315 Riverside Drive: Review and Ratings

Review of 315 Riverside Drive by Carter Horsley

This 19-story building at 315 Riverside Drive on the southeast corner at 104^th Street was built in 1920 and converted to a co-operative in 1984.

It has 93 apartments and was designed by Boak & Paris in an Art Deco-style.

Bottom Line

An very attractive pre-war, Art Deco-style, apartment building with a fine roof deck, an impressively large lobby and very nice layouts, some with 25-foot-long entrance galleries and sunken living rooms.

Description

The brown-brick building has a half-story limestone base and a limestone bandcourse above the second floor and another above the 15^th floor.  There are terraces above the 16th floor and some decorative balconies at the corner above the second floor.

The building has a two-story-high, limestone entrance surround with a canopy on the side-street.

The Riverside Drive façade has three center piers with curved masonry spandrels above the second floor.

Many windows have red frames.

The building has inconsistent fenestration and an attractive rooftop watertank enclosure.

The building has a handsome and large lobby with beamed ceiling with gilded accents and an arched alcove and a two-step-up alcove for the mail chute.

The building has a courtyard and gardens and a canopied entrance with sidewalk landscaping.

The first-floor windows have attractive grills with floral motifs.

Amenities

The building has a full-time doorman, an attractive roof deck, a live-in superintendent, storage, a bicycle room, a laundry room, but no garage, no health club and no balconies.  It permits pets.

Apartments

Some apartments have decorative fireplaces and two-step-up dining alcoves.

Penthouse 3 is a one-bedroom unit with an 11-foot-long entry foyer that opens onto a sunken 2-foot-long living room, a three-sided, 900-square-foot terrace which opens onto a 14-foot-long, windowed dining room and adjacent 11-foot-long kitchen.

Apartment 15DE is a three-bedroom unit with a 25-foot-long entrance gallery that opens on one side to a sunken, 25-foot-long living room and on the other to a 21-foot-long dining room that opens onto a 21-foot-long, eat-in kitchen with an island.  The apartment also has a 12-foot-long media room and a 12-foot-long home office.

Apartment 2D is a two-bedroom unit with a 25-foot-long entrance gallery that opens on one side to a 24-foot-long, sunken living room with a fireplace and on the other to a 21-foot-long dining room and a 12-foot-long dining alcove nest  to a windowed, 8-foot-long kitchen.

Apartment 11C is a one-bedroom unit with an 11-foot-long entry foyer that leads to a sunken, 20-foot-long living room.  The unit has an enclosed 8-foot-long kitchen.

Apartment 5C is a one-bedroom unit with an 11-foot-long entrance gallery that opens onto an 8-foot-long enclosed kitchen and a sunken 23-foot-long living room with a fireplace.

Apartment 8E has a very handsome long pass-through, windowed kitchen

History

In his July 15, 2001 “Streetscapes” article in The New York Times, Christopher Gray wrote about the careers of the architects, Russell M. Boak and   Mr. Boak had been a draftsman for Emery Roth and worked on 1000 Park Avenue and 333 West End Avenue and his future partner, Hyman F. Paris, also worked for Roth and they formed their own firm in 1927.  In 1932, they designed the Metro Theater, formerly the midtown, on Broadway near 99^th Street and in 1933 they designed their first building for the Minskoffs at 3 East 66^th Street. The partners broke up in1942 but Boak then joined with Thomas O. Raad to design the sawtooth-planned buildings for the Doelger family at 430 and 440 East 56^th Street.

A June15, 1957 article in The New York Times noted that the Police Department had begun a drive to rid the city of ‘narcotics peddlers, gamblers, prostitutes, procurers, tinhorns and drifters” and among the people rounded up was “Vincent (Jimmy Blue Eyes) Alo, 53, of 315 Riverside Drive” whose name had “been linked frequently with that of Frank Costello.”

Location

The building is across from Riverside Park, which has a dog run at 105^th Street and nearby tennis courts.