The history of our apartment building

Several people have asked about the history of our apartment building. Our building is a pre-war building, a term generally applied to apartment buildings built in New York City before World War II. These buildings typically have high ceilings, thick walls (we can attest to the thick walls – haven’t heard a peep from any neighbor since moving in) and plaster ornamentation. Here’s a bit of the history of our building . . .

Between the mid-1880s and the turn of the century, most of the housing being built in New York City was single family row houses and town houses in a variety of styles and materials.  Around the turn of the century, apartment living began gaining respectability among the middle and upper classes and developers began building small multiple dwellings in the West End-Collegiate Historic District Extension (an area located west of Broadway between West 70th and 79th Streets).  These smaller dwellings were often referred to as “French flats.”

With the advent of the smaller, more practical electric elevator in the early 1900s, developers began constructing larger, multiple dwelling buildings ranging in height from six to nine stories. In addition, the opening of the IRT subway in 1904 (today’s 1, 2 and 3 subway lines) made the Upper West Side more accessible and appealing to the city’s expanding population.

Rules established by the Tenement House Act in 1901 determined the form, massing, and maximum height of new residential buildings. These regulations contributed to the height of apartment buildings, including ours, that were designed during the 1910s and 1920s by many of the city’s most prominent residential architects including Schwartz & Gross, Gaetan Ajello, Rosario Candela, Emery Roth and George F. Pelham.

Our building – 228 West 71^st Street – was designed and constructed in 1916-1917 by Emery Roth, one of the city’s leading builders of pre-war buildings. The 14-story (plus penthouse) apartment hotel was named the Hotel Robert Fulton, in honor of the inventor of the first commercially successful steamboat to provide ferry service up the Hudson River from New York City to Albany in 1807. The building’s Colonial Revival style features red brick, limestone, terra cotta and granite.

Advertisements for the hotel, beginning shortly after its c. 1917 opening, touted one- to three-room suites (either furnished or unfurnished), “complete hotel service,” an “excellent restaurant,” and emphasized its views overlooking the Hudson River. By 1955, kitchenettes were added to the advertisements after the laws were changed to allow them in apartment hotels. The interior of the hotel was noted for its tasteful design in a 1917 issue of “Architecture and Building Magazine” in an article that included images of the lobby, a typical living room, and the hotel dining room. 

When we started looking for our new apartment, we hoped to find a pre-war building that would work for us. We love the original wood floors, thick walls and old-New York feel these buildings offer – plus it’s wonderful to be able to discover the history of these dwellings. The location of our building in the heart of the Upper West Side – just blocks from Riverside and Central Parks, Lincoln Center and the Hudson River – makes it ideal for us. We’re very happy with our apartment and the neighborhood so far!