Refurbishing a Storied UWS Icon

 
 

AYON Studio is excited to working on the exterior rehabilitation of one of NYC’s most notable Art Deco co-ops. Recently featured in Curbed, this “Particularly Eccentric Upper West Side Apartment Building” has served as a multi-disciplinary arts space and home for a diverse array of people, including Roerichism fanatics and practicing architects. Living in nearly all studio apartments, sans full kitchens, micro-communities have formed over the years within the 300-plus-unit, brick-and-terracotta building.

Designed by Harvey Wiley Corbett and completed in 1929, the Master Apartments opened just two weeks prior to the famed stock market crash and ensuing Great Depression. The tallest building on Riverside Drive, this NYC Landmark frames amazing Hudson River views with corner windows “reputed to be the first in Manhattan.” Since 1996, the historic building has experienced numerous interior renovations, and many apartments have been combined to capture panoramic views and multiple terraces.

Now, the exterior will get a refresh, including masonry restoration at the tower and rehabilitation of the monumental steel-framed transom windows at the entrances, which was based on precedents analyzed in Principal Angel Ayón’s book Reglazing Modernism.