304 West 90th Street
304 West 90th Street
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Date:Â 1890-91
NB Number:Â NB 1627-1890
Type: Â Rowhouse
Architect: Â True, Clarence
Developer/Owner/Builder:Â Theodore A Squier
Row Configuration:Â ABCCBA
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 Elizabethan Renaissance Revival
Primary Facade: Â Â Brownstone
Stories:Â 4
Basement Type:Â Raised
Structure:  These six brownstone fronted rowhouses are fifteen to twenty feet wide and four stories above raised basements. The row has three basic house types with slight variations, arranged in an ABCCBA pattern. The houses are unified by a common roofline with a variety of dormers, stepped parapets between the buildings, the use of rock-faced brownstone ashlar with smooth brownstone trim, and wrought iron grilles with a sunflower motif at the basement windows. Some of the houses have been altered but it is likely that all originally had hexagonal slate tile roofs, stoops leading to parlor story entrances, wood and glass doors with transoms, and windows with one-over-one double-hung wood-framed sash.
The type “B” houses (Nos. 304 and 310) – also near mirror images – distinguished by angled three-sided projecting bays rising to the base of the third story. No. 304 has two windows at the third story and two single window peaked dormers with finials at the roof. No. 310 has three windows at the third story and a dormer with paired windows and an arched gable at the roof. Both houses may have had small blind balconies above the original parlor story entrances, as remains at No. 310.
Historic District: Riverside Drive- West End HD
Alterations: The stoop was removed in 1944 and a basement entranceway created. The original parlor story entrance has been replaced by a window. There has been resurfacing around the new parlor story window and basement entrance, and two light fixtures have been installed at the basement. The areaway is filled in and the wrought iron fence at the stairs is not original. The windows all have exterior storm sash. Two through-the-wall air conditioner sleeves have been installed at the second story, and one below the cornice at the third story. There is a copper replacement cornice at the roofline. 1944: Alt 581-1944 [Source: Alteration Application] Stoop removed. Architect – Henry Z. Harrison Owner – 304 W. 90th Street Corporation
History:Â Built in 1890-91 for Theodore A. Squier, a developer of such rows in the district, these houses were designed by Clarence True, a New York architect noted for his rowhouse designs of which many are represented on the Upper West Side.
Selected References: New York City Department of Taxes Photograph Collection, Municipal Archives and Record Collection, E 1295; I 12450.23; C 719. 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. 0620 B1; 0620 B2. Clarence True, Designs of 141 Dwelling Houses Built on the West Side (New York, c. 1893), n.p.