32 Washington Square West: Review and Ratings

Review of 32 Washington Square West by Carter Horsley

 This handsome, 15-story building at 32 Washington Square West overlooking Washington Square Park was erected in 1925 and has 31 co-operative apartments. 

It was developed by Washington Square Holding Corp., of which Maurice Deutsch was the sole owner, and it was designed by Deutsch & Schneider. 

The building has an entrance at 67 Washington Place, which is just off the corner of Washington Square West/Macdougal Alley. 

It overlooks Washington Square Park's chess circle and attractive jungle rope gym and is one block north of the New York University Law School.

Bottom Line

An attractive, pre-war apartment building overlooking Washington Square Park with large units and a canopied entrance.

Description

The first two floors have a series of two-story-high, terracotta pilasters with Corinthian tops surmounted by a cornice, while the top two floors have a pair of pilasters between horizontal band courses, a pair of pilasters centered and crowned by a broken pediment motif against the brick of the loggia on the roof. 

There is a wide bandcourse and a stringcourse above the second story with low-relief terracotta urns. 

The building has a canopied entrance with nice terracotta trim detailing. 

The building permits window air-conditioners.

Amenities

The building has a full-time doorman, basement storage, a fitness center and a washer and dryer.

Apartments

Apartment 14W is a four-bedroom duplex unit with a 21-foot-long entry foyer on the lower level that leads past a 14-foot-long, windowed kitchen and pantry to a 28-foot-foot-long living/dining room with a stair to the upper level that has three bedrooms.  The lower level has another bedroom, a 14-foot-wide office and a 8-foot-wide den. 

Apartment 10E is a three-bedroom unit with an 8-foot-long entry gallery that leads to a 20-foot-wide living room with a wood-burning fireplace and a 20-foot-wide dining room next to a 9-foot-wide den and a 14-foot-wide eat-in, windowed kitchen. 

Apartment 8E is a four-bedroom unit with a long entry foyer that leads to a 20-foot-long living room and a 20-foot-long enclosed dining room and 14-foot-long, windowed kitchen.

History

 According to the Greenwich Village Historic District text, on this corner "once stood an exceptionally handsome Italianate town house known as the old Hicks-Lord house."  "It was set back from both streets and was entered by a spacious stoop facing Washington Square West.  Four stories high, with basement, it was crowned by a modillioned roof cornice, and the doors and windows were segmental-arched with molded frames.  Windows at the parlor level were floor-length and opened onto balconies with cast iron railings, which extended along both sides.  On its south (Washington Place) side, a polygonal bay window formed a tier the full heights of the house.  Mansions such as this one gave Washington Square, as well as Lower Fifth Avenue, an air of quiet elegance in the mid-Nineteenth Century.  This house was built in 1850-51 for Joseph W. Alsop, merchant, as his home.  Toward the end of the century, it became the home of Mrs. Annette Hicks-Lord, widow of Thomas Lord, it became a center of social activity.  The house was the Progressive Party Clubhouse in the time of Theodore Roosevelt.  In 1915, it was sold for Rodman Wanamaker."