230 West 81st and 2270-2274 Broadway

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A complex of four 5-story Tuder-revival residential buildings completed together in 1889. The three 4-bay building to the south mostly match, while 230 West 81st at the north end (aka 2276 Broadway) caps the row with a contrasting design. The ground floors along the avenue are stone, lined with plate-glass-and-metal storefronts. Three matching entrances to Nos. 2270, 2272, & 2274 have slightly-recessed wood-and-glass doors; No. 2270's is at the far south end, while the other two abut each other. The entrance to the north building is on 82nd Street. The upper floors are clad in dark red painted brick.

Nos. 2270 & 2272 have tripartite windows in aluminum framing on the 2nd floor, and paired windows on the 3rd-5th floors, with flat white stone lintels. Brick string courses underline each floor, with bands of corbels below the 4th floor and at the top of the 5th. The projecting piers framing each facade as well as separating the two halves of each facade have vertical grooves at the top two floors. Red metal balconies front the inner three bays on both of these facades at the 3rd-5th floors, and a large, vertical metal sign is attached to the facade between the two, running from the top of the 2nd floor to the base of the 5th.

No. 2274 is essentially the same, except that the 2nd floor has projecting bay windows, and there is a red metal fire escape running down the middle two bays. All three of the southern buildings are crowned by matching brown metal roof cornices with brackets, dentils, and panels.

The north building, 2274 Broadway or 230 West 81st, has three bays on the west facade, each with a single-window. The middle bay is clad in grey stone, with brown-painted vertical and horizontal cross beams designed to resemble timbers on the top three floors, ending in a sharply-peaked gable that extends above the cornice-less roof line. Another fire escape, painted a browner color, runs down the south and middle bays.

The ground floor of the north facade on 82nd Street is painted a more red color than the upper floors, which have a more orange hue. There is a short plate-glass storefront section at the west end, next to two smaller, almost-square display-windows. The only other openings on the ground floor are at the east end, where there is a red metal service door to the left of the main entrance: a glass door, narrow sidelights and transom framed by dark-grey stone with a triangular pediment. The upper floors have four bays of single-windows in the middle, and single-window end bays. Between these are two bays of grey stone with narrow double-windows at the centers. These bays have brown-painted cross-beams - horizontal, vertical, and diagonal, with differing patterns in the west vs. the east bay. Both are topped by gables rising above the roof line. A brown metal fire escape runs down the middle two bays of the facade, and there is a section of sloped shingle roof carried on brackets between the two gables. The ground floors along the avenue are occupied by Town Shop lingerie (whose vertical sign is attached to the upper floors).