The Manhasset

301 West 108th Street | also 2801 Broadway, 2807 Broadway, 2803 Broadway | Upper West Side | built 1901

Open on the map8 entries

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

  1. 1899

    William Noble and his brother John begin two eight-story apartment houses, designed by Joseph Wolf

    Builders William and John W. Noble, trading as William Noble & Co., began the Manhasset in 1899 as two joined eight-story brick and stone apartment houses to a Beaux-Arts design by Joseph Wolf, who had trained with Richard Morris Hunt and supervised the Metropolitan Museum's North Wing. William Noble also owned 3 Park Row, the Hotel Empire at 63rd Street, the Hotel Grenoble on Seventh Avenue and the Fort William Henry Hotel at Lake George. The plans called for 25 apartments on 108th Street and 33 on 109th.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1902

    February 15

    Jacob Butler, who foreclosed on the Nobles, announces three more stories, a roof garden and a cab service

    William Noble filed for bankruptcy listing debts of $1,000,000 in 1899 while the Manhasset was going up. The buildings were finished in 1901, the year Jacob D. Butler foreclosed. On February 15, 1902, the Record & Guide announced that Butler would add three stories and a roof garden and would run an electric cab from the building to the elevated station for his tenants. William Noble, the builder, died of a stroke on May 21, 1902.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1902

    Janes & Leo add a ninth story, a two-story slate mansard and grand entrances to the Manhasset

    Butler hired Janes & Leo, who had recently completed designs for the Dorilton at 71st Street and the Alimar at 105th Street. Their design put a full ninth story on the original eight and capped the building with a steep two-story mansard of slate, now its most prominent feature. They also added entrance pavilions set into the light courts on both side streets and enlarged the court on 109th Street. The enlarged building held 33 apartments on 108th Street and 44 on 109th.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  4. 1910

    January

    Realty Assets Company buys the Manhasset for $3 million and cuts 14 shops into the Broadway frontage

    In January 1910 Jacob and Carrie Butler sold the Manhasset for $3 million to Realty Assets Company, a new firm that wanted shops along the Broadway level. Fourteen storefronts under a metal cornice required heavy underpinning of the building, and the foundations were taken four feet deeper. The Record & Guide called the alteration a complicated structural feat, and the upper floors stayed occupied while the work went on.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1940

    Mutual Life splits the Manhasset's big apartments into 136 smaller units

    After the Mutual Life Insurance Company foreclosed in 1932, it vacated the Manhasset in 1939 and hired the architect Archibald D. Anstey to divide the big apartments into smaller ones, 136 in all. A few of the seven-room apartments had already been split into three- and four-room units by 1931. The work, which probably included redesigned entrance lobbies, was finished in 1940, and the building reopened as a rental house. It stayed one until 1993, when it became a co-op.

    “…hired architect Archibald D. Anstey to divide all of the large apartments into smaller units, creating a total of 136 apartments…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  6. 1941

    September 14

    Three men rob a Western Union branch in the building of $60 with only their hands in their pockets

    At about 11:40 on the morning of September 14, 1941, three well-dressed men walked into the Western Union office on the Manhasset's ground floor, where three young employees were working. One mumbled something to 25-year-old Mary Mitchell, who politely asked him to repeat it. He then said plainly that it was a stick-up. The staff were sent to a back room, and the robbers took $60 from the register, though they were only pretending to be armed.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  7. 1963

    Eastern Trading Company supplies Chinese cooking teacher Florence Lin from a shop in the building

    By 1963 an unlikely tenant, the Eastern Trading Company, was selling hard-to-find authentic Chinese ingredients far from Chinatown. Florence Lin, who taught Chinese cooking at the China Institute, relied on it. Three years later the Times food columnist Craig Claiborne interviewed Grace Chu, who wrote a Chinese cookbook, and she too pointed cooks to the shop. By 1973 the East Wind Trading Company carried on the tradition, and a Times writer called it a commodious store of food, literature and Chinese goods.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  8. 1999

    March 11

    An eight-alarm fire that starts in a ground-floor restaurant sweeps the Manhasset, two weeks before renovation ends

    On March 11, 1999, two weeks before a $2.5 million renovation was due to finish, a fire that began in a ground-floor restaurant tore through the building. Louise Stern, 104, who had lived there since the 1940s, opened her door to firefighters and reportedly apologized that she could not offer them tea. One tenant escaped along a ledge in bare feet, and a baby was handed to a workman on the scaffolding. The north end was devastated, but 108th Street tenants returned within months.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

Nearby

All 64 buildings with stories in Upper West Side