The Osborne Apartments | interesting place, apartment building

 interesting place, apartment building

11-story Romanesque Revival/Italian Renaissance Palazzo cooperative-apartment building completed in 1885 for Thomas Osborne, a successful Irish immigrant and stone contractor. Designed by James E. Ware, it is clad in rough-cut, heavily rusticated brownstone. In 1889 Ware raised the roof to add servants quarters and seventeen years later a 25-foot-wing was added at its western end, designed by Alfred S. G. Taylor and Julien Clarence Levi. Also in 1919 stores were added at the ground level and the entrance portal was moved back to the main plane of the façade.

The north end of the building has lower ceiling heights, and thus numbers 14 floors instead of the 11 that the rest of the building is divided into. On 57th Street the large-scale stone entranceway, located near the center, is flush with the main plane of the building, although it originally projected from it. The segmental-arched opening with an eared enframement topped by a garlanded keystone is encompassed by a full entablature supported by paired pilasters, topped by a dentiled cornice. Within the arch are deeply recessed double wooden doors with a large vertically-divided transom, subdivided by geometrically-patterned leaded glass. Large glass and metal lanterns flank the entrance. The ground floor on both facades contains storefronts which have been continuously modernized since they were added in 1919. Above the stores, a plain, slightly projecting band course separates the 1st from the 2nd floor.

At the 2nd floor the original section of the building has eight bays. At the center are four round-arched windows with flat keystones, each with small-paned metal casement sash. To each side of this central section are two paired windows within round-arched frames that have stone mullions forming transoms. Beneath these four windows are decorative, carved stone panels with griffins and cherubs. Paired, square-headed windows form the outside group at this level. They are set in surrounds with stone mullions forming transoms. The projecting, bracketed cornice that caps the 2nd floor originally had a stone balustrade which is no longer extant. The cornice is cut back over the center four bays, where the loggia was originally located.

The four floors above this cornice are symmetrically arranged with three-sided oriel windows at the end bays and the two center bays. The other bays have paired, square-headed windows. At the 5th floor these windows are fronted by narrow, stone balconnettes. All of the windows are deeply set in the wall; those at the 3rd, 4th, & 5th floors have stone mullions separating them from stained-glass transoms. Beneath the windows of the 4th floor the carved stone spandrels display swags, putti, lions' heads and other classical elements. The 6th floor, like the 2nd, is capped by a bracketed cornice which once carried a stone balustrade. At approximately the 5th- and 6th-story levels, a bartizan-like form, of the same rusticated stone, projects from each corner of the building and merges with the 6th-floor cornice.

Between this cornice and a similar one above the 9th floor, the 7th, 8th, & 9th floors are again symmetrical and identical to each other. The outermost bays and the two central bays have three windows each, while the two bays between each group have paired windows. The windows at the 7th and 8th floors have stained-glass transoms. Smooth-cut ashlar stone and paneled spandrels link the bays vertically within these three floors.

The 10th floor has square-headed windows, arranged in pairs which conform to the bays of the floors below. A narrow band course crowns this floor. Above, the top floor has single, square-headed windows containing a variety of replacement sash types, each with a plain stone enframement and set between narrowly projecting pilasters. The stonework on these top two floors has deteriorated. The flat stone cornice above is crowned by finials.

In 1906 two bays were added to the western side of the building. The horizontal lines of the original portion of the 57th Street facade continue, but the addition is one story shorter and is topped by a stone balustrade. At each story of the easternmost bay of the addition is a single, small window. The western bay has a 3-window, metal-clad oriel which rises the height of the building. Broad projections occur at the same levels as the building's original cornices and the addition is crowned by a mansard roof above the 9th floor. The top floor has a 3-window bay which does not project. Two more bartizan-like forms are found on the addition, at the same level as the originals.

The horizontal divisions continue on Seventh Avenue at the same levels as on 57th Street. The two northernmost bays, however, correspond to lower ceiling heights, creating more stories. This facade is eight bays wide, each bay having a single, square-headed window (most with transoms) except the northernmost one which has three windows. The storefronts continue on the ground floor of the Seventh Avenue facade. Above the first cornice, the center bay at the next four floors projects with a 3-sided oriel joining two windows. At the 3rd floor on the oriel a carved stone panel indicates the date "1885" surrounded by ornamental motifs. The spandrels of the 4th-floor windows are marked by carved stone ornament in a manner similar to that on the 57th Street facade, while two balconnettes are found on windows of the 5th floor. The northernmost bay contains three windows in an oriel while the next bay to its south has small single windows that mark the transition between the duplex floor levels. Another bartizan-like form is found at the northern corner of this facade. Between the next two cornices, all but the northernmost bay of the 7th, 8th and 9th floors have evenly-spaced single windows with smooth stone surrounds. Above the top cornice are two floors whose stonework was repaired in the late 1980s. The top floor, which originally covered approximately half of the building, was extended over the entire building in an alteration of 1889. The irregularly-spaced windows of this floor do not correspond to the bays below them. The simple copper cornice, added in 1989, is a reproduction of the original.

The unbelievable lobby is an orgasmic Byzantine dream of gilded Della Robbia tiles with contributions by Augustus St. Gaudens, the great sculptor of the American Renaissance, muralist John La Farge, Tiffany Studios and French designer Jacob Adolphus Holzer. The floors are a mix of small mosaic tiles and slabs of varicolored Italian marble. Complementary marble was used for the wainscoting and carved marble recesses with benches. Dancing nudes and intricately decorated archways take the eye to a ceiling done in rich hues of red, blue and gold leaf. The lobby was restored in 1986 by Rambusch Studios.

In 1961 the The Osborne was sold to a developer with plans to replace the building with a 17-story apartment building. The residents instead formed a cooperative and saved the building by purchasing it for $2.5 million. There are now 84 apartments.

The ground floor is occupied by Central Park Fine Arts, Three Angels jewelry, Pizza & Shakes, a shoe repair shop, Eve Bari fashion accessories store, Carnegie Diner & Cafe, and P.J. Carney's Pub.

6tocelebrate.org/site/osborne-apartments-interior/