The Beresford
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/16/211_Central_Park_West_%28The_Beresford%29_by_David_Shankbone.jpg/220px-211_Central_Park_West_%28The_Beresford%29_by_David_Shankbone.jpg)
The Beresford, at 211 Central Park West, between 81st and 82nd Streets, is an upscale, 23-floor apartment building in New York City. The architect, Emery Roth, was famous for building luxury apartments and hotels throughout the city. The Beresford, completed in 1929, is one of four Roth apartment blocks on Central Park West including the El Dorado (between 90th and 91st Streets), the San Remo (between 74th and 75th Streets), and the Ardsley (on the corner of 92nd street).[1] The Beresford is the largest by volume. Its mass relieved by horizontal belt courses, staggered setbacks governed by the 1916 zoning law,[2] which provide some apartments with terraces, and architectural detailing that gives an impression of Georgian houses embedded in the mass. It takes its name from the Hotel Beresford, which had occupied the same site since 1889.[3] The Beresford has two very prominent street-front facades,[4] crowned by its three distinctive octagonal copper-capped corner towers,[5] the eastern facade overlooks Central Park; and the southern facade overlooks Manhattan Square, the park that contains the American Museum of Natural History.[6]
The massive block is opened to the west, giving it a U-shape, wrapped round a central court. Three elevators give separate access to small foyers, originally each accessing two aprtments of a scale that was eliminated in New York, both by the stock market crash and the new Multiple Dwellings Law.[7]
Unlike some of Manhattan's prestigious co-op buildings, the Beresford accepts celebrities and politicians as residents. Current residents include comedian Jerry Seinfeld in Isaac Stern's former apartment, singer Diana Ross, actress Glenn Close, Betsy Gotbaum and Victor Gotbaum, magazine editor Helen Gurley Brown, reporter John Stossel, and movie producer David Brown, actor Andrew McCarthy, tennis player John McEnroe, Coach CEO Lew Frankfort, and Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit.[8] Former residents have included historian Alan Brinkley, former Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, Tony Randall, Rock Hudson, Margaret Mead, Laura Nyro[9] and Beverly Sills.
Notes
- ^ Alpern, Andrew. Apartments for the Affluent: a Historical Survey of Buildings in New York. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975.
- ^ The connection is noted by Richard Plunz, A History of Housing in New York City: dwelling type and social change in the American metropolis, 1990:196
- ^ Gray, Christopher (1997-09-14). "The Beresford, the San Remo, the Majestic, the El Dorado, the Century; Namesake Precursors of Central Park West's Towers". New York Times. Retrieved 2009-09-05.
- ^ As well as similarly treated frontage along West 82nd Street
- ^ The southwest one masks the water tank; the other two corner tower contain multi-level apartments (The Upper West Side Book), the northeast one owned by John McEnroe ((New York Sun) "A Penthouse at the Beresford Is Listed at $28 Million", 2 August 2007 accessed 16 October 2009).
- ^ Brockmann, Jorg et al. (2002). One Thousand New York Buildings, p. 354., p. 354, at Google Books
- ^ Pluntz 1990:196 contrasts its amenities with the reduced apartment scale of The El Dorado, The Majestic and The Century, buuilt or completed during the early years of the Great Depression.
- ^ Crenson, Sharon L. (2007-09-25). "Citigroup's Pandit Buys Tony Randall Co-Op for $17.9 Million". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2009-07-13.
- ^ Kort, Michele 'Soul Picnic : The Music and Passion of Laura Nyro' St. Martin's Press, 2002, ISBN 0-312-20941-X, P. 108.
References
- Brockmann, Jorg and Bill Harris. (2002). One Thousand New York Buildings. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal. 10-ISBN 157912237X/13-ISBN 9781579122379; OCLC 48619292
External links
Media related to The Beresford at Wikimedia Commons