To work, artists need light and space—two things that can be hard to come by in Manhattan. In the early twentieth century, artists and their backers put up a number of buildings meant to meet those needs, with double-height studios, allowing for ample light, and low rents. Some of those buildings took advantage of the relatively new idea of co-op apartments and had artists buy shares in order to fund the buildings' construction and maintenance. Artists' cooperatives had occasional downsides—one resident of 130 West 57th Street filed a disorderly conduct complaint against a downstairs neighbor in 1921 over the "absolute riot" of ragtime music coming from her apartment. (The noisy neighbor in question decided to flee to Italy in search of "personal liberty" even once she was found not guilty.) But they were also home to the production of much notable work. We've rounded up 15 notable artists' buildings for the map below. Most are still standing, though the prices for their apartments are no longer so artist-friendly.
Tenth Street Studio Building
Many of the buildings on this list date to the first decade of the
twentieth century, but those structures were preceded by the Tenth
Street Studio Building, which dates to 1857. Artists including Winslow
Homer and Frederic Church had studio spaces there, and the building
included a central gallery. (Some of the units were just studio spaces;
others had bedrooms as well.) The building was demolished in 1956, and
non-artist-oriented apartments now stand on the spot. (Photo courtesy
the Museum of the City of New York.)
Gainsborough Studios
To address their needs for light and space, a group of painters and sculptors formed the Gainsborough Corporation
in the early 1900s to build a building full of cooperative studios for
artists. They purchased 222 Central Park South, then a millionaire's
mansion, in 1907, and replaced the mansion with the Gainsborough
Studios. The 34 apartments at the front of the building have
double-height living rooms. At the moment there's one 2BR in the building for sale.
Studio Building
The 1907 Studio Building, designed by Herbert Harde and R. Thomas
Short, also had double-height studios intended for artists. But regular folk
(i.e., lawyers and doctors) also lived there from the beginning. The
building received some rave archicritical reviews: a "Brobdingnagian
cathedral," one magazine called it; the terra cotta decoration "appears
to have been squeezed out of a pastry tube," said an architectural
historian. The building has one incredible penthouse on the market now.
Hotel Des Artistes
George Mort Pollard designed this building,
which was built in 1917. As at other artists' residents, a number of
the apartments include double-height spaces, but not only visual artists
lived at the Hotel Des Artistes. Noel Coward and Fannie Hurst, for
example, were among the writers in residence. There is one $2 million 1BR on the market in the building now.
Studio Building
This building—which shares the name the Studio Building with one of
the Upper West Siders on this list—was architect Charles Platt's first
major city design. (He had previously been known as a country house
architect.) Painter Gerald Murphy (a friend of F. Scott Fitzgerald) and
baritone Lawrence Tibbett were among the early residents. There's one two-bedroom on the market now in the landmarked building.
140 West 57th Street
Pollard & Steinam—who designed several other artist-oriented
buildings on West 67th Street—were the architects of this structure,
which was built in 1907-1908. The front of the building contained seven
double-height apartments, and as the Landmarks Preservation Commission
designation report for the building puts it, "the tall, projecting bay
windows set in geometrically-ornamented cast iron frames bring in the
north light so prized by artists." 130 West 57th Street was designed by
the same architects and was almost identical. (It was also the site of a
disorderly conduct complaint over the "absolute riot" of ragtime.)
80 West 40th Street
Painter (and naturalist) Abraham Archibald Anderson tried living in
Connecticut so that he would have the space and light in which to work,
but he wanted to be in the city—so he decided to buy four lots
at 40th Street and Sixth Avenue and build a studio building there.
Anderson and his wife occupied the top floor once the building was
finished. Other artists took space, and eventually, Liz Claiborne had
her first studio there. In the 1980s, the building received a restoration.
The Rembrandt
Carnegie Hall Tower now stands where the Rembrandt Studio building went up in 1881. Christopher Gray
speculated in one Streetscapes column that the Rembrandt—along with the
Sherwood Studio building at 57th Street and Sixth Avenue, since
demolished—may have been one of the buildings that persuaded Andrew
Carnegie that a concert hall would be the right fit for the
neighborhood. (Photo via Museum of the City of New York.)
Carnegie Hall Studios
Carnegie Hall kicked out
its last artists several years ago in order to convert their live/work
spaces above the famed concert hall into additional office and classroom
space. One of the last residents, photographer/filmmaker Josef Astor, made the documentary Lost Bohemia about the end of the building's artist housing era.
23-27 West 67th Street
The studio building at 27 West 67th Street was the first to marry
artists' needs for light and space with the idea of co-op apartments.
Sturgis & Simonson designed the building, which was built in
1901-1903 and includes double-height studios, with northern light,
attached to living space. As a Landmarks Preservation Commission report
explains, no builder would buy into the project's live/work premise, so
painter Henry W. Ranger got a group of artists together to invest in the
buildingguaranteeing each a permanent lease and building shares in
exchange. Some of the apartments were rented out to pay for building
maintenance.
Central Park Studios
The success of 27 West 67th Street inspired other similar buildings
in the neighborhood, including the Central Park Studios. (Both buildings
are now part of the eight-building West 67th Street Artists' Colony Historic District.)
Architects Simonson, Pollard, and Steinem brought all their varied
experience with studio buildings to bear on this design. Artists
associated with the building painted the murals in its lobby. The most
recent apartment to sell, nearly a year ago, went for $4.335 million.
The Atelier Building
This building was also designed by Simonson, Pollard, and Steinam and
built in 1903-1905, and it's part of the small artists' colony historic
district. The top of the building was designed to resemble a medieval
castle gate. The most recent sale, in summer 2012, was for $3.8 million.
Vermeer Studios
Ella Mabel Clark built the Vermeer Studios, at 114 and 116 East 66th Street, for those in the arts, Christopher Gray explains.
The project was an outgrowth of Clark's interest in housing reform, and
she kept the rents at the buildings—designed by Edouard R. Bossange and
Butler & Rodman—low. (A center studio with a skylight asked $900/year
in 1915.) A doctor and a chauffeur were among the tenants recorded by
the census, but muralist and stage designer Clagget Wilson, sculptor
Eleanor Mellon, painter Sheldon Pennoyer, and A. Conger Goodyear, first
president of MoMA, lived there, too, at one time or another. The
buildings were demolished in 1954, but during its lifespan, it stood out
a bit among its neighbors: Gray describes it as "a berserk
Flemish-style jack-in-the-box with two heads."
Rodin Studios
Painters John Fry and Lawton S. Parker, along with Fry's wife Georgia
Timkey Fry, teamed up 1916 for a studio building named after Auguste
Rodin. Celebrated architect Cass Gilbert joined them to design the
building, which had retail and office space on the lower floors to fund
the building. Other floors had studios, studios with living spaces, and duplexes
on the northern side to let in light. At the time, the building's
biggest apartments rented for $350/month. These days the rents are considerably higher, with one studio asking $3,500/month in 2011.
Starchitect Richard Meier, before he achieved starchitect-dom, created the West Village's Westbeth
housing complex, meant for early-career artists who could hold onto
their inexpensive rentals for about five years while growing their
careers. The complex is now a landmark, and its residents have ended up having similar staying power. In fact, local politicians recently accused the complex of "stockpiling" apartments rather than allowing those on the waiting list to move in.
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