863 Park Avenue: Review and Ratings

Review of 863 Park Avenue by Carter Horsley

This handsome apartment building at 863 Park Avenue on the northeast corner at 77^th Street was erected in 1908 by William J. Taylor who also built 925 Park Avenue and the two buildings, which have multi-level units, "are the oldest luxury apartment buildings to survive on Park," Christopher Gray wrote in the July 12, 1998 "Streetscapes" article in The New York Times when the building installed new windows.

Mr. Taylor also built 563, 823 and 829 Park Avenue, along with 140 West 57th Street and 130 East 67th Street and Mr. Gray noted that he "told The Real Estate Record and Guide that "we do not promote schemes" but rather only help out "when a few friends get together."

The building was designed by Pollard & Steinham.  It has 25 co-operative apartments.

Bottom Line

This very attractive pre-war apartment building across the side-street from Lenox Hill Hospital has a very grand and imposing canopied entrance and moat and rusticated base.

Description

Mr. Gray characterized the building as "chaste and classical, with columns flanking the doorway and buff brick walls frame by a limestone base and top."

"By the early teen years of this century," Christopher Gray wrote, "professional developers spotted the moneymaking possibilities in building for profit instead of out of friendship and the club-type apartment houses were soon superseded by more conventional projects. These later buildings were often more efficiently planned and, after the long siege of Depression struggles, it was usually the older co-ops that went into foreclosure, as did 863 Park Avenue in 1940. Most of the duplexes were divided at that time, but the building was reconverted to a co-op in the 1950's."

Many of the original units were multi-level and the building is unusual in that its Park Avenue façade has many bricked-up windows.

The building has a moat on the 77th Street where the elevation falls considerably from west to east. It has a nice rusticated base and cornice and an impressive five-step-up entrance to leads to a lobby with a two-step-up elevator level.

It is directly across 77th Street from Lenox Hill Hospital that in the early part of the 21st Century changed the façade of its north building on Park Avenue from pink to blue-green.

Mr. Gray noted that new windows in 1998 were "handsome, with muntins patterned after the originals and buff color," but added that "they also have the new, manufactured character that is out of synch with the observable age of the building, and the glass has that ghostly reflectivity that comes with modern double-glazing."

Mr. Gray responded to a query from Sylvia Steinbrock about the building's many bricked-out windows on the Park Avenue side because she could not "believe that these were actually windows that were later obliterated, nor can I believe the architect originally designed the building this way."

Mr. Gray wrote that "In designing 863 Park Avenue in 1907, the architects Pollard & Steinam chose to establish a regular, evenly spaced grid of windows - or blind windows - over the entire façade. The building was split between large duplex units on the Park Avenue side and smaller simplex units on 77th Street. The simplex units - with smaller rooms - required a fairly close spacing of windows, and this pattern was extended to the duplex section. Where there is a single blind opening on Park Avenue, it is a bedroom floor, and where there is a pair of blind openings, they cover the fireplace on an entertaining floor. The top floor, with four blind openings, marks a specially designed apartment. A regular pattern of fenestration was a fairly strong convention at this time. Although some buildings like 131 Riverside Drive (Neville & Bagge, 1910) defied it, most others observed it, like 535 Park Avenue (Herbert Lucas, 1911). By the 1920's, there was a freer approach and most architects were unworried by asymmetrical fenestration, as at 770 Park Avenue (Rosario Candela, 1930)."

Amenities

The building has a doorman, an elevator operator, storage and a live-in superintendent.

Apartments

A triplex penthouse has a 19-foot-long, curved entry hall with staircase that leads to a 15-foot-long library with fireplace that opens  to a 27-foot-long, double-height living room with fireplace that connects to a 20-foot-long dining room with fireplace next to a 12-foot-long pantry and a 15-foot-square, windowed kitchen on the lower level, three bedrooms and a maid’s room on the middle level and two more bedrooms and another maid’s room on the top floor.

Apartment 8W is a three-bedroom unit that has a 9-foot-long vestibule that leads past an 11-foot-long kitchenette to a 10-foot-long entry hall that opens onto a 31-foot-long living room that connects to a 15-foot-square dining room.

Apartment 7E is a three-bedroom unit that has a 9-foot-long entry foyer that leads to a 21-foot-long living room with fireplace that opens onto a 16-foot-long dining room across from a 12-foot-square kitchen and 11-foot-long pantry.  The master bedroom has a fireplace and there is an 11-foot-long maid’s room.