The Beresford was constructed in 1928 and many celebrities and influential New Yorkers have called this massive apartment building home. Located next to Central Park and just north of the American Museum of Natural History, this 20-story, 30-bay wide building features three corner towers and was designed by architect Emory Roth and features an opulent lobby filled with marble and bronze and three entrances. The Beresford was converted to a co-op in 1962 and twenty years later, it was included in the National Register of Historic Place's Central Park West Historic District.
The apartment building at the southwest corner of Central Park West and W. 83rd Street has stood here since 1888. The six-story building - also known as The Lolita - is notable for its projecting, rounded corner and its floral terra cotta ornamentation near windows and on three band courses. The building at 227 Central Park West is part of the National Register Central Park West Historic District, listed in 1982. The building's entrance is centered on the W. 83rd Street side so the building also goes by the address 2 W. 83rd Street.
The Art Deco style high-rise apartment building at 241 Central Park West was completed in 1930 for Henry Goodman. It is one of two apartment buildings along Central Park West (opposite Central Park) designed by Schwartz & Gross in the Art Deco style. Most of the building is faced in yellow brick; the golden decorations near the entrance and the tiered top of the building are cast stone. The building at 241 Central Park West still contains rental apartments and is part of the Central Park West Historic District, listed in the National Register in 1982.
This historic rowhouse on the south side of the intersection of Central Park West and W. 85th Street is one of eight that were built along by a developer in 1887 for real estate investor William Bable. Very few residential structures of this type have survived along Central Park West owing to the influx of high-rise apartment buildings in the 1900s to 1930s. The next-door neighboring rowhouses at 247 and 248 Central Park West also were spared demolition; all three are part of the Central Park West National Register Historic District, listed in 1982. The rowhouse was divided into three apartments in the 1950s but restored to a single-family home in the 2000s.
The 12-story apartment building to the north of W. 87th Street at Central Park West was built from 1912 to 1913. The brick building is Neo-Renaissance style with some elements of the older French Second Empire style. The central entrance of 271 Central Park West is flanked by Ionic pilasters in stone, two stories tall and topped by a heavy entablature. The faux balconies and the stone frieze decorated with garlands and shields give the Schwartz & Gross design a horizontal emphasis - something new in that era. The garland surrounds of upper-story windows and the sculptural quality of the faux balconies are more like the older style. The building changed from rental apartments to co-ops by the 1970s.
The building at 285 Central Park West, on the south side of W. 89th Street, is the St. Urban, an apartment building constructed from 1904 to 1905. The architect, Robert T. Lyons, designed a Beaux Arts building that looked like architecture along grand boulevards in Paris with its curved mansard roof. The 13-story building features a curved corner at the road intersection topped by a tower with oeil-de-boeuf (ox eye) windows. The three-story base of the building is faced in rusticated limestone; the uppers are light yellow brick. The original slate roofing's replacement asphalt shingles were replaced with copper in 1990; the elaborately pedimented dormer windows still peek out from the roofline.
The apartment building at 300 Central Park West takes up the entire width from W. 90th to W 91st Street. The El Dorado was completed in 1930 and is one of New York City's largest Art Deco style apartment buildings. The twin towers reach 31 stories tall in a ziggurat style of smaller tiers as you move upwards, and are set back to comply with building ordinances. The building became a co-op in 1982 and is part of the National Register's Central Park West Historic District, listed in 1982.
This Art Deco high-rise apartment building was designed by architect Emery Roth and completed in1930. The Ardsley remains a New York architectural landmark and is one of eight buildings Roth designed that are located along Central Park West. The apartment building was converted to a co-op and now contains 201 units in its 22 stories. The Ardsley is part of the Central Park West Historic District which was added to the National Register in 1982. The building stands at the former location of New York's Rugby Academy and was once home to Barbra Streisand.
These two surviving structures are the last of a line of five rowhouses that were constructed in 1892. The three rowhouses that formerly stood to the south of these two homes were demolished in 1989 in order to construct a high-rise building on the corner with W. 95th Street. All five rowhouses were built in 1892 for Edward Kilpatrick as multi-dwelling rental apartments. Much of Central Park West was lined with similarly-sized rowhouses up to the 1910s, a decade that saw the start of a trend of demolishing existing structures to build taller apartment buildings and commercial buildings. The rowhouses were designed by G. A. Schellenger and feature bow windows, Neo-Romanesque details, and pressed tin cornices.
This Tour is a Walking Tour.
Get a QR Code for this tour
Begin at the 81st St. - Museum of Natural History subway stop & walk straight up Central Park West for 15 blocks to the W. 96th St. subway stop. You'll pass historic high-rise apartment buildings & rowhouses built in the 1890s - 1930s overlooking Central Park.
