AMDA Amsterdam Residence Hall

 dormitory  Add category

A trio of joined 6-story/5-story dormitory buildings completed in 1898. The eastern two were designed and built together, while the western building was originally built as two separate facades joined with the neighboring two buildings to the west. The narrow 2-story facade section at the west had its entrance removed and was united with the 3-bay section to the east, essentially creating a 5-bay building with a central entrance. It was joined together with Nos. 203 & 205 (both also five bays wide) in 1970 and combined into a dormitory for the American Musical and Dramatic Academy.

The west building stands six floor high; the eastern two originally were twins, but a new 6th floor was added to No. 203. All three facades are clad in Roman brick (painted white at No. 203) above limestone ground floors and basements (rusticated at No. 207). All three have low stoops with grey stone steps and cream-colored sidewalls with paneled, square newel posts at the ends, with each panel decorated with Renaissance ornament. The stoop at No. 203 has only three steps, No. 205 has six, and No. 207 has four; each of the sidewalls is topped by a short iron railing. The entryways at Nos. 203 & 205 match, with surrounds featuring two rows of patterned moldings below a dentil course that extends across the ground floors. Nestled within the moldings are a pair of round columns with Ionic capitals. Between these, No. 203 has a black metal-and-glass door with sidelights and a transom, and No. 205 has metal-and-glass double-doors and a transom. Extending up to the cornice above the ground floor are entablatures carved with a pattern of flowers, medallions, and scrolls. The ground floor at No. 207 is set lower, and its entrance matches those on the two buildings to the west, with a small portico formed by Corinthian columns in front of flat Corinthian pilasters, carrying an elaborately-carved entablature of Renaissance ornament with a cornice and balustrade. The cornice and egg-and-dart molding below it extends to either side across the ground floor. The entry has metal-and-glass double-doors below a ronuded green canvas canopy that slopes down the stoop, matching canopies over the other two entrances. There are two single-windows on either side of each entry, with iron grilles, and basement windows below them, behind the basement areaways that are enclosed by iron fencing. Part of the ground floor at No. 203 has been converted to a commercial space, occupied by Giovanni Shoe Repair, and Qi GongTui-na Reflexology.

The upper floors of Nos. 203 & 205 have five bays of single-windows with stone surrounds. The outer bays have cornices at the 2nd & 3rd floors, while the 2nd-floor middle bays have rounded pediments, and the 3rd-floor middle bays have triangular pediments. A band course with a wave motif runs below the 3rd floor. The 4th-floor windows are round-arched with keystones. Slightly-projecting, 2-story brick piers between the bays at the 3rd-4th floors are topped by Ionic capitals and support a broad band course below the 5th floors, which have simple incised panels on the piers. A simple brick parapet and metal coping marks the roof line at No. 205. The newer 6th floor at No. 203 is clad in pinkish brick, with five bays of square-headed single-windows with splayed lintels and keystones, and a metal coping along this roof line.

No. 207 matches the facade of its original counterpart at No. 211. The three single-window bays on the right are separated from the two on the left by a columns of quoins that marked the division between the two original facades. There are also quoins at both edges of the joined facade. The windows all have stone surrounds, with bead moldings, bracketed sills and cornices at the 2nd-4th floors. Those at the 2nd floor have triangular pediments, and the others have cornices. The 5th-floor windows are round-arched with keystones, and the western two bays combine into a 3-window span instead. The triple-window arrangement remains at the 6th floor, where the windows return to square-headed, below a pair of black metal roof cornices. Both have brackets and ornamented friezes, but the cornice over the wider 3-bay section also has dentils.

A black metal fire escape runs down the facade of No. 203, with a wider landing at the top floor.