NYU Bronfman Center for Jewish Life

 university, Moorish Revival (architecture), interesting place, historic landmark, historical building, Renaissance Revival (architecture), Byzantine Revival (architecture)

5-story university building completed in 1887. Designed by Van Campen Taylor as a townhouse for Lockwood de Forest. The ornamentation of the house features intricate Indian teakwood detailing which is likely the only house in New York City with such detailing. The East Indian influence may best be seen in the highly ornate teakwood bay window on elaborately carved brackets above the first floor windows. Inspired by his wedding trip to India, De Forest decorated the facade with low relief teak carvings produced in a Ahmedabad factory, particularly around the building's main entry and the projecting oriel on the second floor. The unobtrusive entrance door has a carved teakwood frame. he rich carving of the bay window is handsomely contrasted by the plain brick wall surrounding it. Other details of Indian inspiration are to be found in the heads of the window frames and in the brackets of the roof cornice.

De Forest sold the house in 1922, and the building was divided into apartments sometime after 1930. NYU purchased the building in 1994, and opened the Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life in it. Several of the rooms retain their resplendent carved detailing.

daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2011/04/lockwood-de-fore...
archive.org/details/isbn_9780810944411/page/73/mode/1up
www.nytimes.com/1895/11/24/archives/unique-in-decoratio...