Designed by Philip Birnbaum, the 278-unit building was developed by Giffuni Bros., and completed in 1978.

It occupies the former site of the Colonial Theater, which was built in 1904 and later became the Harkness Theater. The Colonial Theater was "hallowed by Chaplin, Houdini, Walter Hampden and - among many others - Walter Winchell, whose nightly broadcast originated here in the forties," according to Peter Selwen in his very interesting book, "Upper West Side Story A History and Guide," (Abbeville Press, 1989).

The handsome building has an L-shape and is wrapped around 1881 Broadway. It has a large through-block arcade, entered from Broadway, that originally had a lot of red seating. In 1997, a large part of the arcade was rented to a "rock-climbing" enterprise that brought a new, blatantly vigorous, albeit incongruous, life to the space.