Broadway Condominiums (New York City, New York)

 condominiums, interesting place, postmodern (architecture)

244-foot, 22-story postmodern residential building completed in 1987. Designed by William A. Hall and Charles B. Ferris Associates, it incorporates into the base a 1914 white terra-cotta 3-story building at the west end. This building was originally the RKO 81st Street Theater, designed by Thomas W. Lamb. Although the interior was not saved here, the exterior was. The building is now used for retail purposes, and contains the main entrance to the complex. Its conversion was designed by Beyer Blinder Belle, one of the city's premier architectural firms specializing in historic preservation. Behind it, the 6-story base extending along 81st Street, and the tower rising above, are clad in red brick that contrasts nicely with the white terra-cotta of the front building.

The 3-story repurposed building at the west end facing Broadway is organized into six large, double-height bays of arches at the upper floors. At the ground floor, there is a 2-bay storefront at the north end, followed by the main entrance in the next bay, then another 2-bay storefront, and a 1-bay storefront at the south end. The storefronts have plate-glass and green metal framing. The piers between them are banded and rest of grey granite plinths. The entrance bay is segmental-arched, with wood-and-glass double-doors between two bronze-framed windows and below bronze-framed transoms and a bronze screen. A very large suspended canopy with black metal around the edges extends out over the sidewalk. A band course with a wave motif caps the ground floor. Flat pilasters separate the bays at the upper floors, the middle ones with Corinthian capitals, and the end pair with fluted capitals. Adjacent to these are 1-and-one-half-story columns with stylized Ionic capitals, between which are recessed the grand arched windows with green metal framing. The soffits of the architraves are adorned with rosettes and each arch is lined by a bead molding and an egg-and-dart molding, and has a keystone with a carved face at the level of the pilaster's capitals. At the base of the 2nd floor, balustrades span each bay, between the plinths of the columns. The green metal spandrels between the 2nd & 3rd floors are covered by modern signage bands that bow outwards. The facade is crowned by a cornice with an egg-and-dart molding between a row of modillions and a row of dentils, above a frieze with wreaths, garlanded faces, and hanging pendants above each pilaster. The shorter north facade of the 3-story building has two bays, matching those on the west facade. The ground floor is occupied by the lobby, with a Starbucks Coffee at the north end, and the south end, as well as the entire 2nd & 3rd floors, occupied by Staples office supply store.

The 6-story red-brick base behind the west building has a grey granite water table. The west end bordering the 3-story building has two slightly-recessed bays at the ground floor, the first with a green metal garage door and the second with three green metal service doors. The 2nd floor here has four small square windows (with the panes replaced by metal vents in the eastern two), and the 3rd-6th floors here are organized into three bays, with double-windows in the middle bay and triple-windows in the outer bays. A stone lintel course runs across the 5th floor, with a stone coping and metal railing marking the top of the base. Above this section rises the main tower block. Farther east is a bay with a triple-window at the ground floor, and projecting, 3-window oriels above, with angled sides and green metal spandrels and framing. This projecting bay runs from the 2nd-4th floors, with flat triple-windows on the 5th & 6th floors, where the stone lintel course and roof line coping continue across. Next is a section of paired, square openings with double-windows, above deeply-recessed ground-floor private entrances with green metal doors and sidelights, behind green metal gates; a broad stone lintel covers these two openings. Two more of the projecting bays follow, then another two recessed, gated openings with double-windows above, then two more projecting bays, and finally a slightly-recessed bay with two green metal service doors at the ground floor, above which are paired single-windows.

The west face of the tower has two middle bays of triple-windows, followed by a bay of double-windows, and end bays with triple-windows, all with green metal framing. The end bays wrap around the corners for short returns of one pane on the north and south elevations, and these bays terminate at the 16th floor. At the 17th-20th floors there are two middle bays of double-windows in a recessed section, framed by north and south wings both with a bay of small, square windows and end bays of triple-windows that also wrap around the corners. The north facade has single-windows at the edges where they wrap around from the wider west and east elevations, and two more bays of single-windows closer to the center, where there is a windowless recessed area extending the full height of the tower. Above the 16th-floor setback, the north facade has single-windows at the ends (wrapping around), followed by double-windows and a slightly-recessed center bay with projecting balconies that bow outward toward the middle; these have black metal railings. The south facade matches on the top floors, while those below have only the wrap-around single-windows at the ends, and no recessed area in the middle. The east facade matches the west up to the setback; the top four floors have triple-windows at the ends bays, while the center area has (from south to north) a double-window, a small, square window, a triple-window, and a single-window.

On top of the main roof there is a red-brick mechanical penthouse level, topped by a brick-enclosed water tower. The building contains a total of 127 condominium units.

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