170 East 73rd Street Building

History and architecture

The 170 East 73rd Street Building is a fine example of the type of private carriage house built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in this area of Manhattan. Constructed between 1890 and 1891 for Frank P. Perkins, the carriage house was designed by architect Frank Wennemer in an eclectic manner, combining neo-Grec, Queen Anne, and Renaissance style motifs.

The carriage house at No. 170 is a component of the rare surviving group of carriage houses, stables, and garages built on East 73rd Street between Lexington and Third Avenues to serve the wealthy families who lived on or near Fifth Avenue. Stables were a necessity during the period when private urban transportation was limited to horses and carriages. Only the very wealthy, however, could afford to build and maintain a private carriage house such as those found on this street. Others boarded their horses in large commercial stables such as that at 182 East 73rd Street.

The private carriage houses tended to be two or three-story structures often designed in the most stylish architectural modes of the period. On the interior were two major ground-floor spaces—a front room for the carriages and a rear room with stalls for the horses. At the upper stories were one or two apartments for the coachman, groom, or related employees. Some of the larger carriage houses had interior ramps on the ground floor that led to additional horse stalls on the second floor. Early in the 20th century, as automobiles began to replace carriages as the primary means of transportation for the wealthy, these stables were converted to garages and chauffeur's residences. Later in the 20th century, when private garages became too expensive to maintain, moat of the buildings were converted to stylish residences.