Grenadier Polyclinic Apartments (New York City, New York)

 interesting place, apartment building

164-foot, 12-story Neo-Classical residential building completed in 1910. Designed by Thomas Rowe as a hospital, it opened as New York Polyclinic Hospital & Medical College. Silent film actor Rudolph Valentino died here in 1926. After Valentino’s death, the 334-bed hospital remained politically and financially strong, and continued to function for decades as a totally independent hospital.

The building is composed of two sections; the west portion is slightly shorter. It is clad in buff-colored brick above a painted limestone ground floor. The east section has a grander facade, with the main entrance, and is clad in limestone with a prominent 4-story base. The east section has a double-height ground floor with six bays, the two end bays originally both had entrances, but the eastern one has been filled in with a single-window. Both retain their rounded moldings with scale patterns, framed by paneled piers with scrolled brackets supporting triangular pediments. The main entrance, in the western of these two bays, is up a short set of steps, and has a glass door set in a glass-and-aluminum surround. The four center bays have large 3-over-5 openings, with window panes in the lower three rows and brown metal infill in the top two. The piers between the bays are banded, and there are basement windows enclosed by metal railings at three of the bays. The 2nd-4th floors have similar openings at the center section, with paneled metal spandrels between floors. The bays are also slightly recessed between three large, round, 3-story, engaged columns with Corinthian capitals. The end bays have rounded pediments above the windows at the 2nd floor, and the entire base is capped by a modillioned stone cornice.

The upper floors are banded at the end bays, which slightly project past the middle four bays, where there are paired windows, changing to groups of three smaller windows at the 10th floor. The top two floors are set back, with fewer windows. Two tall, mechanical penthouses rise from the middle of the roof.

The east elevation is clad in off-white, painted and parged brick, five bays wide. The outline of a former townhouse (now demolished) is visible at the front end of the lower two floors, now pierced by two bays of small single-windows. Above, these continue as a bay of paired windows. The bays to the north and south are now filled-in, but show the outlines of the former window openings, a mix of wide openings and smaller single-openings grouped into pairs or fours. At the top floors, a few of the narrow single-windows remain in the middle bay. The rear (north) two bays have paired windows at the 2nd & 3rd floors, and continuing up at the northernmost bay. The other bay changes to wide 4-window openings at the 4th floor, and then to four narrow single-windows at the 7th floor. The setback at the south facade ends the south bay above the 10th floor, and the lower roof line begins at the 11th floor.

The west section of the front facade has three bays of large paired windows, with brown metal panels at the tops on the 2nd & 3rd floors. There are secondary entrances at the ground floor. Between the 2nd & 3rd floors are paneled brick spandrels with brick dentils along the tops, also seen between the 5th & 6th floors. The brick spandrels between the 3rd-5th floors have rows of vertical grooves. The facade sets back above the 6th floor, above the 9th& 10th floors at the west two bays, and across the full west section above the 11th floor. A small 2-story penthouse section at the east end abuts the top floors of the taller east building section. The west elevation is faced in white parged brick with only a few windows at the lower floors.

The rear, north-facing facade has a setback above the 6th floor; the upper floors have five bays of large square windows, changing to paired windows at the 11th floor. The rear facade of the east section extends back farther, and has a narrow but deep light well in the middle, lined mostly by single-windows.

A merger with the French Hospital in 1972, however, paved the way for bankruptcy and its eventual closing in 1976, after which it was converted to residential use. It is now adaptively reused as affordable housing.

www.apartments.com/polyclinic-apartments-new-york-ny/x8...
dlc.library.columbia.edu/durst/cul:3ffbg79ctb