Top 10 Italian-Renaissance Palazzo Style Apartment Buildings
Although rustication implies a rough, rocky surface façade treatment, over the years it has come to denote a very pronounced, but generally smooth, rectilinear outlining of building elements, particularly at a structure’s base, such as was popular on “palaces” in the Italian Renaissance. A few of the city’s pre-war buildings have rustication the full height of a building, but others usually confine it to first several floors with no particular clue to whether more such floors conveys more status or not.
#1 - 998 Fifth Avenue
One of the world's grandest apartment buildings, this 12-story building was designed by McKim, Mead & White with four floors of limestone rustication, yellow Sienna marble panels on the 8th and 12th floors and a large cornice with a pitched copper roof to convey a marvelous sense of monumentality that made apartment living for the well-to-do acceptable.
#2 - 820 Fifth Avenue
One of the world's most prestigious addresses, this limestone-clad apartment building is fully rusticated.
#3 - 834 Fifth Avenue
Designed by Rosario Candela in 1931, this sumptuous apartment building directly across from the Central Park Zoo only has rustication on its lower three floors but no one has lowered its prestige score.
#4 - 927 Fifth Avenue
Relatively small by "palazzo" standards, this very elegant building makes up for only three floors of rustication with a very high degree of fine detailing.
#5 - 960 Fifth Avenue
Designed with only two floors of rustication by Warren & Wetmore, this "A-Plus" building is still a heavyweight when it comes to desirability, perhaps because it is close to the sailboat pond in Central Park and is not close to the major roads transversing the park.
#6 - 956 Fifth Avenue
This narrow, limestone-clad apartment house has good sidewalk landscaping and entrance doors.
#7 - 1016 Fifth Avenue
With a four-story rusticated limestone base and limestone pilasters the full height of the building, this 15-story apartment building has one of the city's most elegant lobbies.
#8 - Apple Bank Building, 2112 Broadway
Designed with a very impressive rusticated base by York & Sawyer, the same architectural firm that designed the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Building in Lower Manhattan, the top four floors of this 8-story building were converted to 29 residential condominiums in 2006.
#9 - The Powell Building, 105 Hudson Street
Erected in 1892 by Carrere & Hastings as a 7-story building with a two-story rusticated base, this very beautiful building was enlarged by another four floors in 1905 and it is one of the most impressive mixed-use buildings in TriBeCa.
#10 - 601 West End Avenue
Designed by Emery Roth in 1915 for Bing & Bing, this is one of the most distinguished apartment buildings in the city even though only its first floor is rusticated.
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