625 West End Avenue
NB Number: NB 835-1898
Type: Rowhouse
Architect: True, Clarence
Developer/Owner/Builder: Terence Farley & Son
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: Limestone and Red Brick
Stories: 5
Window Type/Material: One-over-one/Wood
Basement Type: American
Structure: This group of seven five story brick and limestone rowhouses are two to three bays wide and designed with American basements. The row, which turns a corner, encompasses four houses on West End Avenue and three on west 90th Street. They are unified by the use of red brick with contrasting limestone trim; bowed fronts; quoins and keyed limestone surrounds; decorative wrought iron grilles; regularly aligned window heights; continuous paired stringcourses and decorative friezes below the fourth story and cornices above; pitched roofs with a variety of dormers; and stepped gables between the houses. The original window type is one-over-one wood sash. While each house varies in its details, the group as a whole creates a coherent and harmonious ensemble.
This house is distinguished by its two-bay bowed facade; four arched ground story openings, including a service door, two windows and a centralized entrance; a carved limestone balcony below the second story windows; and a frieze of carved limestone panels below the fourth story windows. The width of the house is approximately twenty-four feet. The first-story windows have the original wrought iron grilles.
Historic District: Riverside Drive- West End HD
Alterations: The pitched roof was removed and a one-story brick addition was constructed in its place. Nhiltipane casement windows have replaced all of the original windows. Both doors have been replaced. The second- and third-story window openings have been shortened at the bottom and brick panels placed below the sills. A light fixture has been installed above the sevice entrance. The areaway fence has been removed and the areaway -altered. 1939: Alt 1736-1939 [Source: Alteration Application] A brick fifth story addition was added. Architect — Joseph Lau Owner – Hanover Construction Corp.
History: Built in 1898-99, this seven house group was designed by the prolific New York architect Clarence True whose work is represented in the district by eight other rows. True, who also often worked as his own developer, is said to have designed over 400 houses in the Upper West Side and Morningside Heights. He popularized the American basement plan for rowhouse design. Terence Farley & Sons, the developers for this row, were known for their work on the Upper East Side where they: “…carried on substantial operations which… stamp a solid, if sombre, character upon the better streets on the East Side.” Selected References: History of Real Estate, Building and Architecture in New York City ( 1898, rpt. New York, 1967), 83. New York City Department of Taxes Photograph Collection, Municipal Archives and Record Collection, C 734; I 2468-19; C 719.