Capitol Towers Apartments (New York City, New York)

 apartment building, commercial building, Renaissance Revival (architecture)

197-foot, 17-story Renaissance-revival residential building completed in 1925. Designed by Edward F. Fanning for the Knights of Columbus, the Catholic fraternal organization, as a hotel and clubhouse, it is clad in buff-colored brick. The building was sold in 1933 and in the 1960s wound up as a YWCA. It is now an elderly low income housing apartment building, with 278 units, subsidized by the federal governments HUD (housing and urban development division). A number of apartments in the building on the north side facing the street are market rented and have a separate entrance lobby off the street at 254 West 51st Street.

The 4-story base is organized into seven bays of large, 3-story round-arches (spanning the 2nd-4th floors), with four more bays of arches along the north facade on 51st Street, as well as an additional, smaller bay at the east end. The arches are set off from the ground-floor storefronts by a rounded stone band course. The middle bay contains the main entrance, with glass sliding doors below a rounded, brown metal canopy that extends over the sidewalk. Each arch has dark grey-brown metal infill, with four windows at each floor (the outer windows at the 4th floor being cut to fit the curve of the arch). The arches have brick moldings and large, crowning, scrolled keystones. The transitional 5th floor is set off by a small cornice at the bottom and a broader stone band course at the top, the underside of which has a decorative carved frieze. "NEW YORK CHAPTER KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS" is carved on the band course, and an oversized cartouche highlights the center of the facade, reaching from the top of the keystone below to the top of the upper band course, which is surmounted by an iron railing with panels of iron heraldic shields at the 6th floor. The 5th floor has very short windows.

The secondary entrance on 51st Street also has glass doors and a metal canopy. There is a metal service door at the narrow east end bay, above which are single-windows at the 2nd & 3rd floors, and two stacked, shorter windows at the 4th floor; an extra, short window is located at the same level on the other side of the easternmost arch.

The 6th floor has double-height windows, eight across on the north facade, and grouped into threes at the ends of the west facade, with a wider group of five in the center; the end groups are separated from the center by a bay on either side of much shorter windows topped by stone heraldic shields. Each of the tall windows has a full stone surround topped by a lintel with names carved on them. They include Catholic explorers, missionaries, or war heroes who helped settle and strengthen the New World. From south to north on the west facade these are: Vespucci, Montcalm, Jogues, De Leon, Carroll, Columbus, Dongan, La Salle, Cartier, Le Jeune, and Marquette. On the north facade they are, from west to east: Verazzano, Cortes, Magellan, Joliet, Champlain, Balboa, Clvert, and De Soto.

The rest of the upper floors have plain single-windows; those at the 7th floor have decorative, rounded iron railings below them. A thin stone band course sets off the 14th floor, which is crowned by a projecting metal cornice with modillions and dentils. The 15th floor, above the cornice, has short windows, and the top two floors are set-back, with double-height round arches, five on the north facade, and three groups of three on the west. A short, metal mansard roof tops this floor, with two mechanical penthouses rising from the flat roof behind the mansard.

The south elevation is clad in plain brick with no openings, and has a faded, painted advertisement. The ground floor is occupied by Shon 45 Wine & Spirits, Famous Amadeus Pizza, Perfect Brows Threading Salon, Poke Bowl, and Taco Bell along the avenue, and Vanguard wine bar on 51st Street.

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