The Columns Cooperative

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133-foot, 12-story Renaissance-revival cooperative-apartment building completed in 1907. Designed by Whitfield & King for Andrew Carnegie, it opened as the Engineer's Club. It was converted to a co-op and renamed in 1983. The Engineer's Club, founded in 1888, originally occupied an old house at 374 Fifth Avenue, and had 968 members at the turn of the century. In 1903 they decided to buy land on this site for a new club building; the Republican Club at 54 West 40th and the now-demolished New York Club at 20 West 40th were also built on this stretch of street along Bryant Park. Inside, the Engineer's Club had the usual assortment of rooms, including 66 bedrooms and a 300-seat dining room that covered the entire 11th floor. These attractions nearly doubled the membership, to 1,898. Notable members included Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Andrew Carnegie, Herbert C. Hoover,, Charles Lindburgh,, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and H.H. Westinghouse. Carnegie ultimately paid $450,000 of the $900,000 cost. Mark Twain spoke at the dedication in December 1907. In 1979, the engineers left 40th Street for rented quarters, selling to a developer, David Eshagin. He gave his architect, Seymour Churgin, the difficult task of dividing up the large clubrooms into apartment-sized units.

The 3-bay facade has a tripartite composition. The 3-story base is clad in marble, rusticated at the ground floor. The entrance is in the middle bay, flanked by a pair of wall-mounted light fixtures and console brackets supporting a cornice. The end bays have segmental-arched windows. The 2nd & 3rd floors have four flat, fluted marble columns with Corinthian capitals supporting an entablature with a modillioned cornice above an ornately carved frieze featuring wreaths and cherubs. The 3rd-floor windows are round-arched, with decoratively carved moldings, sitting above cornices with egg-and-dart moldings and swags.

The 7-story mid-section is clad in red brick with white marble quoins at the edges. The windows are square, with stone enframements and scrolled keystones. The 10th floor has projecting, bracketed sills and marble piers between the windows, each bearing an oversized bracket supporting the projecting balustraded balcony above.

The 2-story crown with brick and marble facing has marble end piers, and two round columns in the middle. The 11th floor has extra-tall round-arched windows with keystones. The 12th floor has small, square attic windows, two in each bay, topped by a projecting brown fiberglass cornice (a replica of the metal original) with modillions and dentils. Above the cornice there is a stone penthouse level with lattice-like openings at each bay.

The east and west side elevations are clad in brown brick with a handful of single-windows. Both sides have inset light courts at the centers with additional windows.

s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/2429.pdf