29 East 10th Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 29 East 10th Street by Carter Horsley

This 8-story, mid-block building at 29 East 10^th Street between University Place and Broadway in Greenwich Village was erected in 1900.

Above its ground floor, it has been converted to residential condominiums.

Bottom Line

With its black-glass, two-story base, the exterior of this narrow, mid-block, 8-story building, which is adjacent to the former Albert Hotel flophouse at the University Place corner, gives absolutely no hint of its extravagant and gaudy residential interiors on its upper floors that might tempt some preservationists to sumptuary principles.

Description

With its broad black glass base containing some retail space, this mid-block building could easily be overlooked by home-shoppers seeking impressive, fancy digs.

It has rusticated side piers above the glass-base and ground floor retail.

It is on a classic, “imperfect,” New York City block with some quite large and attractive apartment buildings such as Devonshire House on the southeast corner at University Place, a couple of buildings with fire-escapes, and some architecturally attractive buildings like the Albert, designed in 1883 by Henry J. Hardenbergh, the architect of the Dakota and Plaza Hotel, across the street from Devonshire House.

“You can see elements of the Dakota in the Albert, the spiky ironwork grates over the false balconies, the light-colored Nova Scotia stone, the lumpy modeling of the uneven façade, like a duvet thrown carelessly over a bed,” Christopher Gray, poetically observed in one of his great “Streetscapes” columns in the April 15, 2011 edition of The New York Times.

The Albert, Mr. Gray noted, originally was an apartment house, “the first section by Albert S. Rosenbaum, an investor, and it became a hotel in 1887.  He noted that Albert Pinkham Ryder, one of America’s greatest painters, had a brother, William, who managed the building for several years and painted “Death on a Pale Horse,” one of his most famous works, “as a wait who had often served him at the hotel lost his savings and the track and shot himself.”

In the 1930’s, writers such as Hart Crane and Thomas Wolfe lived at the Albert and Michelle Philips composed “California Dreaming,” a very popular song, with John Phillips when they were part of the Mamas & the Papas” and Mr. Gray wrote that Ms. Phillips “recalled the hotel ‘as a fleabag,’” adding that “Maureen Orth, a writer for The Village Voice, said that ‘on a good day the hallways smell somewhere between old socks and vomit.’”

The Albert was converted to apartments in the 1970s by the Elganayan family.

This building, which has no sidewalk landscaping and an exposed watertank on the roof, is next to the Albert Apartments at 25 East 10^th Street.  The building, which is three blocks north of Washington Square, has a one-step-up granite entrance.

An April 24, 2015 article at 6sqft.com by Emily Nonko said that the building is a former feather factory.

Apartments

The penthouse has 5 bedrooms with 12-foot-ceilings with a 30-foot-long living room painted bright turquoise with a fireplace on the 8^th floor with a 12-foot-long, windowed dining area next to a 12-foot-long, pass-through windowed kitchen with its own fireplace.  The 7^th floor has a 24-foot-long informal dining room that opens onto a 23-foot-wide play room.  The ninth floor has a 19-foot-wide study and a 41-foot-long south terrace and a 25-foot-long north terrace.  An October 20, 2016 article by Ameena Walker at ny.curbed.com noted that the apartment’s décor is “quirky,” adding “Bold paint choices, leopard-print furniture, odd sculptural mirrors, that kind of thing).”  The article said the apartment “was first listed at end of 2014 for nearly $15 million, reappeared last year for $12.5 million, and is now trying its luck…for $11.25 million.”

The loft on the 5^th floor is a three-bedroom unit with a 22-foot-wide living room that opens onto a 23-foot-long dining room next to a 14-foot-wide open, pass-through kitchen.

The second floor loft has two, 25-foot-wide bedrooms and some exposed brick wall.