History and architecture
The Normandy Apartments is one of the most outstanding apartment buildings on Manhattan's Upper West Side. A large eighteen-story (with nineteenth-story penthouse) twin-towered structure overlooking the Hudson River, it dominates the vista of Riverside Drive. Designed by Emery Roth, and built in 1938-39, it was his last great work, as well as the last of the monumental pre-World War II apartment houses that are such an important element of the Upper West Side.
Emery Roth was one of New York's most highly respected designers of apartment houses and hotels. A Hungarian-born immigrant, he trained in the offices of the major American architects Burnham & Root and Richard Morris Hunt, and maintained an active practice from the turn of the century up through World War II. Like most architects specializing in residential work, he received few commissions during the Depression years of the 1930s, but with the upturn in construction in 1939 he joined three partners in a syndicate to build the Normandy.
The design of the Normandy Apartments reflects two diverse sources: the Italian Renaissance, in keeping with Roth's predilections for historical sources, and the Style Moderne that became popular in the 1930s. The Normandy incorporates Renaissance-inspired detail but combines them with forms and streamlining characteristic of the modernistic trends of the era.
Sources and further reading
This history comes from the Landmarks app’s historical catalog. Names and building uses may reflect the period described.