Riverside Neighborhood Assembly Houses I & II

USA / New Jersey / West New York / West 96th Street, 150-160
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155-foot, 14-story mid-century modern/brutalist cooperative-apartment building completed in 1967. Designed by Edelbaum & Webster, it is faced in concrete and notable for its uninterrupted wall of hundreds of beehive-like windows. The building is a long slab along 96th Street, with the ground floor recessed behind squared, white concrete piers, organized into 24 bays. A very low stone wall topped by a row of white concrete planter boxes fronts the building, with openings at the center for the main entrances, and near the ends, where there are secondary entrances for commercial units. The building is divided into two equal halves, numbered 150 & 160 West 96th Street. The main entrance for both sections are directly next to each other, atop two low steps, and both have a glass door in glass surrounds. The western secondary entrance is atop a set of six steps that are covered by a sloped, rounded, black canvas canopy, and has a glass door; it contains a dental office. The eastern one also has a glass door, and contains a physical therapy office.

The upper floors form one continuous grid of double-hung windows, 72 across in total, each above a concrete spandrel, many of which are pierced by air-conditioning units grouped in pairs. The rear, south-facing facade matches this design.

The west and east facades are clad in beige brick, with concrete at the ends, and the ground floor recessed, three bays wide. There is a bay of projecting concrete balconies with metal railings at the center, fronting two separate but adjoining, slightly-recessed sets of sliding glass doors. The balconies begin at the 4th floor. Three mechanical penthouses rise from the roof.

RNA stands for Riverside Neighborhood Assembly, the community organization that developed the project as part of the Mitchell-Lama affordable-housing developments. The building contains 212 apartments.
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Coordinates:   40°47'36"N   73°58'9"W
This article was last modified 3 years ago