The Beresford was designed by Emery Roth and built in 1928 and 1929. It stands at the corner of 81st Street facing the American Museum of Natural History, and it takes the corner with two monumental fronts, each crowned by a tower.
It is brick with limestone and terra cotta detailing. The ornament is a sculptural programme of late Renaissance derivation, winged cherubs and angels, dolphins and rams' heads, cartouches and festoons and rosettes. It is one of the largest of the Central Park West apartment buildings and the scale shows in the plan as much as the elevation.
Windows carry more of this building's history than anything else. More than two hundred applications name them, and a further set name equipment installed through the wall. That concentration is the practical fact: the opening is where change gets examined here, and where a proposal meets the longest record.
Within walking distance
Building facts
Built
1929
Last altered
1989
Floors
20
Residences
183
Landmark
Yes
Historic district
Upper West Side / Central Park West Historic District
New York City Primary Land Use Tax Lot Output, version 26v1. Tax lot 1011950029.