The Ansonia was designed by Paul E. M. DuBoy for William Earl Dodge Stokes, begun in 1899 and completed in 1904. It takes the whole blockfront on the west side of Broadway between 73rd and 74th Streets, seventeen stories in grand French Beaux Arts dress, and it opened as an apartment hotel with more than three hundred suites.
The plan was drawn for light and air. Five recessed courts cut into the mass, two on the north, two on the south and one on Broadway, so rooms reach daylight from more than one direction. Corner towers rise above a three story convex mansard, and the domes that once crowned them are gone. A three story rusticated limestone base carries continuous balconies, with iron balconies at the floors above.
The construction is why musicians live here. Stokes built it as an all masonry structure and made the interior partitions unusually thick, and the designation report describes the walls and floors as virtually soundproof. The Commission noted that it is one of the few buildings in New York where someone can practise or teach without disturbing a neighbour. That fabric is also what a renovation runs into: masonry partitions, not studwork.
Interior work here is heavy and routine. Most of it is settled by Commission staff, and much of that on the short procedure meant for interior work that meets fixed conditions.
Within walking distance
Building facts
Built
1904
Floors
17
Residences
385
Landmark
Yes
New York City Primary Land Use Tax Lot Output, version 26v1. Tax lot 1011657503.