The Strathmore, 404 Riverside Drive: Review and Ratings

Review of 404 Riverside Drive by Carter Horsley

One of Riverside Drive's great apartment buildings, the Strathmore is distinguished by its large curved marquee and arched entrance.

Designed by Schwartz & Gross for the Akron Building Company, the building was erected in 1909 and has a four-story, rusticated limestone base, a dark red-brick shaft and a three story limestone and terra-cotta capital capped by a large and handsome cornice. The corner of the building is angled.

Tall, five-globed torcheres flank the imposing entrance whose marquee is now solid but originally was glass.

In his excellent book, "Luxury Apartment Houses of Manhattan, An Illustrated Guide," (Dover Publications Inc., 1992), Andrew Alpern noted that the architects, Simon Schwartz and Arthur Gross planned each floor to have two 10-room apartments with "exceptional high ceilings, complex plasterwork moldings, walnut paneling, and elaborately bordered parquet floors." The apartments, he continued, had mahogany doors, "bathtubs sized for couples and circular stall showers formed by a cage of chromed water pipes that can attack a weary body from every conceivable position and angle."

Although some apartments were divided over the years, Alpern noted that some of the original ones remain including a duplex on the lower two floors. For many years, the building was owned by Newbold Morris, a member of one of New York's oldest families who was for a while the city's Parks Commissioner. The 12-story building, which has 49 apartments, was converted to a cooperative in 1967 and Alpern wrote that its residents have included District Attorney Frank Hogan and theological Reinhold Niebuhr. The site was once owned by William Waldorf Astor.