176 West 87th Street (New York City, New York) | apartment building, 1918_construction, housing cooperative

 apartment building, 1918_construction, housing cooperative

143-foot, 13-story cooperative-apartment building completed in 1918. Designed by Schwartz & Gross, it is clad in brown brick with a high, grey granite water table on the north facade, and metal-and-glass storefronts lining the ground floor along the avenue. The west facade is divided into two unequal wings above the ground floor by a deep light well. There are also smaller light wells as the south and east sides.

The main entrance is centered on 87th Street, with black glass-and-wood double-doors below a rounded, green canvas canopy extending out over the sidewalk, set in a granite surround rising from the water table. The doorway is flanked by globe light fixtures and at the top the surround has a pair of scrolled brackets carrying a cornice. To the left the ground floor has a single-window, a double-window, and another single-window. To the right there are two single-windows and a small show-window for the north storefront.

The upper floors on the north facade have double-windows in the center bay, flanked by a tripartite window, double-window, and single-window end bays. The windows are divided by iron mullions. At the 2nd floor the center bay has a terra-cotta surround with elaborate scrolls at the sides, and a decorated cornice on top. There are 2-story outlined brick panels on the piers at the 2nd-3rd floors, and brick spandrels with patterns of brickwork set of 90-degree angles. String courses set off the 4th & 5th floors, as well as the 11th & 12th. The roof line is marked by a simple coping.

The west facade along the avenue has five bays of single-windows on the north wing (with the middle three spaced closer together), and eight single-windows on the south wing (again, the middle bays are closer together). The brickwork and string courses match those on the north facade. The side walls of the light well have five single-windows, and the rear wall has three single-windows at staggered heights.

There is one bay of single-windows near the west end of the south facade, with three more windows at the east end, and windows also lining the small light well.

The building was converted to a co-op in 1983, with 86 apartments. The ground floor along the avenue is occupied by Barney Greengrass The Sturgeon King restaurant, Kirsch Kitchen & Bakery, and Hudson & Charles butcher shop.