New York’s Osborne Apartment House of 1885

A sumptuously illustrated book exploring every nook and cranny of this legendary New York apartment house—its distinguished architecture, its extravagant decoration, its tumultuous history, and its storied tenants.

The Osborne, at 205 West 57th Street, was one of New York’s first luxury apartment houses; along with peers like the Dakota, it helped to popularise the idea of apartment living among New York’s affluent classes. A monument to the Gilded Age, the Osborne features a rusticated brownstone facade with both Romanesque and Renaissance motifs, and a foyer and lobby elaborately adorned with marble, mosaics, murals, gilding, and stained glass. Although many of its grand apartments were subdivided in the twentieth century, the Osborne has always remained a habitat for the interesting and influential, from advertising pioneer J. Walter Thompson and children’s-literature tastemaker Mary Mapes Dodge to composers and musicians such as Leonard Bernstein and Van Cliburn.In this handsome volume, Davida Tenenbaum Deutsch traces every stage of the building’s history. Through a close study of the primary sources—including the 1883, 1884, and 1885 contracts for the Osborne’s construction, reproduced herein—she upends the apocryphal story of the bankruptcy of its builder, Thomas Osborne, and shows how he was manipulated by his financial backer, John Taylor. She also brings to life the social history of the Osborne, reproducing such treasures as Tom Wolfe’s poetic tribute to the building on its 125th anniversary. A study of the building’s stained glass by noted expert Julie L. Sloan reveals the importance of the Osborne in the development of this art form in America, and establishes unequivocally that its stained-glass transoms were the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany. Deutsch and Sloan’s insightful text is illuminated throughout with original colour photography and archival illustrations, ensuring that this will be an essential book for anyone interested in residential architecture or New York history.