Central Park Studios

 apartment building, 1905_construction, Renaissance Revival (architecture)

14-story Renaissance-revival (with Gothic elements) cooperative-apartment building completed in 1905. Designed by Simonson, Pollard & Steinam, it is clad in variegated red brick and terra-cotta above a 2-story limestone base, five bays wide. The central, projecting entrance vestibule is ornamented with Gothic arches, pinnacles, bosses, and gables around the recessed double-doors. A small carved panel above the doors reads "The Central Park Studios" in a Gothic font. Above it, supported by a row of alternating rosettes and small gargoyle heads, are three arched, leaded-glass windows surmounted by smaller arched windows that fill the apex of a segmental-arch in which the doors are set. The arch is lined with varied rosettes and topped by a pinnacle. A pair of projecting, paneled pilasters flank the entrance, setting back to the paneled upper pilasters at the 2nd floor that are crowned by elaborate pinnacles; a gable between them (above the entry arch) is also crowned by a shorter pinnacle.

Basement areaways on either side of the center bay are fronted by pale-green iron fencing with limestone posts with paneling and angled tops that match those framing the entrance. At both the ground floor and 2nd floor there are wide single-windows in the next bays, and the end bays have double-windows with pilaster dividing them at the 2nd floor. The base is capped by a band course with varied rosettes; the narrow, paneled piers of the base continue as gabled pinnacles above the band course onto the 3rd floor.

The middle section of the building is faced with brick enlivened by pulled bricks set in a rhythmic pattern. There are small, widely spaced black stone quoins at the edges of the facade and at the edges of each window bay - these are slightly recessed with the quoined edges angling back at the 3rd-5th, 6th-8th, & 9th-11th floors. The center bay has paired windows, the end bays have double-windows, and the other two bays have single-windows, all with stone sills and lintels. There are small stone panels with projecting faces at the piers between the 5th & 6th floors, and between the 8th & 9th.

The 12th floor is set off by projecting band courses at the top and bottom, with gargoyles at the piers. The top two floors are horizontal banding of terra-cotta, and the center and end bays are framed by terra-cotta pilasters projecting up above the roof line as small gables. Larger gables crown these bays between the piers.

The building contains 31 apartments.