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Audubon House: 1852
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To meet the demand for the highest type of four, five and six-room apartments, the Enesbe Realty Corporation, of which Nathan Berler is President, has just completed a unique structure at 807 Riverside Drive, corner of West 158th Street. Occupying a large plot of ground adjoining the beautiful Colonial residence of Mr. Berler, which is one of the landmarks of that section of Riverside Drive, the apartment has not only three fronts and two entrances but several interior courts, including a landscaped garden court.
New York Times
December 21, 1924
The apartment (sic), which contains fifty-two apartments, was entirely leased before completion and one of its most interesting features is the grand ballroom for the exclusive use of the tenants. This, just off the main lobby, is 40 feet wide and 60 feet long. Elaborately decorated in antique gold and polychrome, with velvet hangings, and lighted with crystal chandeliers, it is a copy of a grand ballroom of the Italian rennaisance period.
New York Times
May 3, 1925
This, just off the main lobby, is 40 feet wide and 60 feet long. Elaborately decorated in antique gold and polychrome, with velvet hangings, and lighted with crystal chandeliers, it is a copy of a grand ballroom of the Italian renaissance period.
New York Times
May 3, 1925
807 Riverside Drive
Now, walk back down the sidewalk in front of the Grinnell a few feet until you stand in front of 807 Riverside Drive. Two years after moving to 809 Riverside Drive, Nathan Berler built this apartment house, which elicited quite a bit of news coverage. In February, 1924, a New York Times article, that included an artist’s rendering of the front elevation, reported that the building would be "of stucco, brick and tiles in old Italian style.” The architect was George Fred Pelham, who designed Audubon and Hispania Halls, the twins on Broadway, as well as the unrealized plans for several six-story structures on Riverside Drive between 156th and 158th Streets.
Among the modern innovations provided for the fifty-two units at 807 Riverside Drive were radio aerial service, moth-proof cedar closets, and kitchens with breakfast alcoves. A unique feature of the building would be a ballroom, decorated in Louis XVI style, for the use of the tenants. Reports continued through the following May, when Mr. and Mrs. Berler formally opened the ballroom and dedicated it to the use of the tenants, with “a vocal and instrumental concert followed by a formal dinner and dance.”
Though the initial article reported that the architecture would be Italian and a later one termed it Colonial, the pitched and tiled roof and the multi-curved mission parapet all give the façade a Spanish flavor. The Riverside Drive façade masks the actual size of this building, which has double that frontage on 158th Street. For a long time, the name “Rio Rita” appeared in gold paint on the windows above the front entrance, perhaps in tribute to the movie theatre by that name that once existed around the corner on Broadway. That name disappeared when the building became condo units.
Cragmoor Dwellings (801 Riverside Drive)
Crillon Court (779/789 Riverside Drive)
Backtracking a little further, you'll see the Cragmoor Dwellings and at the corner, Crillon Court, which is built around an open courtyard. After decades as rental buildings, both the Cragmoor Dwellings and Crillon Court underwent extensive renovations in the early 2000s before becoming condo units.
The Cragmoor Dwellings and Crillon Court represent an intermediate period of apartment building design between the highly decorated Beaux arts style and the anonymous brick boxes that began populating Manhattan mid-century.
Cross the street, if you like, to get a closer look at the buildings facing it, or continue along the front of the Grinnell to the five-point corner of Edward M. Morgan Place, Riverside Drive, and 158th Street, for a look at the Sutherland.
Crillon Court
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Ballroom in the Basement
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Continue your walk . . .
Funded by the Audubon Park Alliance
