The Carteret Apartments (New York City, New York)

 Art Deco (architecture), apartment building

18-story Art-Deco/Tuscan residential building completed in 1927. Designed by Emery Roth as the Carteret Hotel for the Chelsea Presbyterian Church, it replaced the existing church building on the site, and opened as residential and transient hotel that included a church auditorium and related facilities. In 1946 the building was sold at auction for $830,000 after the Chelsea and Greenwich Presbyterian Churches were merged, forming the Village Church. The 2-story church space was remodeled for the Vanguard Recording Studio. In 1968 the building was fully converted to apartments, and the former church-turned recording studio was transformed into a nightclub.

The facade is clad in light-brown brick and terra-cotta, above a 2-story limestone base. There are entrances in both ends bays, the east one into the residential (former hotel) lobby, and the west one formerly being the church entrance, now housing the Gotham Comedy Club. The residential entrance has a handsome, suspended metal and glass marquee. In between the entrances the ground floor has five bays of stone, metal, and glass storefronts.

The upper floors have seven bays of multi-paned casement windows with brown metal framing, plus two bays of very small windows to the inside of both end bays. At the 2nd floor, the end bays above the entrances have detailed stone surrounds. The 3rd floor has small stone shields above the five middle bays. The 4th floor is underlined by a thin string course, and at the 4th & 5th floors the five middle bays have terra-cotta enframements. Those on the 4th floor are split into pairs of round-arches, divided by small columns with Corinthian capitals. Four large terra-cotta medallions dominate the piers between these five bays at the 4th floor. The spandrels between these floors at the middle bays are terra-cotta, with arcades of small arches. The 5th-floor middle bays are topped by faux-balconies of terra-cotta, each with a trio of round-arches springing from grotesque bases. From the 6th-13th floors the five middle bays are lined by vertical bands of darker-brown brick.

The 14th-15th floors also have terra-cotta enframements at the middle bays, with 3-sided, projecting balconies below the 15th floor, which has pairs of round-arches. The piers around the middle bays at these two floors project slightly, and a tapestry of geometric patterns of light and dark brickwork. A scalloped terra-cotta band tops the 15th floor across the middle of the facade, with a decorative panel projecting up from each pier. The end bays have trios of round-arches above the windows on the 5th, 8th, 11th, & 14th floors, and vertical bands of dark brick edging the windows at the 15th-16th floors, and large medallions between these two floors. The end bays extend up higher, with crenelations along the top. The center of the 16th floor is set back behind the projecting panels on the piers.

A 2-story penthouse rises up from the center of the facade, with two sets of round-arched double-windows in terra-cotta surrounds, topped by a large medallion. Two buttresses flank the penthouse, each capped by a small, sloped roof of red tiles. Similar tile caps the rest of the 16th floor between the end bays, and also the sides of the penthouse, surmounted only by the topmost crenelations.

There are light wells on both the east and west sides. The east elevation is mostly exposed, faced in white parged brick, and with beige brick along the interior of the light well, which is lined with double- and single-windows. There is one bay of single-windows in the north wing of the east facade, and another at the south wing, with the roof line at the 16th floor.

The building contains 262 apartment units. The ground floor is occupied by Sushi Seka, and Gotham Comedy Club.

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