The Fish Building

1150 Grand Conc | also 1150 Grand Concourse | Concourse | built 1937

Open on the map3 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1936

    Grand Towers, Inc. builds a six-story Art Deco apartment house on the Grand Concourse

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    Grand Towers, Inc., headed by Samuel Cohn, put up this six-story Art Deco apartment house at the corner of McClellan Street in 1936-37 under new-building permit NB 334-1936. Its beige and dark brick front steps back to follow the street, with curved bays on the south end and corner windows on the north. The plan wraps around six light courts, three of them open to the street.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1936

    Horace Ginsbern and Marvin Fine design the building together

    This is the only one of Horace Ginsbern's four apartment houses in the Grand Concourse Historic District credited to both him and Marvin Fine, who drew the firm's facades after joining in 1928. Fine, a University of Pennsylvania graduate, drew on the work of Raymond Hood and William Van Alen. The pair also designed the 1931 Noonan Plaza Apartments, and with Ginsbern's son Frederick they designed the entire Chock Full O' Nuts restaurant chain.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1937

    A mosaic of tropical fish at the entrance gives the building its nickname

    The doorway is framed by a coffered cast-stone surround set with green glass reflectors and topped by a metal marquee. Beside it is a mural of tropical fish and water plants made of tinted concrete or cast stone and mosaic tile. Because of that mural, the Landmarks Preservation Commission notes, the apartment house is often called the Fish Building.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Nearby

All 29 buildings with stories in Concourse