{"nrhp_refnum":"84002801","name":"Sofia Warehouse","other_names":["Kent Columbus Circle Garage"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"43 W. 61st St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"New York","county":"Manhattan","state":"NY","lat":40.77036456400003,"lon":-73.98318190799995,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1984-09-27","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A 27-story Art Deco former parking garage at 43 West 61st Street (also 45 Columbus Avenue) on Manhattan's Upper West Side, built in 1929-30 as the Kent Columbus Circle Garage and later known as the Sofia Warehouse.","why_significant":"The nomination presents it as a distinguished example of Art Deco commercial architecture and the only known large-scale Art Deco parking garage in New York City. It is also the only known Art Deco design by Jardine, Hill and Murdock. It housed a novel patented automatic parking system and is one of the few commercial buildings left in a once light-industrial neighborhood.","narrative":"Rising twenty-seven stories at the corner of Columbus Avenue and West 61st Street in Manhattan, this brick and terra cotta building was erected in 1929-30 as the Kent Columbus Circle Garage. Its patented system used an electrical parking machine that gripped cars by the rear axle and towed them from the elevator platform to a space. The architects, Jardine, Hill and Murdock, successors to the nineteenth-century firm D. and J. Jardine, produced here their only known Art Deco design. Polychromatic terra cotta chevrons and medallions based on Aztec motifs surround the two-story entrance, and black brick bands and setbacks shape the facades. The garage business failed in 1931. In 1943 the building was sold to the Sofia Brothers, who removed the garage machinery and converted it to a storage warehouse. It is regarded as the only known large-scale Art Deco parking garage in New York City and one of few surviving commercial buildings in a former light-industrial district.","period_of_significance":"1929-1930","architect_builder":"Jardine, Hill and Murdock","architectural_style":"Art Deco","criteria":[],"status_note":"Vacant and undergoing rehabilitation into condominium apartments and offices at the time of nomination, under the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:50:43.511552-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NY/84002801.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/84002801/c8f2717608-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/84002801/c8f2717608-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 4.0","author":"Jim.henderson","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Sophia_winter_late_PM_jeh.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Jim.henderson</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Sophia_winter_late_PM_jeh.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75319913","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sofia","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q113000976"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/new-york/manhattan/sofia-warehouse-84002801/"}