The El Dorado
The Eldorado | |
Coordinates | 40°47′18.1″N 73°58′2.66″W / 40.788361°N 73.9674056°W |
---|---|
Built | Various |
Architect | Emery Roth |
Architectural style | Art Deco |
Part of | Central Park West Historic District (ID82001189[1]) |
Added to NRHP | November 9, 1982[1] |
The Eldorado at 300 Central Park West, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, is the northernmost of four twin-towered luxury housing cooperatives[2] that face the west side of Central Park. The art deco style[3] apartment building fills the complete blockfront extending between West 90th and West 91st Streets and overlooks the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir in Central Park.
The Eldorado is located within the Upper West Side-Central Park West Historic District designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission,[4] and is a contributing property to the federally designated Central Park West Historic District.
History
The name is an inheritance from the former El Dorado, a luxury elevator eight-story apartment block of 1902 that formerly occupied the full block-front site.[5]
The stock market crash that followed the beginning of construction eventually overwhelmed its financing, and, by 1931, the building was in foreclosure, and the builder, Louis Klosk, a Bronx-based developer, lost it.[6] It nevertheless opened, reorganized under the Central Park Plaza Corporation. Early tenants included New York Senator Royal Copeland, the prominent rabbi of Reform Judaism Dr. Stephen S. Wise, and Barney Pressman, founder of Barneys New York, the retail clothing store.[7] More recent apartment owners have been Alec Baldwin,[8] Faye Dunaway, Moby, Garrison Keillor, Tuesday Weld, Bruce Willis, Ron Howard, Bono, Carrie Fisher and Michael J. Fox.[6] Author Sinclair Lewis chose a tower apartment in this building because it had views which encompassed all the bridges of the city at that time. The building was also the fictional address of Marjorie Morningstar, the heroine of Herman Wouk's 1955 novel.[9]
Architecture
The building has 30 floors. However, only the southernmost tower "top" is habitable, featuring a two-floor, dual-terraced penthouse. The other tower top houses a water tank, but the floors beneath are habitable. The Eldorado was constructed in 1929–1931 to the design of Margon & Holder, for the speculative builder Klosk. The painted metal finials of the towers are a design of Emery Roth, in association with Margon & Holder.[10] "The futuristic sculptural detailing of the El Dorado, as well as its geometric ornament and patterns and its contrasting materials and textures, make it one of the finest Art Deco structures in the city.[citation needed] The towers are terminated by ornamented setbacks with abstract geometric spires that have been compared to Flash Gordon finials," observes Steven Ruttenbaum.[11] Details are cast in imitation stone, and there are bronze panels of low relief. The symmetrical massing of the building, with its terraced setbacks, can be compared to the strikingly similar massing of Roth's classically detailed The Beresford, completed in 1929, months before design of The El Dorado began.
See also
References
- Notes
- ^ a b "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
- ^ That apartment house became a co-op in 1982.
- ^ "The El Dorado marked a distinct stylistic shift in Roth's work toward a less plastic modeling of the mass and toward a Modernist sense of detail as applied to an essentially Classical composition," (Robert A. M. Stern, Gregory Gilmartin and Thomas Mellins, New York 1930 Architecture and Urbanism Between The Two World Wars [1987], quoted by Carter B. Horsley, "The Upper West Side Book"..
- ^ "NYCLPC Upper West Side – Central Park West Historic District Designation Report, volume 2"
- ^ Gray, Christopher (December 9, 2001). "The Eldorado, at 90th Street; 1929 Art Deco Twin Towers on Central Park West". New York Times. Retrieved September 5, 2009.
- ^ a b Gray 2001.
- ^ Gray, New York Times, December 31, 2001.
- ^ The RealEstalker: "Alec Baldwin seeks to sell two at The Eldorafo"26 August 2009
- ^ Brockmann, Jorg et al. (2002). One Thousand New York Buildings, p. 354., p. 354, at Google Books
- ^ Gray 2001
- ^ Ruttenbaum, Mansions in the Clouds, the Skyscraper Palazzi of Emery Roth,:: (New York: Balsam Press), 1986.
- Bibliography
- Brockmann, Jorg and Bill Harris. (2002). One Thousand New York Buildings. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal. ISBN 978-1-57912-237-9; OCLC 48619292
External links
- The Eldorado at New York Architecture Images
- Historic district contributing properties in New York City
- Residential skyscrapers in Manhattan
- New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan
- Condominiums and housing cooperatives in Manhattan
- Upper West Side
- Central Park West Historic District
- Apartment buildings in New York City
- Twin towers
- Art Deco architecture in Manhattan
- Emery Roth buildings
- Residential buildings completed in 1931
- Residential buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Manhattan
- Historic district contributing properties in New York (state)