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About The Eldorado, 300 Central Park West
The northernmost of Central Park West's great twin-towered apartment houses, the 28-story El Dorado was completed in 1931 and was designed by Emery Roth, in collaboration with Margon & Holder. Roth designed the twin-towered San Remo and the triple-towered Beresford, both further south on the avenue.
"The El Dorado marked a distinct stylistic shift in Roth's work toward a less plastic modeling of the mass and toward a Modernist sense of detail as applied to an essentially Classical composition," note authors Robert A. M. Stern, Gregory Gilmartin and Thomas Mellins in their monumental book, "New York 1930 Architecture and Urbanism Between The Two World Wars," Rizzoli, 1987.
"Because of its Modernist articulation, which could be most clearly seen in the futuristic belfrylike finials concluding each of its two towers, the Eldorado [sic], even more than the San Remo, offered convincing evidence that Classical compositional principles could rise to the demands of a new building type and a new expressive sensibility," they continued.
"The futuristic sculptural detailing of the El Dorado, as well as its geometric ornament and patterns and its contrasting materials and textures, make it one of the finest Art Deco structures in the city. The towers are terminated by ornamented setbacks with abstract geometric spires that have been compared to Flash Gordon finials," observed Steven Ruttenbaum in his definitive study of Emery Roth: "Mansions in the Clouds, the Skyscraper Palazzi of Emery Roth," Balsam Press Inc., 1986.
Ruttenbaum's book illustrates an earlier design by Roth for the El Dorado that is neo-Classical and has a mini-tower tucked between the two large towers. That abandoned design was quite graceful and unfortunately was not used elsewhere.
With 1,300 rooms, the El Dorado is roughly the same size as the other twin-towered buildings, but its 186 apartments are generally smaller than those in the others. Its base employs cast stone rather than limestone, reflecting the fact that this project was intended for a slightly less affluent clientele than its twin-towered neighbors to the south.
The El Dorado's base is nicely modulated vertically by four sets of darker mullions while the two towers are modulated by three sets of darker mullions. The overall effect is quite rhythmic. Despite the presence of a few rounded balconies and nice geometric patterning and detailing at the base of major setbacks, the building has great élan and the rather awkward finials has a machine-like intricacy appropriate to an age that was experimenting with streamlined machinery on the eve of the age of rockets.
In 1995, the building added a duplex gym in its basement and subbasement with an elevator for the handicapped, a community room and a basketball mini-court.
The building replaced a hotel, designed by Neville & Bagge, of the same name on the site that was built in 1902 and had a garage with a "charging room for electric automobiles," noted Christopher Gray in a September 14, 1997 article in The New York Times.
The towers have only one apartment per floor and all apartments are large with 10-foot-high ceilings. All apartments have fireplaces although those in the back have only decorative fireplaces. The building, which is an official city landmark, has a garage.
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