308 West 90th Steet

308 West 90th Street

Date: 1890-91

NB Number: NB 1627-1890

Type:  Rowhouse

Architect:  True, Clarence

Developer/Owner/Builder: Theodore A Squier

Row Configuration: ABCCBA

NYC Landmarks Designation:  Historic District

Landmark Designation Report: Riverside Drive- West End Historic District

National Register Designation: N/A

Primary Style:  Elizabethan Renaissance Revival

Primary Facade:   Brownstone

Stories: 4

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

Basement Type: Raised

Stoop Type: Unknown

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 “C” houses (Nos. 306.and 308) have basket arched windows beside the paired parlor story entrances, slightly projecting two story bowed oriels at the second and third stories, and single large peaked gables with one window each. Nos. 306 and 308 are identical except for their reversed stoops.

Historic District: Riverside Drive- West End HD

Alterations: There is white aluminum replacement sash in the third story windows. The basement grilles are not original and the areaway wall is a replacement with a wrought-iron fence. There is a light fixture above the door. The roof has been resurfaced.

History: 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.

History: 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.

History: 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.