310 West 55th Street | apartment building

 apartment building  Add category

6-story cooperative-apartment building completed in 1941. Designed by Arthur Weiser, it is clad in red brick with a grey granite water table. On the symmetrical front facade the end wings project out from the center section, which it self projects slightly from the recessed bays on either side, between the wings. The ground floor is banded and there are brick quoins at each of the corners.

The central main entrance has a wood-and-glass door with sidelights and transom, framed in white wood and fronted by a small brick porch that is covered by a white metal canopy with ornate wrought-iron posts and a white iron railing on top. There is a very small window on either side of the entrance, and the quoins at the ground floor on the center section are stone instead of brick. A white-painted stone band course caps the entire ground floor.

The recessed bays to the sides of the center section both have a double-window and a small bathroom window. The inward-facing sidewalls of the projecting wings have two bays of single-windows (the front one slightly larger), and the front faces of the end wings both have five bays of single-windows. All of the windows have white wooden framing.

The upper floors at the center section have two bays of single-windows flanked by double-windows. At the 2nd floor, these double-windows, and the middle three windows at the end wings are topped by splayed brick lintels with white keystones and impost blocks. The 4th-floor windows at these bays have similar lintels, but without the imposts; white stone sill courses join the windows at the end bays and the center section on this floor. The top floor has white stone bands above and below the windows, running the full width of the facade, with each window framed by slightly-projecting brick pilasters with white stone bases and caps. A stone coping marks the roof line. Red metal fire escapes run down the inward-facing sidewalls of the end wings.

The east elevation has two bays of single-windows at the front section; the rear half is set back. The building was converted to a cooperative in 1986 with 61 apartments.