130 East 67th Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 130 East 67th Street by Carter Horsley

One of the purest Italian Renaissance-palazzo style apartment buildings in the city, this building was erected in 1908 and converted to a cooperative in 1959.

The 12-story building is a virtual twin of the building that occupies the southern portion of the Lexington Avenue blockfront at 131 East 66th Street. The other building has a slightly more favorite site because it is across the sidestreet from the Roman Catholic Church of St. Vincent Ferrer designed by Bertram Goodhue. Both buildings are across the avenue from the full-block Seventh Regiment Armory, whose main entrance and more attractive façade is on Park Avenue. Nevertheless, the low-rise provides this building with considerable "light and air."

Both buildings were designed by Charles A. Platt for William J. Taylor, who had developed "studio" apartment buildings on the West Side. Mr. Platt was a member of the architectural firm of Pollard & Steinam when he designed the 66th Street building and switched to the firm of Rossiter & Wright to design this building.

The other building was built the year before this one and has only 32 apartments while this one has 56.

They are among the few formal apartment buildings that have many apartments with living rooms with very high ceilings, most of which were planned to have north light, some of which are visible on the sidestreet of this building.

The building is distinguished by its very handsome and large cornice and its very impressive entrance portals flanked by columns and topped with broken pediments on the sidestreet. The building has a nice, tall, wrought-iron fence and four stringcourses. The architect, who originally had an apartment in the building, visually broke up the long sidestreet façade by slightly protruding the middle stringcourses beneath the windows in the center of the façade, a quite subtle touch. The building fortunately retains its consistent multipaned fenestration.

It has a doorman and the second floor has nice wrought-iron balconies. The building has no garage and no sidewalk landscaping. Cross-town buses and a local subway station are nearby on 67th Street as is a police precinct. Hunter College is one block to the north on the avenue where there is considerable traffic. There is very good neighborhood shopping in the vicinity.

Carter B. Horsley