The Cloister

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11-story Neo-Gothic/Tudor cooperative-apartment building completed in 1927. Designed by the H. Douglas Ives and the Fred F. French Company, the symmetrical facade is clad in red brick above a 3-story limestone base with a light-grey granite water table. The middle two bays have segmental-arched openings at the ground floor with paneled wood-and-leaded-glass double-doors over which "The Cloister" is emblazoned in Gothic lettering. The western of the two bays has a rounded, green canvas canopy over the doors, and there are iron light fixtures mounted on the three piers around these bays; these bays have paired windows on the upper floors.

To either side is a triple-window bay at the base (wide casement windows at the upper floors), a narrow casement window (a small single-window at the ground floor), another triple-window/casement bay, and a bay of small single-windows (except the ground floor), and then the end bays, which have paired windows above the ground floor. At the ground floor the end bays have two sets of narrow, paired Tudor-arched windows next to metal service doors recessed in shallow-arched openings. Drip moldings top the full width of these end bays.

Above the entrances, the focal point of the facade is the stone and terra-cotta frontispiece that rises to the 5th floor. The wide piers framing the entry bays form stepped buttresses that have peaked panels at the base of the 4th floor adorned with stylized eagles; continuing up they have arches and trefoils ending in another set of peaked panels at the base of the 5th floor, above which a pair of engaged, half-octagonal columns ascend the rest of the facade at the outer two piers, ending in crenelated finials above the roof line. The center pier is topped by a lion with a crown and shield at the top of the 5th floor. The stone spandrels here between the 2nd-4th floors have Gothic patterns, also appearing in the spandrels between the 3rd & 4th floors at the other main bays as well. Framing the ends bays at the 2nd-3rd floors are angled colonnettes, joined by decorative courses at the bottom and top. A stone cornice sets off the upper floors.

The angled colonnettes continue at the end bays on the upper floors. The 9th & 10th floors are clad in beige terra-cotta. Here the wider casement windows are divided into three parts, and the bays of small single-windows below are replaced by more casement windows. The roof parapet is decorated in a checkerboard motif. Each of the colonnettes and the center columns are topped by octagonal, crocketed finials.

The 11th floor is brick and set back behind the parapet. At the center is an extravagant water tower pavilion crowned by a small lodge with a fleche and pinnacles. The building was converted to a co-op in 1988, with 143 apartments.