314 West 90th Street

314 West 90th Street

Date: 1892-93

NB Number: NB 416-1892

Type:  Rowhouse

Architect:  True, Clarence

Developer/Owner/Builder: Theodore A Squier

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

Roof Type: Pitched

Structure: These three, four story rowhouses on raised basements are sixteen-and-a-half and seventeen feet wide and fronted in smooth and rock-faced brownstone ashlar. There are no repeated house types in this raw, but a unified appearance is achieved through the use of common cornice, roof, and stringcourse lines, similar facade materials, pitched roofs with gabled dormers, stoops leading to arched parlor story entrances, and wrought-iron grilles in the basement windows. All of the houses originally had hexagonal slate tile roofs ( as seen at Nos. 314 and 316), one-over-one double-hung wood-framed sash windows, and wood and glass doors ( as seen at No. 316).

No. 314 (Tax Map Block/Lot: 1250/107) This house is distinguished by a two-story three-sided oriel with a bracketed base at the second and third stories, and a large gabled dormer with a single window at the roofline. The oriel and trim are smooth stone and the facade is rock-faced. The parlor-story window has a basket-arched head, the basement and upper story windows are square-headed.

Historic District: Riverside Drive- West End HD

Alterations: The facade has been painted brown. The basement and stoop have been resurfaced. The stoop railing and areaway fence are not original. The grille at the parlor story is not original, and the door may be a replacement. There is exterior storm sash at the second and third stories. The gable may have lost a finial at its tip. The roof has been resurfaced with tar. There is a light at the basement door.

History: Built in 1892 for Theodore A. Squier, a rowhouse developer active in this district, these houses were designed by Clarence True, a New York architect notable for his rowhouse designs. True worked for Squier designing several rows in this district. Selected References: New York City Department of Taxes Photograph Collection, Municipal Archives and Record Collection, E 1295. 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 B3. Clarence True, Designs of 141 Dwelling Houses Built on the West Side (New York, c. 1893), n.p.