The St. Urban Cooperative (New York City, New York)

 apartment building, 1905_construction, housing cooperative, Beaux-Arts (architecture), French Renaissance (architecture)

151-foot, 13-story Beaux-Arts cooperative-apartment building completed in 1905 for Peter Banner, a speculative developer. Designed by Robert S. Lyons, it is distinguished by its high mansard roof and round corner tower, culminating in a dome and story-high lantern of copper. The main facades are clad in beige brick and white terra-cotta above a 3-story rusticated limestone base with a grey granite water table.

The east facade on Central Park West spans seven bays, plus the rounded corner turret, while the north facade in 89th Street has nine bays. The main entrance was originally centered on the east facade, deeply recessed within a 2-bay, rectangular driveway. The vestibule was entered through two arched openings, both flanked by globe lanterns, and topped by a magnificent oversized scrolled keystone and a pair of large console brackets supporting triangular pediments. Both of these bays project from the rest of the facade, and between them is a panel with a crowned female face. This no longer serves, however, as the building's entrance, and is currently unused as a new entrance has been created just to the north of it, atop three low steps, with its own rather small and narrow marquee, which is vaulted. The newer entrance has wrought-iron-and-glass double-doors, and the iron-and-glass marquee is suspended by cables held by a pair of small lions' heads. Although the new entrance is a bit incongruous in juxtaposition with the very dramatic arched driveway, the alteration is not without its merits as the driveway now has very large floor-to-ceiling windows with handsome wrought-iron framing that open onto views of the extensive lobby, which has two separate elevator/stair banks.

The two bays above the driveway entrances have tripartite windows with narrow, angled side panes. On the base, they recede more into the facade, while on the upper floors they project more from the rest of the wall. To either side is a single-window bay and another tripartite bay, with another single-window at the south end, and the rounded corner tower at the north, around which are arrayed three single-windows. There are bracketed sills below the 2nd-floor windows, and keystones above them that overlap stone panels. The 3rd floor has a sill course below it, and the base is capped by a projecting stone cornice carried on a large, elaborate console bracket on each pier.

The upper floors have white terra-cotta lining the tripartite bays, as well as columns of regular quoins further flanking the outer tripartite bays and the south end bay. The projecting tripartite windows have white metal spandrels between floors, and the single-windows have bracketed sills and eared lintels with scrolled keystones. A stone band course caps the 8th floor, where the projecting bays end. At the 9th floor they instead have flat tripartite windows, segmental-arched at the tops, with large scrolled keystones, which also appear on the piers. Another band course sets off the 10th floor. The tripartite windows on the 10th & 11th floors only slightly project, with the angled end panes recessing into the facade. All the windows at the 10th & 11th floors also have scrolled keystones. Cylindrical columns at the piers support a bold stone cornice over the 11th floor, from which rises the curved copper mansard, with its alternating sizes of copper dormers, each rounded and broken in the center, with console brackets at the ends. In 1958 the roof cornices were removed, and later the 10th-floor balcony was taken down. At some point the copper cresting and other ornaments of the roof were damaged and removed; and the slate shingles on the mansard were replaced with asphalt. In 1973 architect Lee Harris Pomeroy was hired to punch unsympathetic openings into the mansard, at the 13th floor, above the ornate copper dormers. The corner tower is crowned by a copper cupola and tall lantern, and was once crowned by a flagpole.

The north facade on 89th Street has a moat fronting the basement level, beginning to the west of the corner tower, and crossed by a small bridge at the building's secondary entrance, in the 3rd bay from the west. It is round-arched, with glass-and-wrought-iron double-doors below a keystone and large console brackets that carry a balustraded balcony at the 2nd floor. This bay has tripartite windows on the upper floors, as do two other bays, while the remainder have single-windows or narrow double-windows. All the ornament follows the design established on the east facade.

The west elevation is less embellished, clad in plain, light-grey brick. Its north section has four bays of single-windows, with more bays on the slightly-recessed rear section. The building has a central, square courtyard, as well as a long, narrow light court to the west, extending to an opening at the south.

The building was converted to a co-op in 1966, with 53 apartments.

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