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About 563 Park Avenue
This very handsome, red-brick building has one of the liveliest and most complex facades on Park Avenue.
Above its two-and-a-half-story, rusticated limestone base, the building has several white stone belt courses, numerous wrought-iron balconies as well as a few in limestone and alternate floors with different window heights. The larger floors not only have taller windows, but the windows are capped with curved arch decorative elements. The balconies are underneath corner windows at the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th and 11th floors and a continuous balcony runs under all the top floor windows. Balconies also are under the center windows on the 9th floor on both the avenue and sidestreet facades.
The 13-story building, which has 20 apartments was erected in 1910 and converted to a cooperative in 1947. It has a three-story, rusticated limestone base and a paneled lobby, but protruding air-conditioners and an inconsistent fenestration.
It was built by William J. Taylor and the architect was Walter B. Chambers. It has a very attractive entrance on the sidestreet and is surrounded by a dry moat. It replaced five row houses and, according to James Trager, the author of "Park Avenue, Street of Dreams," (Atheneum, 1990), was known as "the first luxury apartment house" on the avenue.
"Its architect made it look as if all its cooperative apartments were duplexes; actually, those facing the avenue really are, those in the rear are not. A typical apartment had on its first floor a drawing room measuring 26’ by 18’ 6", a dining room 25’ x 16’, a private hall, a servants’ dining room, butler’s pantry, and kitchen’ its second floor had four bedrooms ranging in size from 18’ x 16’ to 14’ x 9’, three baths, and two servants’ rooms with sink. This was just one of several cooperative duplex apartment houses built on Park Avenue in an effort to attract more affluent tenants," Trager noted.
The building has a superb location that is convenient to midtown, clubs, shopping, restaurants and public transportation.
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