The San Remo

The San Remo is at 145 and 146 Central Park West The building occupies the western sidewalk of Central Park West (formerly Eighth Avenue) between 74th Street to the south and 75th Street to the north. Nearby places include the Kenilworth apartment building immediately to the north, the Langham apartment building to the south, and the Ramble and Lake of Central Park to the east. In addition, the Dakota is two blocks south and the New-York Historical Society library and museum is two blocks north. Even though a street address was sufficient to identify these apartment buildings, this trend followed a British practice of giving names to buildings without addresses. By contrast, buildings on Fifth Avenue, along the eastern side of Central Park, are mainly known by their addresses. Major developments on the West Side were erected after the Ninth Avenue elevated line opened in 1879, providing direct access to Lower Manhattan. The first large apartment building in the area was the Dakota, which opened in 1884. The city installed power lines on Central Park West at the end of the 19th century, thus allowing the construction of multi-story apartment hotels with elevators. in the late 1890s Among the early apartment hotels was the original San Remo at 74th Street. The structure was built in 1891 by contractor Michael Brennan and designed by Edward L. Angell. The old San Remo was 11 stories tall with 90 apartments. and had peaked towers at its corners. ==Architecture==

The present San Remo was designed by Emery Roth. It is variously described as being in the neo-Renaissance or late Italian Renaissance style. Theodore Hofstatter decorated the building's lobby, while Lou R. Strauss Jr. designed the internal garden and exterior landscaping. Unlike other large buildings on Central Park West, which were typically attributed to a single developer, no one took credit for developing the San Remo specifically. The syndicate that developed the San Remo had also erected the Beresford, seven blocks north, shortly before the San Remo was completed. Form The San Remo's base is 17 stories high and surrounds a T-shaped interior courtyard to the west, giving the lower stories a U-shaped plan. There are setbacks at the 14th, 16th, and 17th stories. The setbacks are covered in slate and double as terraces for some units. Two towers rise an additional ten stories from the eastern portion of the base and are arranged symmetrically. To increase natural-light exposure to the upper-story apartments, the towers were designed in an "L" shape (wrapping around the courtyard), rather than as square masses. The massing of the San Remo, and those of similar buildings, was shaped primarily by the Multiple Dwelling Act of 1929. Apartment buildings could rise up to 19 stories; additional stories were allowed on large plots, but the floor areas of these stories were limited to 20 percent of the lot area. These upper stories were allowed on plots of at least and were required to be set back on all sides. The ornament on the upper stories is oversized, allowing it to be seen from the ground. Roth anticipated that the upper and lower transoms would provide suitable air circulation most of the time and that the casements would only need to be opened on especially hot days. On the far western end of the 74th and 75th Street frontages, there is a short standalone wall of rusticated blocks, which contains an archway topped by a rusticated keystone. There is a metal service gate below each archway, topped by a panel with the word "service". The westernmost end of the 74th Street frontage, next to the service gate, contains a metal fence atop a brick parapet, which encloses an unused courtyard. Above the 13th story, there are console brackets flanking each of the second-outermost windows, above which is a balcony with a balustrade. These bays are flanked by brick pilasters at the 14th and 15th stories, which support large curved broken pediments and a scrolled escutcheon above the 15th story. There are rosettes at the tops of each pilaster. There are smaller curved broken pediments above the 14th-story windows, with escutcheons at the center as well as floral decorations and garlands below. On Central Park West, bays 5–8 and 19–22 contain balconies at the fourth story. The balconies project from the facade and are supported by four console brackets. Behind each balcony, the two middle openings (bays 6–7 and 20–21) are surrounded by a limestone frame and separated from each other by a limestone wall panel. Above this frame is a triangular broken pediment with an escutcheon, garland, and tablet at its center. The north tower's northern and eastern elevations, as well as the south tower's southern and eastern elevations, contain ornamentation on the upper halves of each tower. On the 23rd story, the central windows on each of these four elevations contain ornate frames and are topped by curved broken pediments with keystones. Both towers contain a triple-level penthouse section above the 27th story. On the 29th story of both towers, corresponding to the second level of the penthouse, the northern, southern, and eastern elevations each contain a window within a limestone frame. This window is flanked by pilasters with rosettes on their capitals. On the 30th story, there are three protruding dormers on either tower, each with a single window and a rounded roof. The top and bottom edges of the dormer windows are rounded. There are console brackets flanking each dormer window, above which is a curved pediment. According to Steven Ruttenbaum, the temples were patterned after the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates. The floors of each lobby are composed of large square tiles of beige terrazzo, each of which contains a smaller inlaid gray-marble tile. The beige terrazzo tiles are surrounded by a multicolored band of mosaic tiles and a dark-green marble border. The ceiling originally had a polychrome color scheme, which was painted white in subsequent years. Hanging from the ceilings are metal-and-glass chandeliers shaped like inverted pyramids. There are ten elevators in the San Remo, In larger apartments, common rooms such as the living room were arranged around a central gallery. A short hallway led to bedrooms in the rear, providing privacy for residents. The duplex atop the south tower was also combined with the mechanical space above it in the 2010s, forming a triplex unit. which also had cork floors, tiled walls, and chromium-plated plumbing pipes. Underneath one window in each kitchen, there were compartments where fresh food could be stored; these compartments had vents facing outdoors. Each bathroom was tiled in a polychrome color scheme. ==History==

By the late 1920s, high-rise apartment buildings were being developed on Central Park West in anticipation of the completion of the New York City Subway's Eighth Avenue Line, which opened in 1932. Central Park West was concurrently widened from . Under the Multiple Dwelling Act of 1929, this allowed the construction of proportionally taller buildings on the avenue. In contrast to the San Remo, the Beresford had three towers, which were octagonal and relatively short. Development The New York Herald Tribune reported in mid-November 1928 that the original San Remo Hotel might be replaced with a 30-story apartment hotel. Two weeks later, a syndicate led by Henry M. Pollock bought the old San Remo from the Brennan estate, as well as several adjacent four-story houses to the west. The Pollock group planned to spend $7 million on a new building on the site. In April 1929, the Times Holding Corporation (which owned the San Remo Hotel) acquired a house at 4 West 75th Street. The firm planned to raze the house, which occupied part of the footprint of the new building's courtyard. The San Remo Hotel closed the same month, and the Ravitch Brothers filed plans for a new apartment hotel on the same site. That July, San Remo Towers Inc. transferred a $5 million mortgage loan on the new building to the Bank of United States. Within a month, leasing agents Pease & Elliman were renting out apartments at the new San Remo. The San Remo Hotel had been demolished by September 1929, and the site of the new building was being excavated. The plans were subsequently revised to a 26-story building, and the HRH Construction Corporation was hired that December as the general contractor. By then, L. J. Phillips & Co. had taken over as the building's leasing agent. The San Remo ultimately cost $5.5 million to construct. HRH was paid $125,000 for its role as general contractor at the San Remo. HRH also agreed to manage the San Remo (as well as the Beresford, which it also built) in exchange for two percent of the buildings' gross profits. In a New York Herald Tribune article on September 14, 1930, the HRH Construction Company indicated that the San Remo would open that October. The surrounding area had suffered after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and shantytowns were built directly across the street from the San Remo during the Great Depression. it shut down and its top officials were charged with recklessly using depositors' funds for speculation. Early the next month, contractors placed $423,000 worth of liens against San Remo Inc., and the Bank of United States moved to foreclose on the building's $5 million mortgage loan. Joseph Ravitch, head of HRH Construction, testified that the bank and its affiliates owed him $40,000 for the San Remo's construction. In spite of all these issues, a broker claimed in mid-1931 that large apartments at the San Remo were being steadily rented. Following further negotiations, the Banking Department liquidated all claims against the San Remo except for its own lien. At the time, 88 of the 128 apartments had been rented, The San Remo was placed for sale at a foreclosure auction that February, and the Bank of United States (still part of the Banking Department) acquired the building, bidding $1,021,000. In December 1932, the bank gave a new first-mortgage loan of $1.5 million to the San Remo Realty Company, a subsidiary of the bank that had taken over the building. 1930s to early 1970s in Central Park Throughout the Depression, the building went bankrupt several times and passed to numerous owners. The Banking Department announced in July 1935 that it would refinance the building with a $3.1 million loan from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and would use the funds to distribute dividends to the Bank of United States' depositors. Some creditors expressed opposition to the mortgage, but a representative of the Banking Department said the state government wished to sell the building and that a mortgage would facilitate such a sale. A state judge approved the mortgage that September. By 1938, there were 117 families in the building. As the state was trying to find a buyer for the building, its staff went on strike in March 1938 The journalist Peter Osnos wrote that the San Remo and other Central Park West apartment houses contained many Jewish residents during the 1930s and 1940s, since these buildings were not "restricted", unlike others on the East Side. In July 1940, a group of anonymous investors acquired the San Remo and Beresford, assuming a combined $7.4 million in mortgages on the two structures. The buildings themselves cost only $25,000, although they had cost a combined $10 million to build. The investment group was known as the Sanbere Corporation, a portmanteau of the two buildings' names. The San Remo's staff occasionally went on strike, such as in 1942 and in 1950. The San Remo also had twenty rooms for maids, many of which had been converted to tenant storage spaces or offices by the early 1960s. By the mid-1960s, a dozen apartment buildings on Central Park West had been converted into housing cooperatives. At the end of the decade, Harry B. Helmsley and his partner Lawrence Wien proposed converting the San Remo into a cooperative. Helmsley had an option to acquire the San Remo for $12 million and planned to sell it to tenants for $15 million. Most residents supported the idea of a co-op conversion, but 86 percent of residents objected that the prices for each apartment, at over $100,000 each, were far too high. A group of tenants organized to express opposition to the proposal. Helmsley and Wien withdrew their plan in June 1970 because not enough residents had purchased shares in the cooperative, despite having lowered the prices for each apartment. For the offering to go into effect, at least 35 percent of the residents had to buy shares. The building retained most of its original windows, except for two upper-story apartments, where the windows were replaced with single panes in the early 1970s. Afterward, the San Remo's co-op board banned window replacements in anticipation of a potential city-landmark designation. Paul Goldberger, president of the co-op board, said the board members had a "self-imposed tradition of treating the building as if it were a landmark". The San Remo's co-op board began restoring the facade in the early 1980s. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) designated the San Remo as a city landmark in March 1987. As a result, the LPC was obliged to review all proposed changes to the exterior. The exterior restoration ultimately lasted about one decade. By 1996, units in buildings on Central Park West were in high demand. while another unit received an unusually high number of inquiries from Upper East Side residents. The south tower had been restored by the end of 1999, and work on the north tower was scheduled to be conducted. Many residents had complained that director Steven Spielberg and entrepreneur Steve Jobs were conducting multi-year renovations of their respective apartments. In 2006, the San Remo's co-op board banned residents from using fireplaces. Some residents owned their apartments for long periods. When an apartment in the south tower was placed for sale in 2010, only one south-tower apartment had been sold in the preceding 16 years. In another case in 2011, the previous owner had resided in the apartment since the 1950s. The San Remo attracted many residents in the entertainment industry, especially as compared to other Central Park West buildings, where wealthy people lived in relative obscurity. By the 2010s, many of the celebrities who had lived in the San Remo had moved out, and a growing proportion of residents worked in the finance industry. Among the remaining celebrities in the San Remo in 2017 were musician Bono and actor Steve Martin. ==Residents==

According to a 1996 article in New York magazine, many brokers classified the San Remo as one of five top-tier apartment buildings on Central Park West, largely because of its high concentration of celebrities and its views of the Lake in Central Park. The others were 88 Central Park West, 101 Central Park West, the Dakota, and the Beresford. • Harold Arlen, composer • Diana Balmori, architect; lived with César Pelli • Elaine Barrymore, actress; lived with John Barrymore • John Barrymore, actor; lived with Elaine Barrymore • Marilyn Berger, columnist • Bono, musician • Marshall Brickman, writer • Jack Dempsey, restaurateur and retired boxer • Norman Dorsen, President of the ACLU • Fred Ebb, lyricist • Gary David Goldberg, screenwriter • Rita Hayworth, actress • Mick Jagger, musician • Diane Keaton, actress • Barry Manilow, singer-songwriter • Mitch Miller, musician • Demi Moore, actress; lived with Bruce Willis • Mary Tyler Moore, actress • Scott Rudin, producer • Thomas Secunda, co-founder of Bloomberg L.P. • Andrew Tobias, writer • Carl Van Vechten, photographer • Albert Warner, film executive • Bruce Willis, actor; lived with Demi Moore • Tiger Woods, golfer According to other sources, Levine lived at The Langham instead. END OF HIDDEN COMMENT--> The San Remo's co-op board has a reputation for "lenient admissions standards" compared to the conservative, old-money boards on the other side of the park. Nonetheless, in 1985, the co-op board voted against allowing performer Madonna to buy an apartment in the building. Tenants cited concerns that Madonna's presence would attract paparazzi, Madonna ultimately bought another apartment on Central Park West; The co-op board also voted against allowing fashion designer Calvin Klein to move into the San Remo. ultimately selling it to Bono in 2003. The San Remo's residents donated more to the John Kerry 2004 presidential campaign than residents of any other building in the United States, giving Kerry $192,000 by April 2004. During that election, The New York Observer described the San Remo as "the financial anchor for New York's left coast", because contributions from the San Remo overwhelmingly went to Democratic candidates. In September 2012, New York Times columnists wrote "for the past few elections, the San Remo has been an ATM for Democratic presidential campaigns", though contributions through July 2012 favored Romney over Obama, $331,625 to $101,367. ==Impact==

Reception Because the San Remo was the earliest twin-towered apartment building on Central Park West, its completion attracted large amounts of commentary from the press. George S. Chappell, writing under the pseudonym "T-Square", praised the design of the casement windows in The New Yorker. In the 1970s, Paul Goldberger described the San Remo as "the best of the four twin‐towered buildings that bring such splendid life to the Central Park West skyline", at a time when Roth's firm mostly designed buildings with glass facades. Carter B. Horsley of The New York Times described the spires in 1972 as having been included "almost as an excuse to imitate the architecture of the past". Horsley subsequently listed the San Remo as having one of the ten best water-tower enclosures in New York City. The writer Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis said in 2021: "The San Remo's Choragic towers served as outward markers of architectural elegance that could be used to lend distinction to broad, tall apartment buildings that might otherwise run the risk of being drably similar to one another." The building's architectural style and materials were also the subject of commentary. Goldberger favorably compared the San Remo's classical design with that of the Majestic, which was designed at exactly the same time in a modern Art Deco style. John Freeman Gill of the Times wrote in 2005 that the San Remo was one of several buildings on Central Park West whose bases exhibited "the comfortable old solidity of limestone". Eric Nash, in his 2005 book Manhattan Skyscrapers, wrote that "the towers play powerfully against the background element of the sky, etching the setback image in negative space", similarly to the Petronas Towers. During the 2000s, The New York Times said the presence of Central Park West's "architectural gems", such as the San Remo, contributed to increased housing prices on the eastern side of Central Park, along Fifth Avenue. The Wall Street Journal referred to the Beresford, the Dakota, and the San Remo as the "three grand dames of the West Side". Additionally, the artist Max Ferguson created an oil painting of the San Remo in 2004. Several books have used the painting on their covers, including a 2011 edition of the Jack Finney novel Time and Again. Landmark designations The building is a contributing property to the Central Park West Historic District, which was recognized by the U.S. National Register of Historic Places when its nomination was accepted on November 9, 1982. Manhattan Community Board 7 supported all five designations, but the San Remo's co-op board was concerned about whether a landmark designation would hinder the replacement of windows on the building. The LPC designated the San Remo as a city landmark on March 31, 1987. ==See also==