383 West Broadway: Review and Ratings

Review of 383 West Broadway by Carter Horsley

This attractive, 6-story building at 383 West Broadway between Spring and Broome streets in SoHo was erected in 1868 and has 7 large co-operative apartments and for many years its retail space was occupied by the O. K. Harris Gallery, one of the first in SoHo.

The building is also known as 69 Wooster Street.

It was designed by John B. Snook as a 5-story factory for the Lorillard tobacco company and a sixth floor was added when the Wooster Street façade was replaced in 1905.

The O. K. Harris Gallery was founded by Ivan Karp in 1969 who had formerly been a co-director of the Leo Castelli Gallery.

Bottom Line

A very prime Soho location in a handsome building with a few very large and very sumptuous apartments.

Description

The West Broadway façade is clad in white-painted brick above a black cast-iron storefront.  The building has a bracketed cornice with modillions and dentils.  There are rusticated quoins at the sides.

On Wooster Street the building has a black metal and stone ground floor with off-white glazed brick above. The top floor has two segmental arches and three stone cartouches and the roof line is a simple brick parapet. 

The building permits window air-conditioners and an exposed rooftop watertank.

Amenities

The building has a doorman, a fitness center and a laundry. It permits pets.

Apartments

The penthouse is a duplex with about 7,500 square feet and four bedrooms.  It had been lived in since the 1970s by Charles Ross, an artist, and his friend, Damion Berger, a photographer, suggested they buy roof space in the building and “fix” the unit up.  They commissioned Piero Manara and Debla Manara-Berger to design the space and the result is one of the city’s most sumptuous and spectacular penthouses. It was initially offered for about $32 million in 2013 and subsequently sold for about $26.5 million. It has cast-iron columns, a wood-burning fireplace, a 1,500-bottle wine cellar, a 30-foot-high skylight, an outdoor kitchen and an outdoor shower.

A four-bedroom unit has a 41-foot-long living room with a 16-foot-long gallery entrance, a 16-foot-wide open kitchen with an island, a 25-foot-long dining room, a 25-foot-long den, a 20-foot-long media room,  a 13-foot-long office and a 13-foot-long storage room.

The fifth floor has four bedrooms, a large living/dining room with an open kitchen with an island, an office, and a media room.

Apartment 7 at 69 Wooster Street is a two-bedroom duplex with a 41-foot-long living/dining room with a skylight and an 13-foot-wide open, pass-through kitchen and a bedroom on the lower level and a staircase to the upper level where there is another bedroom and a 24-foot-long den.