The Ardsley Cooperative

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

233-foot, 20-story Art-Deco cooperative-apartment building completed in 1931. Designed by Emery Roth, it is clad in buff-colored brick (with glazed black brick trim), above a 1- to 2-story base of white cast-stone (with some colored accents) and a grey granite water table. This 22-story structure is dramatically different from every other Roth building that came before it, for there is no trace of historical styling in its rectilinear lines. The only precedent it recalls is the massing of a prehistoric Mayan temple. Contrasting with its buff brick wall surfaces are vertical bands of black brick that sweep up the façades, imparting an upward thrust to the composition. These are balanced by horizontal bands of black brick that relate the building to its streetscape. Further, the horizontal and vertical bands converge in the upper stories and in the tower to create bold geometric patterns.

The main entrance is centered on the east facade on Central Park West, with brass-and-glass double-doors with geometric patterns, below a rounded, red canvas canopy extending out over the sidewalk. It is framed by a pink granite surround executed in voluptuously curving geometric forms. At the 2nd & 3rd floors the pink granite extends upwards as pilasters framing the windows in a pattern of right-angled, ribbed L-shapes alternating directions. They also frame a pink granite spandrel between the 2nd & 3rd floors at the center bay, decorated with a rosette and wavy vertical lines. A small pink granite finial tops the 3rd-story window. All of this is surrounded by grey granite at the center bay, extending from the base up through the 3rd floor. To the north the ground floor has a wide window opening, followed by a bronze service door, and a single-window at the north end. To the south are two double-window bays, another service door, and an end bay with a double-window. All of the ground-floor windows have iron grilles. The two service doors have narrow pink granite surrounds topped by panels of geometric ornament; running inward from these are thin pink granite string courses with a wavy line and small roundels. Above the ground floor there are double-window-sized openings at the ends bays, the north one wrapping around the corner. Between the south end bay and the center bay are two wide bays of tripartite windows, and between the north end bay and center bay are two single-windows flanking another tripartite bay. The actual window pane arrangement varies by floor and bay, with many having smaller subdivisions of panes. Capping the base, at the ground floor at the ends, and then at the 2nd floor in the middle, is a zig-zag cast-stone frieze, consisting of geometric patterns in 4-color inlay.

The vertical black brick lines (grouped into trios) are on the piers next to the end bays. The first horizontal black brick band (also in triple) is between the 3rd & 4th floors, interrupted by the top of the entrance surround and not extending to the end bays. Shorter trios of horizontal bands span just the center bay above the 5th, 7th, 9th, and 11th floors. Above the 13th floor the center bay has four short, vertical black bars that slightly project, with similar bars above the windows at the next several floors, grouped into pairs, three, or fours. Trios of vertical black lines adorn the piers around the center bay from the 15th-17th floors, where there is a setback. There are also setbacks at the end bays above the 15th floor, each creating terraces with metal railings. Two projecting balconies wrap around the corners above the first setback, and there is another small setback above the 18th floor, with a major setback on the north and south sides above the 19th floor. The top floors continue the runs of black lines, some veering off at right angles. Crowning the facade is a tall mechanical penthouse and water tank enclosure, with the same brick and black lines down the center of each of the four sides, as well as shorter lines around the corners.

The much longer north facade along 92nd Street is split by a light well into an east wing and a much wider west wing. At both, the base again consists of 1-story end bays, and extends up to the 2nd floor in between, capped by the same Mayan-style band. The east wing has a wide single-window at the east end, and then four more, the last three grouped together, followed by a bronze service door like the ones on Central Park West, and another wide single-window at the east end. The east wing has a wide single-window, a bronze service door (but without the pink granite ornament), a double-window, a single-window, another double-window, three single-windows, and then another entrance, recessed and set down a couple steps from the sidewalk, with bronze-and glass double-doors flanked by projecting 1-story grey granite monoliths and topped by three horizontal stone bands with a square panel in the middle that is decorated by a stylized flower-crown shape. Continuing along the ground floor is a tripartite window, a double-window, paired windows, two more tripartite windows, a double-window, and two single-windows, the last one set apart. The upper floors have similar window forms. The rear wall of the light well has a bay of single-windows flanked by double-windows, the western one staggered at half-floor intervals. The side walls both have several single-windows and a tripartite window, and end bays of double-windows at the front that wrap around the corners.

There is black banding similar to that on the east elevation, and the facade is dotted with protruding air-conditioning units. The east wing has setbacks above the 15th floor (at the east end), the 17th, 18th, & 19th. The west wing has cascading setbacks every other floors at its east end, facing the light well, above the 10th-16th floors, with another setback above the 16th floor on the east end of the north side, with two penthouse levels above. This wing is shorter than the east wing.

Farther to the west the east wing has a wide, shallow setback above the 10th floor, with an even shallower one above the 12th, and this portion of the west wing terminating at the 13th floors. Set back on the roof is another tall mechanical penthouse, creating a third peak to the shape of the building.

The west facade has, from north to south, a single-window bay set apart, another single-window, two wide bays flanking a medium-width bay, and another single-window. The south end is set back, with another wide bay and single-window end bay. There are shallow setbacks at the top floors, ending at the 13th.

The building was converted to a co-op in 1971, with 201 apartments.

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