Chelsea Gardens Apartments

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A complex of two 6-story Art-Deco cooperative-apartment buildings completed in 1937 - probably to a design by Horace Ginsbern. The facades are clad in warm, beige brick with light-orange brick trim, and they surround a central garden. The main entrance centered on 23rd Street is in a set-back middle section, with glass double-doors below a peaked, green canvas canopy extending out over the sidewalk. It is framed by a pair of fluted stone columns, and set in a large limestone surround with Art-Deco geometric detailing. Above the entry, the upper floors at the set-back center section have four bays of narrow double-windows. Between floors, each bay has vertical stripes of orange brick.

To either side, the facade is still set back, but less so than in the center section. There are four more bays of windows, with the inner one wrapping around the corner onto the short side walls. This bay has horizontal striping between floors. The outer two bays in these sections are covered by off-white metal fire escapes whose landings have rounded inner corners. The ends of the south facade are not set back, and have storefronts lining the ground floor, with plate-glass show-windows above brick bases, and recessed wood-and-glass doors; the storefronts are separated by brick piers, and have retractable green-and-white stripes canvas awnings. The upper floors at both ends have wider 4-pane windows at the inner edges, wrapping around the corners to the set-back areas. Continuing outward there are two paired narrow bays of double-windows, a central bay of four narrow panes, two more narrow double-windows, and end bays of four panes, which are also fronted by fire escapes with curved ends. There is horizontal orange-brick banding on the inner bays at the end sections, while the middle bays have vertical stripes between floors, and the end bays have thinner vertical striping. The striping is also expressed below the roof line, which has a metal coping, stepped up between each bay at the end sections, and also at the center two bays at the set-back middle section. The south end of the west elevation is clad in red-painted brick with no openings.

The north facade on the north building on 24th Street is similar in style. A recessed center section spans six bays of narrow double-windows, with another entrance at the ground floor. A fire escape runs down the middle two of the bays above. To either side the short side walls each have a narrow double-window bay, and the front facade has (from inward toward the ends) two bays of 4-pane windows, five bays of narrow double-windows, and two more 4-pane window bays. Fire escapes run down the outer pair of double-window bays on both sides.

Together the buildings contain 162 apartments. In 2008, over 5,000 feet of unfinished basement space was discovered, and subsequently converted into additional apartments.

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