Osborne Apartments

Occupying the northwest corner of Seventh Avenue and West 57th Street, this eleven-story apartment building was constructed in 1883-5 as one of Manhattan's first luxury apartment houses. Architect James E. Ware combined rough-cut Romanesque stonework, deep-set windows, three-sided oriels and corner bartizan-like forms with the horizontal massing of an Italian Renaissance palazzo. Originally each floor held only four large apartments, with fifteen-foot ceilings in the public rooms, and the building offered fireproof construction, steam heat, electricity and elevators. A west extension was added in 1906-07, and storefronts replaced ground-floor apartments from 1919. The entrance vestibule and ninety-two-foot lobby are richly decorated with marble, mosaics, stained glass and repoussé copper, with the interior panel attributing the work to J.A. Holzer. Many apartments were later subdivided, though fourteen retain much original detail. The building is valued as a rare survivor of early upper-income apartment living and as a notable example of Ware's work.