Customer Reviews

New York, New York: How the Apartment House Transformed the Life of the City

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Elizabeth Hawes traces the development of the New York apartment house, beginning with the Stuyvesant (1869), and then discussing the earliest middle-class and upper-class buildings of the 1870s. As Hawes explains how design evolved through the decades, she examines such classic buildings as the Villard Houses (1885), the Dakota (1884), and the Osborne (1885), as well as others of lesser fame. My favorite chapter is the 13th (of 14 chapters), in which Hawes compares three famous architects of the 1920s: Roth, Carpenter, and Candella. As the title indicates, the book's coverage ends at 1930. The author has done more than merely catalogue buildings; instead, she shows how changes in design reflect changes in society and an effort to learn from past design errors. There are 5 floor plans and approximately 50 photographs. As much as I enjoyed this book, I prefer Cromley's 'Alone Together,' which struck me as a slightly better treatment of the same material, with more illustrations. However, Hawes' 'New York, New York' covers the 1920s, a pivotal decade in New York apartment architecture, which was not covered in Cromley's book.

This book relates the history of residential architecture in New York City from 1869-1930, the period covering the transition from single family houses to apartment dwellings. The book is into four sections organized by era: Old New York (1869-1879), the Gilded Age (1880-1899), the New Metropolis (1900-1919), and the Manhattan Skyline (1920-1930). According to Hawes, an architect named Richard Morris Hunt was the leader in bringing apartment buildings to New York. Hunt had been educated in Paris, where apartment buildings were the norm. Indeed, when he began designing apartment buildings for New York, they were first called "French flats." Hawes takes us on a tour through neighborhoods where the new apartment buildings were being constructed, and she also describes how the millionaires living on Fifth Avenue were determined to keep apartments out of their neighborhood. She introduces the architects of the time, and provides detailed descriptions of both buildings and the interior layouts of the new luxury apartments. This book is very much about New York City--there is little, if any, discussion of architectural changes in other American cites. The book is amply illustrated with high-quality black-and-white period photographs. End material includes an appendix of extant buildings of the style described in the text, endnotes, selected references, and an index.

Throughout the book, the focus is on housing for the rich and the upper-middle class, those who kept a social distance between themselves and the lower classes who lived in tenements. The book chronicles not only the architects of the time and the buildings they designed, but also how high society gradually accepted and even warmed up to the idea of living in multiple-family dwellings. In order to make the new apartment buildings attractive to upper-class tenants, architects included every luxury they could think of, from ample servants' quarters, to independent electrical power stations and cold storage rooms.

Though the book is well-researched, I'm still not entirely convinced by several of Hawes; claims, however. The book is sub-titled "How the apartment house transformed the life of the city." While the apartment house was certainly a new way of living for the rich, I suspect that the majority of the population did not belong to the upper classes, and did not have access to these buildings. What's more, the shift in architectural style that Hawes describes doesn't seem to be of the type that would filter down to the masses, so it's hard to see how these new luxury apartment houses transformed the life of the city beyond the rich. If the life of the city actually was transformed, it's hard to discover the details in this book, since the book focuses more on the architects and their buildings than on cultural change. Hawes also seems to be at least implicitly claiming that it was the new architecture style that convinced people to live in multiple-family dwellings. She notes that the population of New York exploded during this time period. If so, then land values must have been increasing as well, and there must have been quite a bit of pressure to use the land more efficiently. Hawes notes that as land values went up, some of the very rich finally sold their land, and had the exact layout of their houses duplicated on the uppermost floor of the new buildings that went onto the plots. This suggests that perhaps the shift from single family houses to apartment dwellings may have been inevitable rather than simply following fashion, especially given the limited amount of land that was available in the island setting of the city.

I stumbled on this book when I'd first moved to New York City in the mid-90s. It was a wonderful look at the development of many neighborhoods, especially the Upper West Side where I continue to live. I walked all around Central Park with this book as a guide, discovering the history of my new home, one building at a time. In particular, I came to understand the basis of the co-op apartment building and how it has shaped the city.

I gave my copy away to a friend who was teaching local history, but I think of it often. I've just rediscovered the actual title, after reading an essay the author wrote for the New York Times. I'm eager to replace the book I have thought of so often in the last 15 years.