311 Amsterdam Avenue (New York City, New York)

USA / New Jersey / West New York / New York City, New York / Amsterdam Avenue, 311
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5-story Romanesque-revival/Queen Anne-style residential building completed in 1889 as The Wachusett. Designed by Edward L. Angell, it is clad in pale yellow brick and pink stone. The ground floor has black metal-and-glass storefronts along the avenue, and a slightly-recessed central entrance with glass double-doors below a grey canvas awning.

The upper floors have a center bay of paired windows; to either side are three single-windows, along with a north end bay with wider single-windows and a south end bay with double-windows. Each of the windows is lined by stone quoins, as well as the edges of the center and end bays. Between the 2nd & 3rd floors the 3-window bays have large bands of red dogstooth patterned brick below stone sill courses. There are also smaller square panels of dogstooth brick at each window bay between the 3rd & 4th floors. The top floor is set off by a dentiled band course and has round-arched windows, except for the end bays, which are square-headed. The piers around the end bays at the top floor have incised brick panels flanked by pairs of red stone pilasters with simple capitals. Prominent pink stone parapets crown the facade at both ends, decorated with small, incised, square panels and dentiled cornices. The brick piers flanking the center bay extend up just past the roof line, and between them is a gable with a large stone roundel in the middle that is filled by a dogstooth brickwork pattern.

The much narrower north facade on 75th Street is two bays wide, with single-windows in the west bay, and double-windows in the east bay (round-arched paired windows at the top floor). The pink stone ground floor has a storefront window in the west bay, and another entrance in the east bay, atop a few steps and recessed in a round-arch with wooden double-doors. There is a smaller, arched niche directly to the right of the entry. The upper floors also have quoins around the windows of the 3rd-4th floors, and the east bay of the 2nd floor. The west bay at the 2nd floor has vertical stone panels with incised rectangles and pairs of foliate brackets, flanked by stone pilasters with wispy carved ornament at the tops. A horizontal panel of pink stone with balusters is set between the 2nd & 3rd floors at this bay, and there are dogstooth spandrel panels between the bays of the 3rd & 4th floors. The dentiled cornice setting off the top floors wraps around from the west facade, and the top-floor west bay matches the north end bay on the west elevation. The colorful roof parapet also matches the ends of the west facade.

A 2001 conversion to condominiums resulted in just eight apartments, including two duplexes. The ground floor is occupied by Sweetgreen restaurant, and Piccolo Cafe.
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Coordinates:   40°46'49"N   73°58'48"W
This article was last modified 6 years ago