344 West 88th Street

344 West 88th Street

NB Number: NB 441-1893

Type:  Rowhouse

Architect:  Thom & Wilson

Developer/Owner/Builder: James Livingston

Row Configuration: AABCBAA

NYC Landmarks Designation:  Historic District

Landmark Designation Report: Riverside Drive- West End Historic District

National Register Designation: N/A

Primary Style:  Renaissance Revival

Primary Facade:   tan roman brick and Terra Cotta

Stories: 4 and basement

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

Basement Type: Raised

Stoop Type: Straight

Structure: These seven rowhouses are four stories above raised basements and twenty and twenty-one feet wide. They are faced in tan ironspot Roman brick with terra-cotta trim above limestone basements and parlor stories. Designed for a unified appearance, the houses have a common roofline, a continuous stringcourse above the parlor stories, regularly aligned window heights, and decorative grilles at the basement stories. There are three different house types in the row, distinguished primarily by the second and third story oriel treatment and arranged in an alternating pattern that creates an AABCBAA rhythm. Some of the houses have been altered but it is apparent that all originally had similar facade materials, stoops leading to parlor story entrances with wood and glass double doors, windows with one-over–one wood-framed double-hung sash, and identical pressed metal cornices with modillions. The houses vary in their surface treatments at the basement and parlor stories, ornately carved door surrounds, and decorative fascias below the roofline cornices.

The type “A” houses (Nos. 332, 334, 342 and 344) each have a two story three-bay rounded brick oriel at the second and third stories, supported on two brackets (No. 344 was originally surmounted by a balustrade). A straight stone stoop leads to the minimally ornamented parlor-story entrance. The ashlar of the parlor stories is smooth; the ashlar of the basements at Nos. 332 and 344 is banded and at Nos. 334 and 342 it is rusticated. Each house has three windows at the fourth story, separated by engaged Ionic columns;- No. 332 has only two windows at the fourth story. Nos. 332 and 344 have engaged Ionic columns as mullions in their oriels.

Historic District: Riverside Drive- West End HD

Alterations: The double wood and glass parlor story door has been stripped; two exterior lights have been added to the surround.

History: Built in 1893-94 for Livingston & Dunn, a building and development firm active in this area of the Upper West Side, this row was designed by Thom & Wilson, an architectural firm also well represented in the district. This seven house row resembles many other rows built for Livingston & Dunn and designed by Thom & Wilson, which were considered to be particularly fine examples of rowhouses in the district. Many of these houses were advertised for sale about 1895 by Frank L. Fisher in his illustrated sales guide to West Side houses “The Beautiful West Side.” Selected References: New York City Department of Taxes Photograph Collection, Municipal Archives and Record Collection, E 1294. New York Public Library, Photographic Views of New York City 1870’s-1970’s from the Collections of the 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. 0618 E2