Herald Towers Apartments

 high-rise, interesting place, apartment building, 1913_construction, Beaux-Arts (architecture)

328-foot, 25-story Beaux-Arts residential building completed in 1913. Designed by F. M. Andrews & Co. as the McAlpin Hotel, it was the largest and tallest hotel in the world upon opening. As a hotel it employed a staff of 1,500 and could accommodate up to 2,500 guest and residents. A 1917 expansion was designed by Warren & Wetmore.

The west facade along Sixth Avenue has two deep light courts above the base, dividing the facade into three wings. The design of the building is tripartite in form, with a 3-story limestone base (and transitional 4th-floor), a mid-section clad in brown brick, and a top section of both brick and stone. The limestone on the base is rusticated; the ground floor is clad in white-painted stone on the northern half, and black marble on the south part of the building, with several storefronts. The main entrance is on 34th Street, framed by black marble, with recessed glass doors and a suspended black metal canopy, bisected by a stainless steel column. Aside from the storefronts on the west end, the ground floor on the south facade on 33rd Street has several service entrances and vents.

The north elevation is 12 bays wide, and the south elevation has nine bays. The west facade is organized so that the southern two wings follow the angle of Broadway as it intersects 6th Avenue, and the northern wing is angled to line up with Sixth Avenue. Each wing is three bays wide, separated by a connecting bay that serves as the base for the light courts.

Along the entire base, the 2nd floor has tall round-arches with scrolled keystones and black cast-iron infill. The two slightly-recessed intermediate bays between the wings have large Doric columns set into the wall. These frame the round-arched window in the southern of these bays, while in the northern one, a large, rectangular window covers the original round-arch and space around it. Above the columns is a small entablature with a modillioned cornice, surmounted at the 3rd floor by a stone panel with a heraldic shield over the cornice that runs along the top of the 3rd floor. The rest of the 3rd-floor bays have regular square-headed windows with small stone balconies and balustrades. The 5th bay from the west on the north facade has two small flanking windows and a wider balcony.

The transitional 4th floor is also clad in painted limestone. It is here that the setbacks into the light court occur on the west facade, with the cornices above the 4th floor following the path of the light courts as well. The middle bay on each of the three wings has double-windows, while the two end bays have single-windows, with paneled piers in between. The north facade alternate bays of double- and single-windows; the one exception is the 5th bay from the west on the north side, above the wider balcony, which also has double-windows instead of the single-windows the pattern would indicate. The south facade has mostly single-windows, with double-windows in the two bays next to the end bays.

At the mid-section, clad in brown brick, the window pattern follows that established on the 4th floor, and the windows have brick surrounds. There are both paired and single-windows at the interiors of the light courts. The mid-section is capped at the 18th floor, which has a dentiled band course at the bottom, carved white terra-cotta crests on the piers, and a cornice on top, setting off the crown.

The 19th-21st floors are brick, but with a pattern of small stone dots. The 19th & 20th floors' windows are grouped together and framed in ornamented white stone surrounds, with a column separating the panes in the bays with double-windows. Stone spandrels with shields separate the floors within each bay. Individual projecting stone cornices set off the 21st floor at each bay, which has round-arches lined with the same ornament as on the 19th & 20th floors. At the double-window bays, the arches are larger and taller. The first bay on the inside of the light courts is also decorated with the same ornamentation and arches. The 22nd floor is clad in stone with a cross-hatch pattern, while the 23rd has narrow windows between the rows of console brackets that support a thick, full-floor stone cornice with large modillions. Each wing has a different 24th floor; at the northern wing it is slightly set back from the front, faced with plain brick. The middle wing's 24th floor is brown brick, with a stone frieze broken by windows and an upper cornice. The south wing has triple-windows with stone piers and a black metal cornice. The penthouse levels are also set-back, some topped with angled metal roofs.

The rear, east facade is fully clad in brick. From the north there are two bays of double-windows with a bay of small windows in between; then a wide but shallow light court lined with double- and single-windows and a fire escape; then another bay of single-windows; then a smaller light court with horizontal bracing beams at every other floor; and a windowless south section.

The building was sold in 1954 to Sheraton, becoming the Sheraton-McAlpin Hotel which had the base altered by Kahn & Jacobs. Then in 1959, it was renamed the Sheraton-Atlantic Hotel and then the Hotel McAlpin in 1968 and finally converted to residential apartments in 1976 for William Zeckendorf, Sr. It now has 693 apartment units. When the hotel was converted in the 1970's to residential, terra cotta panels and the iron entry gate from the former Marine Grill restaurant in the basement were salvaged and moved to the Fulton Center subway station in Lower Manhattan. They were amongst a set of 20 panels which depicted scenes of the New York Harbor.

The ground floor is occupied by GameStop/Think Geek, City Streets shoes, Pandora jewelry, and The Gap.

www.heraldtowers.com/
www.heraldtowersliving.com/
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