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About Gatsby House, 155 West 71st Street
This 6-story, mid-block apartment building at 155 East 71st Street was erected in 1940 and has 55 condominium apartments.
It is called The Gatsby House, but its fire escapes do not recall the legendary architectural splendors of the type of house that F. Scott Fitzgerald's romantic hero of the North Shore of Long Island might have made one of his abodes.
But literary license is important, especially in New York City and especially on the Upper West Side and this block does have its glories: the putti on the entrance gate at the fabulous Dorilton apartment building on the northeast corner of Broadway and 71st Street and the very impressive Gothic facade of the Blessed Sacrament Roman Catholic Church directly across 71st Street from this building's entrance.
In their great book, "The A. I. A. Guide to New York City, Fourth Edition," Norval White and Elliot Willensky wrote that "The facades of sanctuary and rectory are brilliantly modeled to exploit this difficult and jam-packed midblock site. Though the stonework is not heavily tooled, the vigorous interplay of volume, void, and silhouette is just enough for the shallow viewing space of a typically narrow 60-foot-wide side street. The rose window is in striking reds and blues."
The church was erected in 1917 and designed by Gustave Steinback.
It and the Gatsby House are just a block away from the 72nd Street subway station, the epicenter of the Upper West Side, and only a few blocks north of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
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