Central Park West Historic District
Encyclopedia
- This article is about the Federally-designated historic district. Upper West Side-Central Park West Historic District (the New York City-designated district) redirects here.
The Central Park West Historic District is located in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
along historic Central Park West
Central Park West
Central Park West is an avenue that runs north-south in the New York City borough of Manhattan, in the United States....
, between 61st and 97th Streets. The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
on November 9, 1982. The district encompasses a portion of the Upper West Side-Central Park West Historic District as designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The Commission was created in April 1965 by Mayor Robert F. Wagner following the destruction of Pennsylvania Station the previous year to make way for...
, and contains a number of prominent New York City landmarks, including The Dakota Apartments, a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
. The buildings date from the late 19th century to the early 1940s and exhibit a variety of popular architectural styles. The majority of the district's buildings are of neo-Italian Renaissance
Neo-Renaissance
Renaissance Revival is an all-encompassing designation that covers many 19th century architectural revival styles which were neither Grecian nor Gothic but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range of classicizing Italian modes...
style, but Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
is a popular theme as well.
History
The Central Park West Historic District was federally recognized on November 9, 1982, when it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. However, the area has a preservation history that predates the 1982 listing by almost ten years. In 1973 the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission (NYLPC) designated a T-shaped area, which included one block of West 76th Street, two adjacent blocks of Central Park West and a short stretch of West 77th Street, as the Central Park West-76th Street Historic District. The local designation and boundaries persisted well past the 1982 National Register listing.In 1990 the NYLPC formally extended the local boundaries of the Central Park West-76th Street Historic District to include almost all of the area included in the boundaries of the federal historic district
Historic district
A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries, historic districts receive legal protection from development....
. The much larger Upper West Side-Central Park West Historic District includes the area from 96th Street to 62nd Street and Central Park West to Amsterdam Avenue.
Boundaries
The Central Park West Historic District is a linear historic district including the stretch of Central Park West from 61st to 97th Streets. When the Upper West Side-Central Park West Historic District was designated in 1990 as a local historic district its boundaries closely mirrored those of the 1982 Central Park West Historic District, except the local historic district encompasses land stretching to Amsterdam Avenue. The federal historic district is considerably smaller than the local district.Architecture
The expanse of Central Park West between 61st and 97th Streets is a mixture of late 19th and early 20th century architectural styles. By far the district's most dominant style is Neo-RenaissanceNeo-Renaissance
Renaissance Revival is an all-encompassing designation that covers many 19th century architectural revival styles which were neither Grecian nor Gothic but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range of classicizing Italian modes...
, mostly neo-Italian Renaissance
Renaissance architecture
Renaissance architecture is the architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 17th centuries in different regions of Europe, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of ancient Greek and Roman thought and material culture. Stylistically, Renaissance...
though there are German
German Renaissance
The German Renaissance, part of the Northern Renaissance, was a cultural and artistic movement that spread among German thinkers in the 15th and 16th centuries, which originated from the Italian Renaissance in Italy...
and Flemish Renaissance
Renaissance in the Netherlands
The Renaissance in the Low Countries is the cultural period that roughly corresponds to the 16th century in the Low Countries. In 1500 the Seventeen Provinces were in a personal union under the Burgundian Dukes, and with the Flemish cities as centers of gravity, culturally and economically formed...
influences found in some of the structures. Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
, Second Empire, Beaux-Arts and Neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...
are all found in multiple buildings. Gothic and Romanesque Revival influences can be found combined with other styles in some of the buildings as well as on their own. A few Queen Anne
Queen Anne Style architecture
The Queen Anne Style in Britain means either the English Baroque architectural style roughly of the reign of Queen Anne , or a revived form that was popular in the last quarter of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century...
, Art Moderne
Streamline Moderne
Streamline Moderne, sometimes referred to by either name alone or as Art Moderne, was a late type of the Art Deco design style which emerged during the 1930s...
and Italianate
Italianate architecture
The Italianate style of architecture was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. In the Italianate style, the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian Renaissance architecture, which had served as inspiration for both Palladianism and...
buildings dot the streetscape of Central Park West.
Structures
Of the buildings within the boundaries of the historic district only one was considered a non-contributing property to the historic character of the district when it was nominated to the National Register: the building located at 80 Central Park West, a 1965 modern building. The area within the district is home to nearly 40 high-quality, luxury apartment highrises. Sprinkled within the residential buildings are four Christian churches, one synagogueSynagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
, several smaller-scale, multi-family houses, the New York Society for Ethical Culture, the New York Historical Society and the American Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History , located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world...
.
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 24, 1976, it is also listed as a contributing property to the Central Park West Historic District. The building was constructed from 1874–1877 and designed by Calvert VauxCalvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux , was an architect and landscape designer. He is best remembered as the co-designer , of New York's Central Park....
and Jacob Wrey Mould
Jacob Wrey Mould
Jacob Wrey Mould was an architect, illustrator, linguist and musician, noted for his contributions to the design and construction of New York City's Central Park...
.
The Century
The Century is a 1931 Art DecoArt Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
structure. It was constructed at a cost of $6.5 million dollars and designed by the firm owned by Irwin S. Chanin. The Century apartment building is located on the former site of the Century Theater, which was demolished in 1930 and 1931 to make way for the apartments. The building is one of three within the boundaries of the historic district that stretch upwards 30 floors, thus tying it for the title of the district's tallest building.
Congregation Shearith Israel
The building that houses the Congregation Shearith Israel, the oldest American Jewish congregation is the fifth in a line of structures dating back to 1730, though only the current building was located near Central Park West. The structure was built in 1897 and is also known as the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue.The Dakota
The Dakota, is one of the district's most prominent historic structures. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in its own right on April 26, 1972; Dakota Apartments was declared a National Historic LandmarkNational Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
on December 8, 1976.
55 Central Park West
The building at 55 Central Park West has been known as the Ghostbusters Building since the 1984 film GhostbustersGhostbusters
Ghostbusters is a 1984 American science fiction comedy film directed by Ivan Reitman and written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. The film stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis, and Rick Moranis and follows three eccentric parapsychologists in New York City, who start a...
shot scenes there. In the film, the building (referred to as "Spook Central") was said to have been designed by mad architect Ivo Shandor, in reality, the Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
building was constructed in 1929 and designed by Schwartz & Gross. The 19-floor building was portrayed as taller in the film.
Significance
The Central Park West Historic District is significant, in regards to the National Register, for its architecture and its character as a cohesive residential area. The district is located along one of the city's finest residential streets and consists mostly of apartment buildings which are among some of the earliest in New York.With the 1990 local boundary increase the NYLPC developed the theme that the strength of the historic district lay in its diversity. The Commission called the buildings in the district brashly "commercial" and "stylistically diverse." The Commission went on to stress the importance of the district's special skyline
Skyline
A skyline is the overall or partial view of a city's tall buildings and structures consisting of many skyscrapers in front of the sky in the background. It can also be described as the artificial horizon that a city's overall structure creates. Skylines serve as a kind of fingerprint of a city, as...
that challenged the whole of the New York skyline. "The stylistically diverse buildings of Central Park West create a streetscape and a skyline which is exuberant and varied as to scale, height and form," the Commission stated.