The Ormonde

USA / New Jersey / West New York / West 70th Street, 154
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133-foot, 12-story Neo-Classical residential building completed in 1900 as a hotel. Designed by Robert Maynicke, its lower floors match the design of the neighboring building to the south, which was completed a few years earlier. It opened as the Ormonde Hotel before becoming the Hotel Embassy and then Embassy Tower, when it was converted to apartments.

It is clad in pale orange brick and and light-grey terra-cotta above a rusticated limestone ground floor with a dark-grey granite water table. The ground floor was remodeled in 2013. The main entrance is roughly centered on the north facade on 70th Street. It has a revolving door and a glass traditional door, separated by a sidelight, and is topped by a suspended metal canopy. There is an oval window on either side, followed by secondary glass doors with sidelights and transoms. Globe light fixtures frame all three entrances. The east end of the ground floor has a retail space consisting of two show-windows flanking a glass door with a sidelight and transom. The west end has a single-window above a sideways-descending set of steps to a basement entrance (behind a metal railing), followed by two show-windows and a single-window in the end bay. The northwest corner is chamfered and has a glass door to a retail space. Show-windows and glass storefront doors continue along the west facade on Broadway. The ground floor is capped by a dentil course that aligns with the one topping the neighboring building's ground floor. It projects out farther, with larger dentils, at the chamfered corner, and at the center bay on the west facade.

The 2nd floor is banded with five horizontal egg-and-dart moldings, and capped by a cornice with a smaller egg-and-dart molding at its lower edge. Along the west facade there is a single-window at the south bay, followed by two bays of paired windows, a single-window at the center bay, two more bays of paired windows with a bay of smaller bathroom windows inserted between the two, and a single-window at the north end bay. The rounded northwest corner has three single-windows on each floor, arrayed around the projecting, curving bay. The north facade has a bay of paired windows near the west end, followed by two single-windows, a bay of smaller bathroom windows, a bay of paired windows above the main entrance, two more single-windows, another paired-window bay, and single-windows at the east end bay.

The 2nd-floor windows are round-arched and have surrounds with subtle molded edges; they are topped by cartouches flanked by cornucopiae. The exceptions are the two small bathroom window bays, which have oval windows at the 2nd floor, both with four compass-point keystones and a ribbon panel across the top. At the center bay on the west facade, a pair of ogees rise from the cornice and framed the window at the 3rd floor.

Above the 2nd floor, most of the windows have beveled surrounds with a pattern of small rosettes. The smaller bathroom windows have projecting sills on carved brackets, supporting pilasters with hanging pendants, and topped by cornices with a keystone and crowning filigrees. The 5th-floor windows also have projecting, bracketed sills, which carry round, fluted columns with stylized capitals supporting triangular pediments. At the paired window bays there are projecting stone balconies supported by three console brackets, having front walls carved with ornate foliate ornament. Similar balconies are on the center bay on the west facade and surrounding the rounded northwest corner bay. A dentil course with egg-and-dart moldings sets off the 8th floor, and aligns with the bottom edge of the neighboring building to the south's roof cornice.

The 8th & 9th floors match those below. The 10th floor is set off by another cornice with an egg-and-dart molding, above a frieze. This floor is banded like the 2nd, and also has round-arched windows (except for the oval windows at the smaller-window bays). The top two floors are clad in lighter-colored, banded brick at the piers. The windows are grouped into 2-story stone enframements carved with elaborate bands; the 12th-floor windows are round-arched. The stone spandrels between the two floors have garlands. Both main facades are crowned by a beige metal roof cornice with brackets alternating with rosettes on the soffit, above a dentil course. The roof cornice extends for a short return onto the west end of the south facade, and the north end of the east facade. It also continues as a reduced version across the rest of the south facade's west wing (there is a narrow light wells splitting the south facade into a west wing and a set-back east wing that has a large, round chimney pipe).

The front bay of the east facade is clad in orange brick, with single-windows. The rest is clad in red brick and has three bays of single-windows, and a bay of paired windows. The building contains 176 apartment units. One of the ground-floor storefronts along Broadway is occupied by Core Power Yoga.
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Coordinates:   40°46'36"N   73°58'53"W
This article was last modified 2 years ago