The Orienta, 302 West 79th Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 302 West 79th Street by Carter Horsley

This elegant and eclectic apartment building was built in 1920 and converted to a cooperative in 1988.

The eight-story, mid-block building has 44 apartments.

Given its relatively modest size, this handsome building is architecturally very energetic and robust.

Many apartment building designers have traditionally broken their designs into a base, a shaft and a capital in deference to Classical columns, a notion used widely in the Italian Renaissance in the design of palazzos that generally had three district sections or layers.

Here, the building's design starts out at the base fairly conventionally with a two-story rusticated limestone façade and two rather pronounced pilasters flanking the entrance. The second floor fenestration, however, is different from the first floor

The shaft of the building is rather odd as there are two large curved bays with two windows each. The windows in the bays are placed at the sides of the bay to maximize views up and down the cross-street but the center of the bays is just masonry. The bays are tightly flanked by rusticated, five-story pilasters that are similar to the rusticated quoins at the sides of the building.

The spacing of the windows is unexpected as there are none in the five-story "shaft" of the building above the entrance and none directly above the center windows flanking the entrance.

The top floor, which serves as the "capital" in this design, has a completely different window pattern than the rest of the building and has a limestone façade topped by a cornice.

If the two bays were entirely filled with windows, this would be a very distinguished design rather than an odd one. As it is, it is still vigorous and impressive.

The building, which has no garage and no health club, is half a block from Riverside Park and convenient to excellent public transportation and shopping. There are also many religious institutions and schools nearby.

Carter B. Horsley