2345 Broadway (Euclid Hall)
Location: Â 2345 Broadway (Euclid Hall)
Date: Â 1900
Type: Â Apartment Building
Architect: Â Hill and Turner
Landmark Status:Â Â Historic District
Façade (primary material):  Brick
Stories: Â 7
Wish List: Wishes Come True
Photos by Michael Beldoch
“[A]mong the most ambitious apartment houses of its time,” according to Christopher Gray, Euclid Hall is a prime example of advanced multiple-dwelling design at the turn of the 20th century. The seven-story building occupies Broadway’s entire block front between 85th and 86th Streets. Deep, narrow courtyards penetrate the otherwise massive bulk of the façade, making it appear to be three separate buildings at first glance and allowing light and air into apartments at various points around the perimeter. The basement once housed a large restaurant and cafe. But, unlike the later buildings, including Astor Court and the Cornwall, the ground floor of Euclid Hall was not originally designed for retail uses, despite its ideal situation near a stop on the new IRT subway line. Like their contemporaries at the Ansonia and the Dorilton, built further south along Broadway at about the same time, Euclid Hall’s developers believed that shops would undermine the building’s elegance. In keeping with then-current fashion, architects Hill & Turner used French-style ornament (red brick embellished with light-colored limestone and iron details) to augment the sophistication of their design. The building’s promoters called it “New York’s Finest Family Apartment,” playing to an upper-middle-class market that was increasingly interested in apartment living and the cutting-edge buildings that were transforming Broadway. Hill & Turner’s floorplan, so modern at the time, soon became outmoded. Euclid Hall was converted for single-room-occupancy use in the 1930s.