329 West 71st Street
329 West 71st Street
Date: 1894-5
NB Number: 420-94
Type: Townhouse
Architect: Horgan & Slattery
Developer/Owner/Builder: Horgan & Slattery
NYC Landmarks Designation: Historic District
Landmark Designation Report: West 71st Street Historic District
No. 329 is one of eight five-story houses designed in the Renaissance Revival style, with Venetian influences. The unified row has brick facades with elaborate terracotta ornamentation, common stoop level and cornice and sill lines. Decorative terracotta stringcourses are at each level. On some of the houses, the brick and the terracotta have been painted but the brick is yellow where it remains unpainted. No. 329, in particular, is not painted. The round-arched wooden entrance door found on No. 329 was probably the type which was originally found on all of the houses in the row. All but one of the other houses have doors with full-height glass panels divided by curving mullions, which were installed early in the twentieth century. The historic windows on this group were one-over-one double hung, wood sash. They remain on some or all of the windows of most houses in this group. Many of the houses, but not No. 329, retain decorative wrought iron grilles on the ground story windows. No. 329 does however retain the wrought iron railings with swirling patterns, as well as newel posts that frame the small stoop and areaway. Behind each areaway railing a steep, narrow stairway leads down to a basement door which is located under the small stoop. Broad modillioned stamped metal cornices with identical designs top each building in this row.
Two designs alternate within this group of houses, arranged in a rhythm of A B B A B B B A (from east to west). No. 329 is of the “A” type, which has two round-arched openings at the ground story, one with a door and the other with a full-height window, with a small oval window between the two. The three middle stories are marked by a frontispiece composed of tripartite window groups at each level with a variety of terracotta ornamental features, including pilasters and bracketed balconies, crowned by a round-arched pediment which extends into the fifth-story level. Two oval windows are at the top story.
National Register Designation:
Primary Style: Renaissance Revival
Primary Facade: Brick and Terra Cotta
Stories: 5
Window Type: Originally one-over-one double hung, wood sash
Alterations:
Most of the windows of this house have been replaced. The single-pane, full-height window at the first story is not the original. The second story has a single pane casement windows flanking a fixed center window and tripartite transoms in a metal enframement. Six-over-six, double hung, wood sash windows are at the third story while the fourth story has a central, one-over-one double hung wood sash window flanked by single pane fixed windows. Casement windows are at the fifth story.