640 West End Avenue
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640 West End Avenue
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Date:Â 1912-1913
NB Number:Â NB 221-1912
Type: Â Apartment Building
Architect: Â Townsend, Steinle & Haskell
Developer/Owner/Builder:Â Odell & Townsend Holding Company
NYC Landmarks Designation:Â Historic District
Landmark Designation Report:Â Riverside Drive- West End Historic District
National Register Designation:Â N/A
Primary Style: Â Neo-Renaissance
Primary Facade: Â Â Buff brick and Limestone
Stories:Â 12
Window Type/Material:Â Eight-over-One/Wood
Structure:  This apartment building is located on a lot at the northeast corner of West End Avenue and West 91st Street which extends approximately fifty-eight feet along the avenue and 100 feet along the street. It is faced in buff colored brick laid in common bond with limestone trim. The building is lined at the sidewalk level with a shrub bed enclosed by the original wrought iron pipe-rail fence. West End Avenue Facade: The three-story base, eight story midsection, and one story top of this facade are articulated by three single window bays grouped in the center flanked by wider bays at each end. The original window type is eight-over-one wood sash. The banded stone base features iron grilles covering the windows of the first story. The end bays of the fourth story are enhanced by stone balconies with balusters and triangular pediments. The three center bays are crowned with projecting stone lintels. Stories five through nine are faced in buff colored brick and have terra cotta window surrounds and projecting bracketed sills. The tenth story, surmounting two stone beltcourses, has projecting stone balconies at each end with ornate green copper railings. The twelfth story; above a dentiled beltcourse ornamented with swags, is faced in white stone and capped by a projecting modillioned green copper cornice.
West 91st Street Facade: This facade, eight bays wide, continues the same overall design and articulation of detail as the West End Avenue facade. Located in the fifth bay from the west is a classically inspired two story stone entrance enframement. The entrance contains paired wood and glass doors with sidelights and transoms flanked by granite Ionic columns supporting an ornate entablature. The bay above the entrance has casement windows and a transom, with smaller stone Ionic columns flanked by volutes supporting a broken pediment. The fourth and tenth stories have two balconies at each end with the same design as seen on the West End Avenue facade.
Eastern Elevation: An alleyway behind a wrought-iron fence separates the eastern elevation from the neighboring building. Faced in light brown brick, it contains two window openings per story fronted by a fire escape. Northern Elevation: The elevation has two portions; the western portion is faced in red brick with a return of the West End Avenue facade, and the eastern portion, set back to a narrow light court, is faced in buff-colored brick and has three (visible) openings per story.
Historic District: Riverside Drive- West End HD
Alterations: The window openings east of the entrance at the first story have one-over-one aluminum sash; the end bay is sealed in concrete. Many of the original eight-over-one wood sash windows have been replaced with one-over-one wood sash.
History: Built in 1912-13 for a holding company formed by Adelaide Townsend and George W. Odell, 640 West End Avenue was designed by the noted architectural firm of Townsend, Steinle & Haskell. It was constructed on the site of a five story building faced in brick, which occupied the southern portion of the lot. The alleyway at the north side of the building is the partial remnant of a path or lane that once led from the old Bloomingdale Road (slightly off line with Broadway) to Twelfth Avenue. It originally separated the farms of Brouckholst Livingston to the south and R.L. Schieffelin to the north. Selected References: George Bromley, Atlas of the City of New York, Borough of Manhattan ( Philadelphia, 1899), vol. 3. plate 11. New York City Department of Taxes Photograph Collection, Municipal Archives and Record Collection, G 2033.