190 Columbus Avenue

USA / New Jersey / West New York / Columbus Avenue, 190-198
 apartment building  Add category

5-story Neo-Grec with Queen Anne-style elements residential building completed in 1886. Designed by Thom & Wilson, it is clad in red-painted brick with tan stone trim above modernized ground-floor storefronts. The entrance to the upper floors is inserted just south of the northern two storefronts, with a glass door framed in metal, with a clamshell canopy.

The upper floors have paired windows in the middle bay, followed by single-windows, paired windows, and single-windows in the end bays. A tan string course runs below the 2nd-floor windows, which all have keyed surrounds and delicated eared lintels, joined above the outer paired-window bays. The 3rd floor has another string course topped by a wider painted band than is broken by the bases of each window. Here the paired windows have tan metal cornices and the single-windows have flat, eared lintels. Brick chimney shafts with tan stone accents project from the facade beginning at the 3rd floor, inside of the end bays, and flanking the middle bay. The have niches at the 3rd & 4th floors, and grow wider at the top floor, with larger recessed panels ending in double-arches; each shaft extends past the roof line.

The 4th floor has tan sills, joined at the paired window bays, and every window has a small cornice above tan, flat lintels joined at the shoulders. The top floor has tan stone sills, joined by painted bands, and a broad tan-painted stone parapet tops this floor, with sunbursts above each window. At the middle of the facade, a large, shallow arch with a keystone and foliate ornament covers the two center sunbursts, with a small one in between. The top part of the parapet, interrupted by the chimney shafts, has a dentil course above a wave pattern interrupted by metopes at the sides of the facade. In the center, the top part of the parapet has the same wave pattern and dentil course, with the arch's keystone extending up to the roof line.

The south elevation, facing a narrow alley, is clad in plain brown brick with single-windows. The narrow north facade on 69th Street basically matches the main facade with a few variations; the ground floor has a short return of the northern storefront, and to the right is a metal service door. The 2nd floor has two bays of tripartite windows, with sunbursts above the center panes. There are four single-windows on the floors above. At the 3rd floor the end bays have shell-shaped, projecting stone sills. The ground floor is occupied by Venchi Chocolate & Gelato, Blank Street Coffee, a Bank of America ATM storefront, Robert Marc Eyewear, and Jones Shoe Repair.
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   40°46'31"N   73°58'49"W
This article was last modified 2 years ago