The Latham, 92 Morningside Avenue: Review and Ratings

Review of 92 Morningside Avenue by Carter Horsley

This red-brick apartment building at 92 Morningside Avenue on the northeast corner at 122^nd Street was erected in 1901, suffered considerable fire damage in 2002 and was renovated by Renaissance Realty Group in 2016.

ND Architecture, of which Nataliya Donskoy is a principal, designed the renovation, which added a two-story high roof addition on the avenue frontage and a three-story roof addition on the side-street that are modern and do not relate to the building’s very ornate Beaux-Arts façades of the 7-story base of the building that is among the most handsome in Harlem.

It has 45 rental apartments.  The building originally had 50 units.

According to a December 26, 2009 commenter at harlembespoke.blogspot.com, Marcus Retter signed a power of attorney letter in 2002 to sell this building and its sister building at 98 Morningside Drive on the southeast corner of 123^rd Street to Baruch Singer.

On the same webpage, another commenter wrote May 11, 2011 that “The FBI raided 92 Morningside Drive on the morning of April 20, 1980 in search of fugitive Black Panther Party member Assata Shakur” but did not find her.

Bottom Line

The very elegant, seven-story base of this 10-story development is a great red-brick and light-colored stone apartment palazzo with a curved corner.  It is topped, however, by two clumsy, unattractive and inexcusable, light-colored roof additions that differ in height and width and bear no contextual relationship with the base.

According to a March 21, 2016 article by Emrys Fitzgerald at 6sqft.com, “in 2012, area residents formulated a petition to the Landmarks Preservation Commission to designate the building as an official city landmarks and to require its owners to restore the building to its original grandeur.”  “While the neighborhood’s landmarking push never took off, most of the building’s original, decorative details prevail, with the partial return of its cornice,” the article continued.

Description

The building has a handsome, two-story entrance surround with an arch on the second floor and there are a few steps up to the entrance and a low-height fence surrounding the building.

The second and seventh floors have five thin bands of light-colored stone.  The stone-covered, ground-floor windows have light-colored window surrounds.

The building has stone quoins also frame its east pair of window bays, the three corner window bays and several more on its avenue bays.  The framed window bays are particularly attractive with center columns and angled lintels.

The building has a large and dark cornice except for the roof additions that are boxy and have no cornice.

The website of ND Architecture has a rendering of proposed renovation of the building that indicated that its cornices were removed and replace with a large, bronze-colored curved element on the Morningside Drive elevation and a three-story addition with three-light-colored-stone window surrounds near the east end of the side-street elevation.

Amenities

The building has an attended lobby, Abigail Michaels concierge service, a bicycle room, a children’s playroom, and permits pets.

Apartments

A three-bedroom unit has an entry adjacent to the living/dining room with an open kitchen that leads to a windowed breakfast room.

Another three-bedroom unit has a large, “L”-shaped, living/dining room with an angled window and an enclosed kitchen and one of the bedrooms has an angled wall.

A two-bedroom unit has an entry foyer that leads to a corner living/dining room with eight windows and an open kitchen.

Another two-bedroom unit has a large, angled entry foyer that leads to a living/dining room with an open kitchen and the master bedroom has an angled corner window across from an angled wall.

Apartment 4C is a two-bedroom unit with 7-inch smoked oak flooring, a Bosch washer and dryer, a kitchen with a Liebherr refrigerator, Caesarstone countertop, Alno walnut cabinetry and a bathroom with Calacatta Gold tile walls.