The Wilbraham at 282-284 Fifth Avenue or 1 West 30th Street, in the NoMad

NoMad

NoMad is a neighborhood centered around the Madison Square North Historic District in the borough of Manhattan in New York City....

 neighborhood of 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...

, was built in 1888-90 as a bachelor apartment hotel

Apartment hotel

An Apartment Hotel is a serviced apartment complex that uses a hotel-style booking system. It is similar to renting an apartment, but with no fixed contracts and occupants can 'check-out' whenever they wish....

. Its "bachelor flats" each consisted of a bedroom and parlor, with bathroom but no kitchen; the communal dining room

Dining room

A dining room is a room for consuming food. In modern times it is usually adjacent to the kitchen for convenience in serving, although in medieval times it was often on an entirely different floor level...

 was on the eighth floor. The building's refined and "extraordinarily well detailed" design in commercial Romanesque revival style – which owed much to the Richardsonian Romanesque

Richardsonian Romanesque

Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after architect Henry Hobson Richardson, whose masterpiece is Trinity Church, Boston , designated a National Historic Landmark...

 developed by H.H. Richardson – was the work of the partners David and John Jardine

David and John Jardine

The brothers David , John E. and George Elliott Jardine were architects of Scottish nationality, sons of a Scottish architect-builder of Whithorn, Wigtownshire; they took up American citizenship and practiced in New York City, forming "one of the more prominent, prolific and versatile...

. The Real Estate Record and Guide in 1890 called it "quite an imposing piece of architecture".

The building is eight stories under a verdigris copper-covered

Verdigris

Verdigris is the common name for a green pigment obtained through the application of acetic acid to copper plates or the natural patina formed when copper, brass or bronze is weathered and exposed to air or seawater over a period of time. It is usually a basic copper carbonate, but near the sea...

 mansard roof

Mansard roof

A mansard or mansard roof is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterized by two slopes on each of its sides with the lower slope at a steeper angle than the upper that is punctured by dormer windows. The roof creates an additional floor of habitable space, such as a garret...

, with penthouses and basements, as a result of changes made during its construction. It is clad in Philadelphia brick and brownstone

Brownstone

Brownstone is a brown Triassic or Jurassic sandstone which was once a popular building material. The term is also used in the United States to refer to a terraced house clad in this material.-Types:-Apostle Island brownstone:...

 from quarries in Belleville, New Jersey

Belleville, New Jersey

Belleville is a Township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township population was 35,926.-History:...

, with wrought- and cast iron. Steel replaced structural cast iron after the foundations were already in place.

The building was commissioned as a real estate investment by the prominent Scottish-American jeweler William Moir. At the time the brownstone-fronted houses along this stretch of Fifth Avenue were being sold by the rich, who were rebuilding, often in more palatial fashion, farther north, in the part of Fifth Avenue that overlooked Central Park

Central Park

Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...

, just coming into its first maturity. Still, the neighborhood remained fashionable for clubs, hotels and the first blocks of "French flats".

The Wilbraham's apartments were remodeled to include kitchens, a mark of changed social habits and gas cooking, in 1934-35. It remains in residential use.

In 2004 the Wilbraham was designated a New York City Landmark.