Graham Court facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Graham Court |
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| General information | |
| Architectural style | Italian Renaissance |
| Location | Harlem, Manhattan, New York City |
| Address | 1921-1935(or 1923-1937) 1925 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, New York, NY 10026 |
| Coordinates | 40°48′12.26″N 73°57′8.28″W / 40.8034056°N 73.9523000°W |
| Construction started | 1898 |
| Completed | 1901 |
| Height | Eight stories |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 8 |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Clinton and Russell |
| Main contractor | Developed by William Waldorf Astor |
Graham Court is a historic apartment building in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, along Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard between West 116th and 117th Streets. It was commissioned by William Waldorf Astor, designed by the architects Clinton and Russell, and constructed in 1899-1901 as part of the great Harlem real-estate boom.
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the building a landmark in 1984, characterizing the Graham Court as "one of the premier reminders of the urban development of Harlem at the turn of the century" and "one of the signal achievements in the history of the apartment house in New York City." The New York Times suggested that it might be Harlem's "equivalent to the Dakota".
Contents
Description
Graham Court has 800 rooms, currently divided into 93 apartment units. The property is eight stories and contains eight elevators. It runs the full length of the block between 116th and 117th Streets along Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, with a depth of 175 feet (53 m) on the side streets.
Exterior
It is a "boxy mass" designed in the mode of an Italian palazzo. The first two floors of the exterior facade are of rusticated limestone, with tan or gray brick above and a crowning story of foliate terra cotta capped by a copper cornice.
Main facade
The building is divided horizontally into three parts. The main facade, on Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Boulevard, is divided into five parts vertically as well, having slightly projecting central and end pavilions. The two-story rusticated base, consisting of limestone set in alternating wide and narrow horizontal bands which show only the horizontal joints, has simple rectangular fenestration and rises above an areaway with molded water table (architecture) and wrought-iron railing.
Capping the base is a projecting stringcourse which is decorated with a wave molding on the center and end pavilions. The monumental main entrance, leading through an arcade to the interior courtyard, is a Palladian motif consisting of a central molded arch, with a keystone ornamented with a cartouche, rising from an interrupted entablature which is supported by pinkish polished granite columns of composite order and pilasters with entasis. A pair of large central ornamental wrought-iron gates is flanked by smaller gates. The spandrels carry inset granite roundels. The entrance is flanked by round-arched first-story windows with molded surrounds and keystones and second-story rectangular windows with surrounds.
The inscription "Graham Court" appears above the arch, flanked by horizontal terra cotta panels with anthemion motif decoration. The arcade leading into the courtyard continues the treatment of columns and pilasters. A barrel vault, faced with Guastavino tiles, rises from the entablature and is decorated with broad ribs which extend from the columns.
The pavilions of the midsection of the building, extending from the third through the seventh stories, are framed by quoins; the rusticated stone bands of the central pavilion are punctuated by fenestration. All windows have simple rectangular terra cotta surrounds; those at the fourth, fifth, and seventh stories of the center most portion of the central pavilion have entablatures.
Each floor is separated by a continuous stone stringcourse. Above the entrance on the third story, between the windows, are terra cotta panels of foliate design. The fourth floor of the central pavilion has a stone balcony with cartouches (part of the coping is missing), and there are also iron balconies with a harp motif at the fourth-story end and a seventh-story central and end pavilions.
The seventh story is capped by an ornamental terra-cotta stringcourse (reeds bound by bay leaf garlands) with central and end cartouches. The top story has alternating round-arched windows and terra-cotta panels with decoration of classical derivation. The metal cornice, originally denticulated and modillioned, has been removed; remaining are the dentils and an egg-and-dart motif molding. A parapet wall, acting originally as subtle pediments for the central and end pavilions, is now fully exposed and covered with tar.
Side facades
The two side faces are identical mirror images (except for two round-arched entrances at either end on 116th Street and one larger one at the western side on 117th Street) and continue the same treatment as the main facade. The two side facades are arranged vertically as three pavilions. The unarticulated rear facade is of plain brick.
Courtyard
The courtyard, reached by an open arcaded entry from Seventh Avenue, is 79 feet by 108 feet square and was originally planted with grass and ornamental shrubbery. Its gate is now locked against intruders. The court itself creates a genteel but cozy feeling, grand but also comfortably secure from the outside - an unusual amenity in a city where there are few private unroofed spaces. It also gives cross ventilation to every apartment.
One of the great issues in apartment design at the turn of the century was the disposition of the courts - often reduced to mere air shafts. But because of its size, Graham Court could have a courtyard shared with no other building.
In the courtyard, a driveway and sidewalk encircle an oval garden area with walks in a cross pattern which originally had a central fountain (the stone base remains). Eight iron lampposts were located in the oval and one pair flanked each of the four interior entrances (only four posts, one globe, and the stone pedestals remain). The reverse of the front facade entry arch, on the courtyard, is similar to it but without the keystone and is flanked by a pair of blind oval bulls-eyes with top and bottom keystones.
The building is entered from the courtyard through four porticoes with columns of composite order, Guastavino tile ceilings, and balustrades (part of the one at the northeast corner is missing) which are set against the angled corner. Wood double doors with glass central panels and transoms are surrounded by egg-and-dart moldings and are flanked by small round-arched windows (most of which have been filled with polished granite). The courtyard walls maintain the building's overall horizontal division and materials, except that the base is one story high and is composed only of wide limestone bands and the brick is set in horizontal bands with plain and denticulated stringcourses.
The first story has simple rectangular fenestration; the windows of the second through seventh stories have flat-arched lintels with triple keystones (some have end voussoirs), except for the second-story corner windows above the entrance porticoes which have molded surrounds with cartouche keystones. The top story has round-arched windows with keystones and is capped by a copper cornice with egg-and-dart and patterned motif moldings.
Interior
The planning of the apartments was a bit crude. Andrew Alpern, in his book Apartments for the Affluent, says the building has an "awkward circulation pattern" and the bedrooms tend to be small and narrow. But each apartment combines features - oak kitchen cabinets, mosaic foyer floors, mahogany and oak flooring, paneled dining rooms and multiple fireplaces - that later, simpler buildings could only sample.
Interior renovation
In the early 1990s, the Graham Court Owners Corp. began a multi year renovation of the building's interior, which is not protected by the building's landmark code. A representative of Residential Management explained: "Basically, the rent stabilization law does not allow us to increase the rent unless we've put substantial money into renovating the apartments and that's what we're doing."
The New York Times cited tenants who said that the purpose of the renovation was "to raise rents and eventually turn the building into a co-op." "What they do is just go in and strip the apartment – original mirrors and oak cabinets in the kitchen are taken out and they don't even save these things. It's all just trashed and the more valuable things, I suppose, are sold."
Window replacement
In 1996, the landlord received permission from the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission to install new windows after an inspection found that 20 percent of them were beyond repair. The plan called for replacing the building's 400 original mahogany windows with aluminum ones. An employee of the landlord said the repairs were necessary, and said that the company planned to install the aluminum windows and seek rent increases.
In the summer of 2000, in a survey by the tenants association, only two of 55 respondents wanted their windows replaced; most wanted them repainted and repaired. Some tenants were quoted as saying that was unnecessary, and was contrived to drive up the rent, which can be increased if certain work is done to the building. The tenants enlisted the support of Community Board 10, hoping that the Department of Housing and Community Renewal would reject the owner's request for a rent increase. But officials at the housing department said it was unlikely that the agency will intervene before the new windows are in place.
