The Admaston (251 West 89th Street at Broadway)
The Admaston (251 West 89th Street at Broadway)
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Date:Â 1910-11
Type: Â Apartment Building
Architect: Â Blum, George and Edward
Primary Style: Â Secessionist
Primary Facade: Â Â Brick, Ironwork, and Terra Cotta
Stories:Â 12
Wish List:Â Current Wish List
The Admaston apartment building was commission by George F. Johnson, Jr. and Leopold Kahn, and designed by George & Edward Blum. The Blum brothers were important designers of artistic apartment houses that were readily distinguished from the large number of more prosaic buildings then being erected. The Admaston in particular displays the Blum’s unusual decorative detailing that became the mainstain of their major apartment houses.
The Admaston is the “fraternal twin” of the Evanston (610 West End Avenue, protected as part of the Riverside-West End Historic District) and exhibits the Blum brothers’ unusual and distinguishing decorative styling, here in a Secession-like assemblage of terra cotta, tapestry brick, and inventive iron ornament. The brothers’ known geometric-focused vocabulary appears here in an earlier form, with more naturalistic ornament of molded leaves and curving stems made by the Brick, Tile & Terra Cotta Company of Corning, NY. Rather than a cornice, the Admaston’s twelfth floor bears a continuous iron balcony.