Towne House Apartments

 Art Deco (architecture), apartment building

364-foot, 25-story Art-Deco/Art-Moderne residential building completed in 1930. Designed by Bowden & Russell (with reportedly Emery Roth as supervising architect), it is clad in brown brick. The form of its tall tower is reminiscent of that at One Fifth Avenue, and its bold use of color (in the form of terra-cotta tiles at the crown) and the very dark masonry are quite unusual in New York.

The main entrance is centered, with a revolving door recessed in a beige marble surround and covered by a peaked, brown canvas canopy extending out over the sidewalk. A pair of light fixtures are mounted on the surround to either side of the doorway. To the right is a restaurant space with a single-window in a black stone surround, a wider window, another single-window, and black wooden door below a peaked, black canvas canopy. To the left is a secondary door in a black stone surround, a paired window bay and a single-window (both with iron grilles), and a service entrance with a black metal door.

The upper floors have two bays of paired windows in the middle (four single-windows at the 2nd floor, with the brick piers in between featuring checkerboard patterns of raised bricks). To either side is a very narrow window, and two bays of paired windows. Starting at the 3rd floor, the darker-colored brick spandrels between floors at each bay have serrated, vertical bands. The outer two bays on each side set back above the 9th floor, where they are marked by curved, projecting brick panels, and the piers have vertical grooves. The set-back floors at the ends form narrow mini-towers that rise to the 15th floor, while the middle bays set back above the 12th floor.

Above the 15th floor, the building narrows to a thinner main tower that has two bays of single-windows. The upper parts of the tower are crowned with brilliant glazed terra-cotta panels in a broad and wondrous spectrum that can be enjoyed as a special colorful cresting. There is also a variety of thin, vertical brick ribbing adding texture. The top three floors comprise a mechanical housing and water tower enclosure, with chamfered corners.

The south facade has a series of shallow setbacks leading up the central tower, and the side elevations have small light courts above the base, with some shallow setbacks at the top floors, as well as each side having an interesting curved bay at one of the floors.

The building contains 250 apartment units. The west part of the ground floor is occupied by Rossini's restaurant.

www.newyorkitecture.com/tag/bowden-russell/
hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.32106006337445?urlappend=%3Bseq...