandmother in the 1980s, and television personality Conan O'Brien sold his co-op in 2010. The Majestic was home to some of the former heads of the Luciano crime family (later called the Genovese crime family) including Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello, and Meyer Lansky.

daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-1931-majesti...