Original Layout of 500 WEA, Apt. 8E

The bedroom off the kitchen was most likely the dining room and there probably were one or two other bedrooms past the hall bathroom.

Price seems nuts.

I think the BR off the kitchen was a maid's and you are missing at least 2 brs. 500WEA had 64 apts in 1945 (based on NYT article) so significant splitting of apts in the 50s & 60s.

This was most certainly a "classic 6" when built and the bedrooms have been lopped off during a subdivision of apartments in the past. What remains of the original is the maids room and bathroom, kitchen, dining room and living room. It appears the original bedrooms were off the bottom of the floorplan shown and would have been accessed via a hall now blocked by the closet outside the larger bathroom. You would have entered the apt, turned right, and made another right to enter the section with the 2 bedrooms. The livingroom has since been chopped up to form a bedroom--even at the time this building went up, closets of at least some size were included in most bedrooms and the fact that the bedroom to the right of this floorplan has no closet suggests an inelegant subdivision. This apartment's layout is fairly dreadful imo.

too short on closets for a 2-BR, IMHO.

ali r.
DG Neary Realty

I really appreciate your detailed explanation, Kyle, and also the additional comments from nyc10023 and front_porch. I guess I'm getting a little tired of apartment hunting and am starting to look at apartments that are very poor options. The lack of closet space, no W/D and the odd layout of this apartment troubled me, but I was trying to figure out why it was designed as it was on the floorplan. I don't know much about the building, but I'll try to find out more in case there is a better apartment.

Thanks columbiacounty for your response. I missed it the first time I looked at the responses.

The responses on this board thus far are incorrect...it's not a cut-up at all, but rather, a very typical WWI-era Edwardian Five. Many buildings built between 1907-1912 (by speculators after the subway came in in 1907) had such a layout. 500 WEA was built just beyond that mini building-boom in 1914 but, architecturally, fits firmly within that period. This particular layout was designed for 1 person: A living room, a dining room (what they call the large second bedroom off of the kitchen), a bedroom, a maid's room and bath, and a kitchen. This same layout can be found in 251 West 89th, 645 WEA, and 771 WEA (another Schwartz and Gross building like 500 WEA) as well -- just to name a few.

251 West 89th
http://img.streeteasy.com/nyc/image/33/5083333.gif

645 WEA
http://img.streeteasy.com/nyc/image/52/2419452.jpg

771 WEA
http://img.streeteasy.com/nyc/image/74/8240874.gif

It is possible that it is an Edwardian 5, except for the fact that the proportions don't look right to me and we know that the # of apts was reduced.

rsm321, I think you nailed it. Also, that line is at the very back, where the Edwardian-Fives tend to be: diagonally opposite the WEA/84th corner.

That building's plans have been so chopped and changed, the E-line would be one of the few remaining original layouts. Maybe I'll get off my ass and go to the open house today. If there's a service staircase to the south of the E-line's bathroom, that'd clinch it.

What do you think of the asking price?

NYC10023, the proportions are congruous with an Edwardian and, as far as the apartments being subdivided, Edwardian Fives have historically been the LEAST subdivided since they only occur in buildings wherein they are usually the smallest original apartments -- it's the Sevens and Eights, Nines and Tens that are subdivided.

It's closest to 771WEA. You may be right, we'll have to see. I was thrown by the bathroom placement & the foyer.

Asking price is way off.

771 is also Schwartz and Gross so they're probably virtually identical. Asking price is COMPLETELY bananas :)

It doesn't seem right for an Edwardian 5. The flow and dimensions of the rooms point at missing bedrooms. The room off the kitchen was the dining room, and the original living room was carved into two rooms. The apartment looks like the public roo
half of the original: foyer, dining room and living room, plus the kitchen and maid's room.

Nope

The layouts you posted as Edwardian-5's have clearly defined public vs. private rooms, with closets and/or bathroom
isolating the two areas. The lack of closets and the thin wall of the bedroom carved out of the living room clearly show this not the original floorplan.

If it were indeed an "Edwardian Five," wouldn't that 10 by 15 bedroom have a double closet in it opposite the window?

I'm with the crew that thinks this is the remnant of a larger apt.

ali r.
DG Neary Realty

The most compelling support for 8E as an original 5 is the original 5 layout at 771WEA. Same bathroom placement.

Where do I begin?

First of all, seriously folks, the 771 WEA and the 500 WEA apartments are virtually identical...do you not see that?

Now, let’s establish that the room in the floorplan designated as a bedroom was really the Formal Dining Room. If you look closely at the pictures of 500 WEA, you will notice that the floors of the Living Room and the Dining Room (again, what they call one of the bedrooms) are herringbone whereas the floor for the other bedroom (the only original bedroom) is plank. As was customary for the era, public rooms had different flooring than private rooms. Again, this leads us to believe that the room designated in the floorplan as a bedroom was really a public room...i.e. the Formal Dining Room of this Edwardian Five. Another indication that that was the case is the triple-window (something typically only found in public rooms of this era).

As for the "missing" closets, this was a Schwartz and Gross building. While Gaetan Ajello and the Blum Brothers (shockingly) built buildings with larger closets (relatively speaking, of course) Schwartz and Gross were the ultimate "copycat" firm and, at this time, they were replicating Neville and Bagge buildings which had either no closets at all or shallow 18" closets -- closets which do not even accommodate standard hangers. Thus, many people who live in these buildings have either built the closets out in order to accommodate today's needs or completely ripped them out as rooms have been repurposed.

It's an Edwardian Five.

>It's an Edwardian Five.

I agree. I think the problem is that they've used an amateurish floor plan that makes it look like the design for the apartment has itself been messed with.

It's still ridiculously overpriced, too.

I agree as well. I can't get over the price.

I yield to your superior reasoning. The floors seal it.
It's a pretty lousy Five, the price is ridiculous.

RSM - where have you been on various floorplan and prewar-drool threadS?

Alot of spirited debate while I was out viewing this apartment.:) The apartment had quite a few original details and is actually very nice in person. I think we can all agree its overpriced.

Thanks for so much insight.

You've converted maly but you haven't converted me.

No one here is arguing that the 13 by 17' bedroom wasn't the original dining room. The point Kylewest and I are making is that the 10' by 15' bedroom doesn't have any closets, whereas in any original plan of about that period it would have had a closet for clothes, probably one of double width (a la your comparison 771 West End). Since it doesn't have them, it seems likely it's just a recent carve out from the original living room, and the original bedrooms are somewhere else -- in another apartment.

I get your argument that there may have once been a closet there, but then why would those owners have ripped it out? The room is clearly being used as a bedroom, and even an 18-inch closet would be better than nothing. Are those owners putting their clothes in the linen closet?

As to the plank floors, doesn't the plank in the "bedroom" look like the same vintage as the the plank in the updated kitchen?

Finally, I see some evidence on the Web from the West End preservation society that 500 WEA (which I believe is "the San Jose") was an S&G building, but Emporis doesn't have it on their list of S&G buildings, so are we even definitive on that point?

I'm not trying to be really contentious about this, it just feels a little too awkward to be an E5 to me.

ali r.
DG Neary Realty

I was trolling through ACRIS, and the most consistent reading of the original condo declaration indicates that there were 5 apts/flr:

A - 7 room
B - 8 roomm
C - 6 room
D - 6 room
E - 5 room

I'm with Kyle and Ali on this.

I grew up in an UWS Schwartz & Gross building that was built in 1916, and had closets galore, in all the right places. Only the entrance gallery closet was anything approaching shallow, and still deep enough for coats hung on a standard pole, not on pegs ... and the maid's room closet, which looked like an aftermarket addition. No-closet non-maid's bedrooms were found only in tenements, as in walk-up multifamilies.

If the kitchen in 500WEA/8E is anything like what it appears to be on the floorplan, there is not the slightest chance the apartment was built that way. Apartments had kitchens, not perfunctory installations of basic fixtures wherever they could be squeezed in, and only one-room residential hotel apartments had anything as scant as this (way scanter, really).

Besides, you can find a few more floorplans for this building on SE, and while nothing is an AHA! plan, you get the general idea of how the building was built. This one is a cut-up.

Now if Columbia would only expand its online RE brochures to include the 1910s, we'd have confirmation one way or the other.

AH: maly is right. Go to the original condo declaration, on each and every floor (exclude ground & PH), apts A-E exist. On the floors where ONLY A-E exist, the room count is 7,8,6,6,5 - which supports the theory that nothing was carved from 8E. And 12X5 = 60, which is closest to the original 64-apt count. I dunno what happened to the closets.

NWT: do you have a copy of Thomas Norton's "Living it up .." - San Jose a.k.a. 500WEA should be in there.

Damn, I am OCD.

You can also get a sense of how random (almost certainly due to apartment splitting) the kitchens are in this building from another listing:

http://www.prudentialelliman.com/Listings.aspx?ListingID=1141734&rentalperiod=&SearchType=Broker_Contract&Region=NYC&BID=JQT

Floorplan: http://www.prudentialelliman.com/NYCPhotos/floorplans/de/1141734.722185121.gif

The problem with that theory, nyc10023, aside from your firm refusal to reply to emails, is that huge numbers of UWS buildings were cut up in the depression, pre-1945. By the 1950s and 60s, of course, it was much harder to chop up large buildings because of rent control.

Townhouses got hacked up in the post-war era, but they also were largely cut up before, due to the advent of the fashionable elevator building, due to the sharp reduction in immigration (cheap servants), then due to the depression, the move to "the country", the urban blight.

AH: what emails? And the 64 apt count is from the NYT archives circa 1912ish, when the building was built. So there! So if the smallest # of apts/flr per condo declaration is 5 (A through E) then what rooms were lost from E? And where would they have gone (bearing in mind the 7,8,6,6,5 count).

I am looking forward to the rare occasion of you eating crow (but I'll settle for another bird).

Brined in fresh sage and convected until it's falling off the bone.

Perhaps the answer can be guessed from this (quite possibly incorrect) listing, which puts the building at 111 apartments: http://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=70390

So chop-up and recombine haphazardly? That would make sense for an eviction-plan condo conversion with too many remaining residents.

nyc10023, I have Living It Up, but now I can't find it. No plan for 500, right? There're so few in that book I would've remembered it.

I think your room-count analysis from the condo declaration, etc., makes sense. We'll have to descend en masse on the next open house and thoroughly inspect. Or maybe sneak into the east yard and count windows.

There's a 1945 C-of-O where it still has five per floor, on every floor. If accurate, then odd that the cut-ups were post-war rather than in the 1930s. Not unprecedented, though. Some cut-ups were even later.

Plus the borker looks like a Saturday Night Live routine.

I forgot to mention yesterday that FWIW, the seller's broker told us that this apartment is an Edwardian Five.

alan, the broker was a really nice guy.

Was he embarrassed about the price?

Tina Fey owns a C6 at 500WEA.

Fascinating. I've loved reading this thread. Learned more about "Edwardian 5's" than I ever knew. FWIW, I lived briefly in a Schwartz and Gross building on lower fifth. Some very, very odd layouts indeed. But some nice ones, too. Great lobby--at least I thought so. My b/f said it creeped him out and reminded him of Rosemary's Baby.

>Tina Fey owns a C6 at 500WEA.

OK, so I take back what I wrote about it being overpriced.

I've never heard the term "Edwardian 5" before reading this thread. I'm not sure what Americans are supposed to call that period, but 'Edwardian' never seems to get much play here for any purpose. I guess we loved Victoria enough, but not Eddie, except the one from AbFab. Certainly "Gibson Girl 5" doesn't sound right ... in fact, even "Edwardian 5" sounds like a lounge act or a group of politico-terrorist defendants in a well-publicized trial.

It's just a convenient phrase to roughly bracket the period between the turn of the century and the Great War. I always supposed Edwardian 5s to be BR, LR, DR, K, maid's and "non-Edwardian" 5s to be 2BR, LR, DR, K, no maid's.

What, you don't refer to that as the Wiener Werkstätte era? Or "Nouveau Five"?

Where doorman-type buildings are concerned, I think you'll pretty much only find original 2BRs w/o maid's rooms in 1920s and later buildings -- after immigration was cut way back. Those will often have a maid's bathroom, and/or maybe a uniform-changing area.

If it had one more room, it would be a "Secession Six"?

FWIW, I showed this layout to my boss Gil Neary (who has been doing this for about 25 years and is pretty up on architecture) and his main comment was that while this might be the original footprint of the apartment, there had probably been some internal reconfiguration in the foyer area, which accounts for part of our reaction that "the floorplan doesn't make sense."

One of his examples is that he thought the entrance to the second BR/former dining room had probably originally been double doors.

ali r.
DG Neary Realty

The foyer area looks weirdly shaped and the door layout clunky compared to the very-similar 5 at 771WEA.

Edwardian also makes sense (even though misapplied) because in the UK, it was the last great gasp of large country houses, estates, servants before the Great War. Many, many writers have successfully evoked the era (Waugh, Ishiguro et al.). It is one of my favorite periods - nice to fantasize about having some mod cons while not sacrificing the staff.

What is clear is that I do not want an Eduardian 5 if this is what they look like in plan. Ick.

Alanhart, all joshing aside, architectural periods are named for technological and social conditions. The Edwardian period mark a short period announcing the beginning of modern technology (cars, electricity, central heating) and the end of the old social order (servant class.)
Now I'd like to know what our exhibitionist floor-to-window glass architecture will be named. The narcissistic era?

geeks geeks geeks. have you any idea what philip roth would do with this thread?

Oh yeah! My penis, sex, golf, penis, penis, edwardian penis.

I think we should just start naming the moderns after their reality show complements... because that's the only real anymore...

Is that Valtrex in the powder room? Oh, then, that's a Jersey Shore 7.
A beautiful vomitorium masquerading as a powder room. Genius. It is a completely perfect Real Housewives 10 -- of New York, not the OC.
That is a disgusting toilet seat. Oh god, I'd never live in a Real World 2, Pedro and all, you know. I always have my staff tested, especially after that nasty toilet seat incident.

These, of course, are not architectural referents, but artifactual. The nicknacks make the space these days. With glass curtain walls, architecture doesn't even exist anymore. We all live in our kitchens because it's what's inside that counts.

Wow! This is the first time I've checked-in since my last post...who knew it would generate such passion :) I'm glad everyone is in agreement now.

One final note on those comparing Schwartz and Gross buildings across different locations and different periods: It's somewhat useless. As I mentioned earlier, unlike most of their counterparts, Schwartz and Gross were a copycat firm -- they had nothing uniquely their own. Ajello had his staircases, Neville and Bagge had their suites of sequential rooms, the Blum Brothers had their terra cotta tiles, Carpenter had his proportionality, etc etc etc. Schwartz and Gross had nothing and everything: Nothing all their own but everything found in some building in some at some time. So, again, while one can see, for instance, two Roth buildings from the 1920s and 1930s in two different areas of the city as being on the same continuum, it's somewhat futile to compare a Schwartz and Gross Village apartment from the 1920s with a Schwartz and Gross Washington Heights tenement building from 1908.

As for Philip Roth, my undergrad thesis relied heavily on his work…It was about Judaism as a useful context for gay men coming out of the closet entitled, “Superman, Sissies, and Fabulous Coats.” That’s for a different forum, of course 

>> That’s for a different forum, of course

Of course it's not. Do tell.

rsm: what do you do to earn your bread?

Never mind, I know who you are. Apt23: these sorts of threads are why I finally started posting on SE.

As for the layout - minus the weirdly proportioned foyer and closets (easily rectified), an Edwardian 5 is perfect for the couple/single who entertains but doesn't want to have house guests.

I can't stand Roth, never got past first 2 pages. But may revisit, out of respect to rsm. May be like my Hemingway experience. Couldn't stand it until a few months ago.

What do I do to earn my bread? My BAs are in Modern Jewish Studies and Women's and Gender Studies, my MA is in General Psychology, and my PhD work was in Clinical Psychology (ABD) so I'm, of course, a Real Estate Broker...hahahahah!

nyc10023, do we know one another?

You kinda gave it away with your google-able thesis. Cute, though.

Nope, but I am queen of google.

"Alanhart, all joshing aside, architectural periods are named for technological and social conditions. The Edwardian period mark a short period announcing the beginning of modern technology (cars, electricity, central heating) and the end of the old social order (servant class.)"

Yes, but the term "Edwardian", commonly used in the UK and maybe in it commonwealth client states, just doesn't seem to have taken hold here, for whatever reason. In history and politics, it's the "Progressive Era" in the US.

I think the architectural period we're talking about is referred to broadly as "Classical Revival" or "Academic Classicism", but that probably refers to exteriors much more than interiors. For grand public buildings, and particularly oongapotchka apartment buildings, it's Beaux Arts.

Weird that art nouveau architecture hardly made a dent here. Maybe in "soft" interior decor?

I think Art Nouveau was about to explode (re Normandy at 140 RSD) except for that pesky Great Depression :)

The Normandy (1938) seems to me to be on the late side of Art Deco, leaning towards Moderne (at least the exterior). Nouveau preceded Deco -- lots of organic ribbon/noodle-like flowing forms, in contrast to the symmetrical, streamline-machined forms of Deco.

I wonder how the Normandy even got built, right in the thick of the Depression. Perhaps planned earlier and scuttled for a few years? And if so, did they radically reduce the apartment sizes?

The economy revived a bit in 1935, and new-construction lending picked up in 1937. By 1939, when the Normandy opened, there were lots of new buildings in the works, e.g. all those Roth buildings on Fifth Ave.

The Normandy was planned and the land bought in 1938, so no change from earlier plans. By then buildings like 5 and 100 RSD with 3-6 rooms had been successful. The railroad was covered over a few years earlier, which helped.

I was roundly scolded for calling the Normandy an Art Deco.

This is my favorite thread du jour. Can we not talk about the economy, stupid? I quite fancy myself an Edwardian dandy.

Don't call me "stupid" ... it's "Stupid" to you.

"I was roundly scolded for calling the Normandy an Art Deco." ... rather than Nouveau? Moderne? What?

Moderne.

nyc10023: you need to read Roth's later oeuvre -- age seems to be the precise brine for his particular genius. I'd start with The Human Stain. He won a big prize for it (pulitzer?) and it is worthy. but DO NOT see the horrible, disjointed movie. Later we can join together and chart the course of those two 20 something girls who got the auction impulse apt from their mother. I went to school with a few extremely privileged, over protected classmates and it did not end well for most.

>Weird that art nouveau architecture hardly made a dent here. Maybe in "soft" interior decor?

Well, there's always Louis Comfort Tiffany and some of those Adler/Sullivan facades.... But Art Nouveau was pretty much dead by 1905, in Europe and here.

And I'd guess that "Edwardian" didn't really take hold here as it referred to a British king at a time when no one cared all that much about Britain since modernity was happening elsewhere.

I checked out "The Select Register of Apartment House Plans for Manhattan" today during my lunch hours, which (most unfortunately) did not have an entry for 500 WEA. :(

I wonder if it uses an alternate address on a side street, but probably not.

Too bad, I am surprised that it's not on there ...

conspiracy

The first Edwardian 5 apartment that I saw was at 105 West 72nd Street. What was interesting was that the seller had a proposal for prospective buyers from a contactor of how the dining room could be converted into a second bedroom. IIRC,the West 72nd Street apartment "flowed" nicely from room to room although the maid's room was so small that you couldn't use it for an office or anything besides storage.

jr 4 plus a maids

I thought "Jr. 4" is just a broker's apology. Is there such a thing in the real world?

And then there's this: http://www.natefind.com/sold/500-west-end-ave-manhattan-10024
which seems to imply a lot of cut-up apartments, and "E" line units that are 1216 or 674sf depending. The subject apartment seems to fall between those two measurements, though.
Not sure who nate is, or whether he's accurate.

Holy cow! Alan, you found a clue for the other side. Goooooooooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal!!!
8E is listed at 1,216sf, so I guess that's settled: an Edwardian Five with unfortunate internal reconfiguration.

You get 1216sf from that little place?

The price of #8E was just reduced a second time, to $1.399MM. That's 12.6% below the original ask. Still seems quite pricey, even factoring in the premium for scarce pre-war condos.

Alanhart/Maly: The 1,216 SF figure is straight from the offering plan. The measurement is consistent from the fourth floor to the twelfth. That consistency strongly supports rsm321's contention that the footprint of #8E is original and any modifications were internal. [See Exhibit B on pages 26-28 of http://a836-acris.nyc.gov/Scripts/DocSearch.dll/ViewImage?Doc_ID=FT_1470008079747 ]

#3E was evidently divided into #3E and #3M; together, these units comprise 1,216 SF. The "M" line exists only on three. Above the third floor, as Alanhart noted, there have been carve-ups galore, creating pseudo-lines "F", "G", "H", "J", "K", "L", "Y" and "Z"; only the second, ninth and tenth floors appear to have escaped gerrymandering. None of the carve-ups above three, however, seem to have compromised the relevant "E" units. The intact "E" units on the untouched ninth and tenth floors match #8E and the rest of the line from four to twelve. (#2E oddly has an extra 54 SF.)

In short, the footprint is original, and rsm321 reigns. By the way, despite his "Nouveau" slip above, I can attest that he knows the Normandy is Moderne, because he's the one who taught me the difference.

By the way, the sellers' 2002 basis appears to be in the low 600s, based on the NYS transfer tax paid at the time.

Without disclosing too much, I have gotten to know this apartment VERY well. To do it right, the place needs about $100k to renovate, re-configure, upgrade while preserving the original pre-war details. Factoring in that 27% of the units are still occupied by rent stabilized tenants, and that 7E sold for $905k in a sponsor sale(supposedly needed a full renovation, which is almost better since you're not paying for someone else's half complete job), what's the right price here? Any guesses?

Lobster or anyone else who has actually seen the apartment, I'd love to hear your opinions...

Looks like it's closed, any guesses on where the final price landed settled before it's posted???

http://streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/526491-condo-500-west-end-avenue-upper-west-side-new-york

Okay, no cheating, I didn't look. 1.2m.

And the answer is: $1.28MM
05/20/2010 Listed by Prudential Elliman at $1,600,000.
07/08/2010 Price decreased by 7% to $1,495,000.
01/04/2011 Price decreased by 6% to $1,399,000.
03/17/2011 Listing entered contract.
05/13/2011 Sale recorded for $1,280,000.

More than I would have guessed...thanks for posting West81st.