Carter's Review

This building overlooking the FDR Drive and the East River has been significantly altered over the years and no longer has its handsome roof gardens with trellices and balconies facing the river.

This building was originally built in 1913 with 7 stories, but a floor was later added in a renovation. It was originally built as the Junior League Hotel, which later became the East River Hotel For Women, was the "luxury" component of the City & Suburban homes development on the full block bounded by the FDR Drive, York Avenue and 78th and 79th Streets that became the center of a major redevelopment controversy in the late 1980's.

This building was designed by Philip Ohm of the City and Suburban Homes Architectural Department and the remainder of the block was designed by Harde & Short and Percy Griffin. They were similar to the designs of James Ware for the first City and Suburban Home project completed a few years before this one on the full block bounded by First and York Avenues and 64th and 65th Streets.

The remainder of this block consists of similar but less grand, six-story residential buildings, many with large courtyards, that were originally intended to demonstrate improved low-income housing as part of a "reform" movement that was concerning with tenement housing conditions in the city.

In the mid-1980's, this property and the remainder of its entire full-block was acquired by Peter Kalikow, the developer, who soon announced plans to raze all the buildings and redevelop the site with four very large residential towers. The plan was quickly attacked by many civic groups concerned about both the relocation of the many existing tenants and the impact of the large towers on the neighborhood. Kalikow revised the plan a few times and offered to relocate tenants into renovated apartments of similar size at their existing rent levels.

The defeat of the Kalikow plan was a victory for the community activists, but a loss for the city since the block is quite drab and the proposed redevelopment would have continued the luxury apartment tower redevelopment along the FDR Drive from 72nd Street to the Carl Schurz Park neighborhood. Unlike the very handsome Shively apartments designed by Henry Atterbury Smith on Cherokee Place one block to the south, the City and Suburban Homes complex is undistinguished architecturally, at least from a visual viewpoint, even if it was an important experiment in the city's history of low-income housing.

A southbound entrance to the FDR Drive is at 79th Street.

This building faces the north side of John Jay Park, which has a swmming pool and "carries a lush parosol of trees," as noted by Elliot Willensky and Norval White in the fine book, "The A.I.A. Guide to New York City, Third Edition," (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988).

Although altered, this building has some nice architectural details such as rusticated columns at its entrance and rustication on the next to top floor. The building has 12 apartments per floor, allows pets, and has a sundeck, video security and a doorman.

Carter B. Horsley