The Orwell

257 Central Park West | also 2 West 86th Street, 255 Central Park West | Upper West Side | built 1906

Open on the map5 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. 1906

    October 1

    Central Park View opens as a luxury apartment house

    Architects Mulliken & Moeller designed the 12-story, Beaux-Arts Central Park View for the Gotham Realty & Construction Co. The roughly $1 million first section opened on October 1, 1906, with apartments of eight to eleven rooms arranged around a central courtyard; a 1907 addition doubled the building's size.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1912

    Broadway producer Henry B. Harris dies aboard the Titanic

    Henry B. Harris, a Broadway theatrical producer who lived at the Central Park View, was returning from Europe aboard the Titanic with his wife, Renee, in April 1912. When an officer called for women and children first, Harris stepped back onto the ship from the lifeboat where he had been placed beside her. Renee's boat was lowered and rowed away, and she survived.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1920

    Central Park View becomes the Hotel Peter Stuyvesant

    In 1919, the Peter Stuyvesant Operating Corporation leased the building and hired Schwartz & Gross to convert it into a residential hotel with about 350 rooms and 200 baths. The two-year conversion was completed in 1920, and the building became the Hotel Peter Stuyvesant.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1968

    New owners rename the building the Orwell House

    Simon Haberman bought the building in 1968 and began a major renovation that reworked the floor plans and turned most of the first floor into a medical center. Completed in 1970, the project created a new main entrance with the address 257 Central Park West. Now a cooperative, the building was renamed the Orwell House.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1990

    April 24

    The Orwell is designated part of a historic district

    On April 24, 1990, the city designated the Upper West Side/Central Park West Historic District, which includes the building at 257 Central Park West. The twelve-story apartment house was designed by Mulliken & Moeller in the Beaux-Arts style.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 64 buildings with stories in Upper West Side