Woodstock Tower (New York City, New York)

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374-foot, 34-story Neo-Gothic/Art-Deco/Neo-Tudor cooperative-apartment building completed in 1929. Designed by H. Douglas Ives and the Fred F. French Company, it is the tallest tower in the Tudor City complex. It was constructed for pied-à-terre rentals and as a hotel but was later converted into cooperative apartments in 1980. The base of the building was altered following the reconstruction and lowering of 42nd Street in 1951-52.

The facade is clad in reddish-brown brick above a 4-story limestone base. Now four stories tall, the base has a light-grey granite water table and a central entrance with wood-and-glass double-doors below a rounded, green canvas canopy extending out over the sidewalk. The piers project out around each window bay, with beveled edges. There are seven bays of triple-windows with leaded- and stained-glass at the lower two floors (with the entrance replacing the middle one at the ground floor). At the west end there is a metal service door, and a narrower leaded-glass window at the 2nd floor with a high drip molding. Four wrought-iron lamps are mounted on the middle four piers, and the two around the center bay have stone plaques at the top of the 2nd floor with Gothic lettering reading "Woodstock Tower - 320 East 42nd St".

Beginning at the 3rd floor there are also end-bay casement windows. At the 3rd floor the middle seven bays have segmental-arched, tripartite casement windows, and the 4th floor has paired casement windows. The middle four piers narrow at the 4th floor and also slope slightly back as stepped buttresses. The base is topped by a stone band of quatrefoil circles, with projecting stone balconies with the same design at the middle three bays.

The upper floors also have wide casement windows in the end bays, and paired casement windows in the other seven bays, divided by wide brick mullions. At the 5th-6th floors, the limestone cladding extends up the piers around the middle three bays, and they have 2-story, beveled stone mullions. Trios of similar colonnettes line the piers, which have a dotted pattern. The stone spandrels between the 5th & 6th floors at these bays have Tudor arches, and this section is capped by a projecting band of Gothic hoods.

The other bays have brick lintels, 3-panel brick spandrels, and corbelled sills. Between the 5th & 6th floors the outer spandrels have terra-cotta diamonds, and between the 6th & 7th they have pairs of brick pointed-arches. These spandrels return above the 21st floor. Topping the 23rd floor (where the outer bays set back) are projecting, 3-sided stone balconies at each bay. The two middle piers extend up to the 27th floor before setting back, and the next pier to either side reaches the 25th. The top floors have numerous shallow setbacks at various bays, capped by white terra-cotta, and featuring corner statues. The middle three bays have more balconies at the 33rd floor, where there are double-height stone-enframed windows. The crown narrows to a parapet with quatrefoil pattern, gargoyles, and carved aedicule with a steep-sloped slate roof.

The west elevation has a center bay of small bathroom windows next to a chimney shaft. To either side is a square casement window, and then two bays of narrower casements. The rear, south-facing facade has even more terraced, shallow setbacks narrowing the tower towards the top. The east elevation is the same as the west, but with two bays of smaller windows instead of a chimney shaft.

The building contains 459 apartments.

usmodernist.org/AF/AF-1930-09-1.pdf