310 West 55th Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 310 West 55th Street by Carter Horsley

This six-story, red-brick apartment building at 310 West 55^th Street on the southwest corner at Eighth Avenue has an extremely attractive, broad, and fancy white entrance surround with balcony. 

Built in 1941, it was converted in 1986 to 61 cooperative apartments.

Bottom Line

This co-operative apartment building just oozes with gentility and gracious charm highlighted by its lacy white entrance at the end of one of the most attractive streets in Clinton.  It is close to Columbus Circle, Central Park and excellent public transportation.

Description

This red-brick co-operative apartment building with a very impressive, colonnaded front entrance portico of white painted cast iron lacy columns is the West Side response, architecturally, to The Cosmopolitan Club at 122 East 66^th Street on the Upper West Side.  Both are New York’s best examples of New Orleans cast-iron style. 

The surround has four lacy metal columns fronting on the street on a one-step-up platform flanked by lush, fenced landscaping.  The entrance door is flanked by two narrow windows and topped by an arched window and this surround is also white. 

The building has a rusticated one-story masonry base with stone quoins.  The quoins switch to masonry for the full height of the six-story building and the Georgian-style is further reinforced by the white frames of the windows, some of which contain air-conditioners.  

There is, however, little confusion that this might be a gatehouse for Tara of Gone With The Wind as New York City’s fire escapes climb the inner façades of the building’s wings and they are not painted white. 

The building has thin white bandcourses above the first, third, fifth floors and sixth floors and the center portion of the roofline has two flattened peaks over circular stone designs.  

Amenities

The building has a full-time doorman, a resident superintendent, a bicycle room, a laundry room and a common storage room.  It is also pet-friendly.

Apartments

Many of the apartments have high ceilings and slightly arched openings between rooms. 

Some have living rooms with sliding French doors and dining areas on raised platforms.