YAI - Chelsea Respite (New York City, New York)

 school, interesting place, historic landmark

2-story early Queen Anne-style building completed in 1878. Designed by Sidney V. Stratton (later of the firm of McKim, Mead & White) for the New York House and School of Industry, which was founded in 1851 to teach poor women ''plain and fine sewing.'' For some time, it was quartered in an old wooden farmhouse on its present site, until the organization built this asymmetrical building. It is recognized as of the first propagation of the Queen Anne style as a building in the United States.

Built of brick with stone, terra-cotta, and slate trim, the building rises two stories above a low, smooth-faced, stone basement. The facade is asymmetrically massed, divided into two parts by an entrance bay: the eastern half is characterized by a projecting, 2-story, stone oriel and the western half is simply rendered in brick with crisply cut, deeply recessed windows. When first seen, the building can be misread as two separate structures of standard rowhouse dimensions rather than as a single building. The central entrance is within a slightly recessed, 2-story bay. The original doors have been replaced by two solid wood doors. Approached by a box stoop with a brick parapet, it is in a 3-centered arched opening with an ornamental enframement. The arch has a wood transom bar with numerous small lights and a tripartite transom with a central, multi-paned oval flanked by multi-paned quarter circles. Above the entrance are two recessed panels with highly stylized terra-cotta plaques in bas-relief. Above these panels is a large panel containing a terra-cotta plaque inscribed with the name and date of the building. The bay is topped by a simply molded cornice.

The eastern part of the facade consists of a 2-story, paneled, stone oriel with chamfered sides and a fish-scale slate roof. The first
story of the oriel is an arcade of three round-arched windows with double-hung wood sash: the lower sash of each is divided into two tall rectangular panes topped by three small square panes and the upper sash is a fan of diminutive lights. Above the arcade are six, small, fixed transoms each with a grid of small lights surrounding a central circular light. A cornice of many stringcourses tops the first floor. The sides of the oriel at this level have recessed panels and narrow, pedimented openings with fixed gridded windows. The 2nd floor is pierced by six, narrow multi-paned double-hung windows. Above are six gridded transoms. The oriel is is crowned by a cornice of multiple string courses and a fish-scale slate roof. Above the oriel, the facade has a simple stone cornice carrying a high parapet with stone coping. East of the facade is a recessed court providing secondary access to the building. Within the court, the walls are brick and, at the west, above the roof line, is a chimney. At the 2nd floor is a small pedimented window similar to those in the chamfers of the oriel.

In 1951, the House of Industry was absorbed by Greenwich House, a social-services agency established at the turn of the century. Sewing work was replaced by typewriters, as Greenwich House began a program of ''brush ups'' to help older women enter or re-enter the work force. But in 1955 Greenwich House sold the building to the Friends of Hebrew Culture, a civic and social organization that occupied the building for the next 20 years.

By 1980, the Young Adult Institute, a nonprofit organization under contract to the state's Office of Mental Retardation, was using the building as a residence for 25 young adults. It was sold in 1985, and landmarked in 1987. Currently it is used as an overnight respite for the Young Adult Institute social services agency for people with disabilities.

www.yai.org/
daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2012/05/1878-house-of-in...
www.nytimes.com/1987/09/06/realestate/streetscapes-new-...