Clark Apartments

 apartment building, Second Empire (architecture)

7-story Second-Empire style residential building completed in 1868 as the Grand Hotel. Designed by Henry Engelbert for Elias S. Higgins, a properous carpet manufacturer and merchant, it opened as the Grand Hotel. The Broadway or main facade of the hotel originally had a cast-iron ground floor of delicate columns and broad plate-glass shop windows that continued around the corner to West 31st Street for one bay. The present appearance of the ground floor is due, in large measure, to a complete alteration of the storefronts in 1957. The building is clad in marble, which has been painted white at the ground floor.

The Broadway facade is five bays wide, with tripartite windows in the center bay, three windows in the flanking bays, and paired windows in the end bays. The north facade is also five bays, but with a much wider, 5-windowed center bay; the other bays have paired windows. There is a narrow chamfered corner at the northwest.

The building has square-headed windows at the 2nd and 3rd floors, segmental-arched windows at the 4th and 5th floors, and full round-arched windows at the 6th floor, creating an arcade effect below the mansard. With exception of the end and central bays, the window enframement is homogeneous at each story yet differs from floor to floor. Strong molded band courses at the sill level enhance the horizontal effect created by the unified fenestration at each story. The slightly projecting end and central bays create shallow pavilions which add verticality to the facade. The pavilions are emphasized by quoins for the full height of the building and by rich window enframements. The vertical note of the pavilions is continued above the roof cornice by the towered slate mansard.

The sophisticated restraint of the facade of the hotel contrasts with the elaborate 2-story towered mansard above the heavy bracketed roof cornice. The profile of the tall straight-sided corner towers and central convex tower which rise above the roof line of the mansard recall the crowning roofs of the new Louvre pavilions in Paris. The towers are boldly embellished with dormers that, unfortunately, have been stripped of their ornament.

In 1904 the Grand was renamed The New Grand Hotel under the ownership of George F. Hurlbert. When the theater district shifted north to Times Square, the Grand' s former days of elegance were eclipsed and it became a second-rate residency hotel. Around World War II, it became The Milner Hotel with fleabag rates of $1.00 to $1.50 a night. In 1957 the entire ground floor was remodeled and the wonderful cast iron and glass entrance was demolished. Internal connections were made to the neighboring building at 38 West 31st, with the entrance located there and the complex re-named the Hadson Hotel.

By the 1980s the once proud Grand Hotel was a single occupancy hotel owned by Mocak Enterprises, now called the Clark Apartments. Despite its 1979 landmark designation the owners painted the marble façade and the slate roof in 1987 without prior authorization by the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission. In 2010 netting and scaffolding covered the building as KRA Associates headed up restoration efforts of the facade. It now remains in use as a single-residency building, with 325 apartment units, and wholesalers on the ground floor, which is occupied by Beyond Vape, G Plaza Sneakers, Saher International wholesaler, Time in Style watches and jewelry, M.S. Perfumes, Scents 4 Cents, Orkay Enterprises, and Elegant Fragrances.

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