337 West 88th Street

337 West 88th Street

Date: 1894

NB Number: NB 346-1894

Type:  Rowhouse

Architect:  Thom & Wilson

Developer/Owner/Builder: James Livingston

Row Configuration: AABCBCBAA

NYC Landmarks Designation:  Historic District

Landmark Designation Report: Riverside Drive- West End Historic District

National Register Designation: N/A

Primary Style:  Renaissance Revival

Primary Facade:   Limestone and tan roman brick

Stories: 3 and basement

Window Type/Material: One-over-one double-hung/Wood

Basement Type: Raised

Stoop Type: Box

Structure: These nine three story rowhouses on raised basements are each twenty feet wide and faced in tan ironspot Roman brick above limestone basements and parlor stories. Designed for a unified appearance, the houses have a common roofline, a continuous stringcourse above the parlor stories, regularly aligned window heights, and decorative grilles at the basement stories. There are three different house types-in the row, distinguished primarily by the second- and third-story oriel treatment and arranged in an alternating pattern that creates an AABCBCBAA rhythm. Each type is further defined by a variety of details including the number of fourth-story windows and ornamentation of oriel mullions. Some of the houses have been altered but it is apparent that all originally had similar facade materials, stoops leading to parlor-story entrances with wood and glass double doors, windows with one-over-one wood-framed double-hung sash, and identical pressed metal cornices with modillion blocks. The houses have various surface treatments at the basement and parlor stories, different ornately carved door surrounds, and decorative fascias below the roofline cornices.

The type “B” house (Nos. 329, 333, and 337) has a three-sided two-story, oriel at the second and third stories, flanked by attached corbelled colonnettes with carved faces at the bosses and surmounted by a stone balustrade. A box stoop leads to the parlor story entrance set in an arched surround with a carved head in the tympanum. The basement and parlor stories are faced in coursed rusticated ashlar. At the fourth story are two windows with elaborate molded terra-cotta surrounds below three decorative shields; this is the only house type without a stringcourse above the fourth story.

Historic District: Riverside Drive- West End HD

Alterations: The basement and parlor stories have been painted. The windows all have aluminum replacement sash except at the parlor story.

History: This nine-house row was designed by Thom & Wilson for James Livingston, a builder/developer active in the construction of five rows in the district. They were built between April and December of 1894. Illustrated in contemporary publications, the row was described as finely detailed and architecturally pleasing. Selected References: “Examples of Modern Town House Architecture,” Real Estate Record & Guide 52 (Dec. 16, 1893), Supplement. Frank L. Fisher, The Beautiful West Side: A Complete List of West Side Dwellings (New York, c. 1895), 55. New York City Department of Taxes Photograph Collection, Municipal Archives and Record Collection, I 2450; E 1294; I 2450.24. New York Public Library, Photographic Views of New York City 1870’s-1970’s from the Collections of the New York Public Library (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1981), microfiche nos. 0618 El; 0618 E