The Apthorp

2211 Broadway | also 2219 Broadway, 2201 Broadway, 2219A Broadway | Upper West Side | built 1908

Open on the map12 entries

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

  1. 1891

    The 18th-century mansion that gave the Apthorp its name is torn down

    William Waldorf Astor named his new apartment house for Charles Ward Apthorp, whose 18th-century country estate had once stood on the same block. The city demolished the old Apthorp mansion in 1891, fifteen years before Astor's architects, Clinton & Russell, broke ground on the apartment building in 1906.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1905

    The 1792 country house that stood on the Apthorp site is demolished in 1905

    Before the Apthorp, the site held the country house of Baron John Cornelius van den Heuvel, a former governor of Demerara. The Landmarks Preservation Commission's 1969 report says the house was built in 1792 and demolished in 1905. The same report says William Waldorf Astor named his apartment house for the old Apthorp mansion that once stood at Ninety-first Street, not for this house.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1908

    William Waldorf Astor completes the Apthorp

    Astor announced the project in 1901 and named it after the Apthorp Farm that once occupied the site. Designed by Clinton & Russell and built in 1905–08, the 12-story Italian Renaissance Revival building fills the whole block between 78th and 79th Streets and Broadway and West End Avenue, with ornate arches opening onto a central courtyard. It began as a residential hotel with 104 lavish apartments.

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 1915

    The Appellate Division refuses William Waldorf Astor an injunction against a hotel called the Apthorp

    William Waldorf Astor owned the Apthorp, the apartment house that fills the block between Broadway and West End Avenue from 78th to 79th Street. He went to court to stop the West Eighty-second Street Realty Company from using the Apthorp name for a hotel at Broadway and Ninety-second Street. By April 1915 the Appellate Division had refused him an injunction.

    Source: Internet Archive

  5. 1928

    The Astor estate has Clinton & Russell turn the Broadway frontage into shops

    The Apthorp opened with a pharmacy and a bank on Broadway tucked behind the same limestone as the rest of the facade, because storefronts were considered unsuitable for a genteel apartment house. In 1928 the Astor estate brought back its house architects, Clinton & Russell, to fit bronze-framed shop windows, veined marble and retractable awnings. The 1929 telephone directory listed nine stores, among them Brentano's, the Nauheim Pharmacy and a Chock Full o' Nuts.

    Source: Internet Archive

  6. 1953

    Joseph Heller comes up with the first lines of Catch-22 in his Apthorp apartment

    Novelist Joseph Heller, who lived at the Apthorp, conceived the opening lines of Catch-22 one morning in 1953 in his apartment here. The building's writers also included Nora Ephron.

    Source: westsiderag.com

  7. 1969

    September

    The city designates the Apthorp a landmark

    The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Apthorp an individual landmark in September 1969, protecting Clinton & Russell's Italian Renaissance Revival design and its landscaped interior courtyard more than sixty years after the building opened.

    Source: Wikipedia

  8. 1997

    February

    A German visitor is found dead on the Apthorp roof in the middle of a tenants' war

    In mid-February 1997 a 41-year-old German visitor was found dead on the Apthorp's roof, where her body had apparently lain for days until a crew working on a taller building nearby noticed it. An autopsy found she died of exposure to cold, with no injuries and no intoxication, and the medical examiner said nobody seemed to have known her. Tenants, already feuding with the landlords over rent regulation, quickly cited the case in arguments about security.

    Source: Internet Archive

  9. 1997

    Nora Ephron calls life at the Apthorp a psychodrama as tenants and landlords head to court

    By April 1997 the Apthorp's tenants and landlords were summoning each other to court over rent-regulated apartments: long-time tenants paid less than $2,000 a month for apartments of up to eight rooms, while newcomers might pay closer to $10,000. Nora Ephron, a resident for almost two decades in an eight-room apartment outside rent regulation, described the building as an unbelievable, hilarious psychodrama about New York apartment life. The New York Times named her and Cyndi Lauper among the celebrity residents enjoying the courtyard fountains.

    Source: Internet Archive

  10. 2006

    November

    Maurice Mann contracts to buy the Apthorp for $426 million at the top of the market

    In November 2006 the landlord Maurice Mann contracted to buy the Apthorp for $426 million. By the next spring he had brought in investors including Lev Leviev's Africa Israel, the Feil Organization, Ralph Braha and Joe Nakash of Jordache Jeans. The owners borrowed a $385 million first mortgage from Anglo Irish Bank and a $135 million mezzanine loan from Apollo, which meant condo buyers would have to pay at least $2,500 a square foot.

    Source: Internet Archive

  11. 2009

    January

    The Apthorp's owners cannot agree which kind of rabbis should arbitrate their feud

    By January 2009 the Apthorp's condo conversion had soured: Apollo could begin foreclosure within days, and the owners were suing each other. Their operating agreement sent disputes to a rabbinical court, but Lev Leviev wanted an Orthodox panel and Maurice Mann a Conservative one. Lawyers were negotiating to make Mann hand management to the Feil Organization, while a longtime resident said as many as half the apartments looked empty.

    Source: Internet Archive

  12. 2010

    May

    A contentious condominium conversion is finally approved

    Developer Maurice Mann bought the Apthorp for roughly $425 million in 2006 and moved to convert it to condominiums, touching off years of disputes among partners including Africa Israel Investments and the Feil Organization. New York's attorney general approved the conversion plan in May 2010.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 64 buildings with stories in Upper West Side