56 West 65th Street

 apartment building  Add category

6-story Art-Deco residential building completed in 1937. Designed by B. Robert Swartburg, it is clad in dark-red brick. The lower part of the ground floor is horizontally banded, with a grey stone string course dividing the upper half. At the west end there are three low-set square basement windows at the sidewalk level. At the east there is one low basement opening (another has been bricked-in), and a metal gate to a basement entry. The main entrance is centered, up two steps, and recessed between angled, fluted grey stone pilasters; it has glass-and-metal double-doors below a peaked, black canvas canopy. The upper part of the ground floor has five single-windows to the west of the entrance, with decorative white metal grilles over their lower halves, and fluted brickwork between the windows. To the east there is a smaller, narrow window, and then five more single-windows, the inner one slightly shorter than the others. Topping the ground floor is a band of geometric brickwork and a stone band course.

The upper floors has paired small, narrow windows in the center, joined by a stone sill; alternating floors have brickwork in between them consisting of two pairs of vertical bands or inscribed squares. There is a bay of somewhat larger windows on either side, and then four bays of full-size single-windows, all with stone sills. Brick lintel courses runs across each floor. A pair of beige metal fire escapes with rounded corners on the landings runs down the two outer bays next to the end bays on both sides. The top of the facade has brick banding - at the ends there is also alternating panels of squares and vertical bands.

The building contains 53 apartment units.