227 East 57th Street | apartment building

 apartment building  Add category

222-foot, 20-story Renaissance-revival cooperative-apartment building completed in 1931. Designed by Boak & Paris, it is clad in brown brick with limestone trim. The main entrance is east of center, with glass double-doors flanked by black stone pilasters and covered by a peaked, red canvas canopy extending out over the sidewalk. To the right is a small storefront and a recessed metal service door, and to the left is a larger, 3-bay storefront of light-grey stone, metal, and glass. A limestone band caps the ground floor, its top edge interrupted by the windows of the 2nd floor.

The upper floors have seven bays, with single-windows in the center, and double-windows in all the other bays. The facade is dotted with many protruding air-conditioning units, and several of the openings have multi-paned kalamein windows. There is another limestone band below the 4th floor. At the 2nd bay from each side, the 3rd-4th floors have carved limestone surrounds, with limestone spandrels between the two floors, a keystone projecting up from the top of the 4th-floor window, quoins at the edges of the 3rd-floor window, and projecting stone end caps (with rounded upper and lower ends) for a black wrought-iron balcony railing at the 3rd floor. The three middle bays at the 4th-15th floors have spandrels with vertical brick accents.

There is a small, rounded limestone balcony at the center bay on the 16th floor. A limestone band runs aacross the base of the 16th floor at the end bays and between the middle three bays. The 2nd bays from each end have limestone surrounds, as does the single-window center bay. There are ribbed brick spandrels above the end bays at the 16th floor, and the two outer bays on each end set back above this floor, marked by stone copings. There are no window openings at the center bay on the 17th & 18th floor, instead having a decorative pattern in limestone. The middle section has a shallow setback above the 18th floor, topped by a metal railing. There is another setback above the 19th floor, and the penthouse level has angled sides to the middle bays. There is a small mechanical housing on the roof, clad in brick, and a chimney at the east end.

The building was converted to a cooperative in 1985, and has 118 apartments. The ground floor is occupied by Klein kitchen & bath, and Ayervais Salon.