340 East 57th Street
East Midtown | built 1931
Open on the map2 entries
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.
- 1931
Rosario Candela designs an apartment house trimmed with sea creatures
Architect Rosario Candela's 16-story prewar apartment building at 340 East 57th Street went up around 1931, its base decorated with terracotta seahorse reliefs from the Atlantic Terra Cotta company and a pair of pheasants worked into the lobby doors.
Source: Ephemeral New York
- 1940
Cast-iron spider webs appear on the building's ground-floor windows
About a decade after the building was finished, wrought-iron grilles shaped like spider webs, each holding a six-legged spider, appeared on its ground-floor windows and doors. Architectural historian Andrew Alpern says the grilles are a later addition that Candela had nothing to do with, and a tax photograph of the block puts them in place by around 1940.
Source: Ephemeral New York
Further reading
- The spooky spider web windows on 57th StreetEphemeral New York
- The spider in the web on a 57th street buildingEphemeral New York
- The seahorses of a 57th Street apartment houseEphemeral New York
Nearby
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