The Ansonia at Dawn
0 Comments Published by Cedric Benetti on Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 5/18/2010 08:27:00 PM.
Still one of my favorite apartment houses of Manhattan, built by Paul E. Duboy in 1899 for William Earle Dodge Stokes on a corner of Verdi Square on the UWS.
Stokes established a small farm on the roof of the hotel, which included about 500 chickens, many ducks, about six goats and a small bear. Every day, a bellhop delivered free fresh eggs to all the tenants, and any surplus was sold cheaply to the public in the basement arcade. Not much about this feature charmed the city fathers, however, and in 1907, the Department of Health shut down the farm in the sky.
It was the first air-conditioned hotel in New York. The building has an 18 story steel-frame structure. The exterior is decorated in Beaux-Art style with a Parisian style mansard roof. Unusual for a Manhattan building, the Ansonia features an open stairwell that sweeps up to a huge domed skylight. The interior corridors may be the widest in the city. Another unusual feature of the building is its cattle elevator, which enabled dairy cows to be stabled on the roof.
Labels: Architecture Instant Love, New York, New York street stuff, photography
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